8302

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A message to this blog's Tumblr followers

This blog has been moved to a self-hosted location. So this is the last Tumblr-post ever.

The new blog's address is straight www.8302.net.

(You can also find me also in Twitter @8302net and Facebook)

You see there.

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There's no Future in Fuzz

Portland-based Infanem (Instruments for a New Electric Music) announced a new series of pedals yesterday on Facebook. "There's no Future in Fuzz is a series of limited-release fuzzboxes that indulge nostalgia for obsolete parts and circuits while channeling it toward something new."

Behind this, in my opinion brilliantly conceptualized, stands a question I've been making myself for the past few weeks. The question could go like this: For how long is the boutique industry going to be reinventing the same old fuzz circuits?  

The live debate over obsolete parts (NOS, new old stock parts — essential for some, useless for others) and the recent, heavy incursion into the digital world of some well-known builders seem to lead to that question. Is it still fun? Does anyone really want another Fuzz Face version (call it cloning, revamping, updating)?

This new Infanem proposition somehow answers to this questions at the same time accentuating its somehow problematic existence. 

I ordered mine already.

[Some more thoughts regarding digital effects will fill another post.]

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Some words on boosters

Boosters should just raise the volume of your signal. Simply put: make it louder. As long as there's headroom available, the volume boost will be just that, more loudness. No headroom and you enter distortion.

It can be a memorable "aha" moment (it was for me) when you discover the relation there is between the cleanness of your amp and the output volume of your distortion pedals. Try a fuzz pedal into an already overdriven amp and half the range of the level knob becomes useless, you'll hardly get it any louder; set the amp clean and try again… So don't discard incorporating your amp's knob into your tweaking when experimenting and searching for sounds.

Besides the so-called clean boosts there's also treble boosters, and boosters with EQ options (the Xotic RC booster is a good example) which can help you achieve different kinds of overdrive and grit, by pushing your amp (or pedals) only in certain frequencies.

The way a booster pedal should be

Of the single-knob boosters available on the market there's only one I know that can not only boost your signal but also attenuate it, doubling the pedal's functionality: the Gravinton boost from Field Effects by Resonant Electronic. 

Although only a bit more than half of the knob is available actually for boosting, the range is smooth and feels very natural. The Graviton also offers you a better version of your sound at unity gain (I believe that's due to high input impedance, which rescues a part of your guitar's signal that usually gets lost — I learned that by building Jack Orman's Mosfet Booster.)

Transparent, with the ability to both boost and cut… Here's a short clip for illustration:

The new Blowing Up has mercy

The booster Brooklyn-based Ohnoho introduced in 2010 recently got updated. A meant to be weapon of destruction is now an extremely versatile tool. The single gain knob has been replaced by a high/low switch and a master volume knob. It will make stuff blowing up the same as deliver sweet grit.

The new Blowing Up sounds like this:

Further reading: Headroom (ovnilab.com)

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I love it when I sit in front of a pedal for the first time and it takes me a while to get to fully understand the controls and its capabilities. (Simplicity is priceless, but where's the fun in just setting the 'drive' and 'level' knobs?) The Polytope is one of those pedals.

The basic idea behind it is that, in the world of synthesizers, of adding a second oscillator with the same pitch but slightly detuned to thicken the sound. Iron Ether calls it a quad-voice pitch detuner. It is not a pitch shifter nor a harmonizer: you can't musically control the pitch of the notes, but how much they're out of tune. Massive, extremely shimmery, elegant sounds can be achieved with it. The Polytope is for those of you not afraid of sounding digital.

[The last 30 seconds of noise (from 3:53 to 4:22) are dedicated to filmmaker Albert Serra]

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The Frazz Dazzler is back!

Ryan from Dr. Scientist announced the return of the Frazz Dazzler fuzzbox on the ILF forum a couple of weeks ago. This new version features silent true-bypass switching, an expression pedal input for controlling the mix (I remember asking for that!), takes up to 18 volts and comes in a grey sparkle powder coat finish (which is likely to change for the next batch).

The Frazz Dazzler is the first pedal Dr. Scientist put out back in 2006. And it also was my first proper fuzz pedal, I bought it in 2008. I sold it on ILF last year (you may have seen it or had it, I'm that prior owner that ripped the finish off!) but got another one with the gate switch (absent in previous versions), together with the now discontinued Cleanness pedal.

So the actual Dr. Scientist line of pedals for 2012 looks like this:

Regarding the rest of names you may have heard of: the old good Cleanness has been "completely absorbed by The Elements" and the Sunny Day Delay is "on a long-term hiatus". The Cosmichorus but, it's coming back soon

in a big way! It's getting the same kind of overhaul that the Tremolessence did last spring, stereo in and out, soft touch switching, expression/CV control, plus a couple other tricks. 

Be ready.

Via Dr. Scientist Sounds

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The Expressionator, brand new

The Expressionator is a device that lets you control three pedals simultaneously from a single expression pedal. So instead of needing 3 expression pedals (for controlling, let's say, the cut-off freq. of your filter, the rate of your tremolo and the feedback of your analog delay), one expression pedal and the Expressionator do the job.

Needless to say, you not only save space but gain in control and creativity. Even if carrying three expression pedals isn't a problem, most musicians/noise-makers only have two legs and two feet.

A thread from September 2011 on the Talk Bass forum explained:

Jean [Baudin, "one of the world's most recognized bass players"] has been in contact with a designer who has quite a bit of experience with digital pedals to create a multi expression controller.

The device is now in production. There's a waitlist, no pre-payment needed. All information can be found here: jeanbaudin.com/expressionator/

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Overdrive, Fuzz, Distortion: 1 Minute Guide

Quite often I get asked about the difference between overdrive, fuzz and distortion. I've found a few articles on the web but they seem to be too technical. So this is what they sound like:

What they now call distortion you'll hear mostly in metal and punk. Fuzz is more rock and roll. And a good overdrive tone will fit almost anything. There can be low-gain, mid-gain and high-gain overdrive, but that's subjective. The line between (high-gain) overdrive, distortion, and (low-gain) fuzz can be very blurry. So the 3 labels can be useful, but there's also room for useless confusion.

One thing to notice is that you can get overdrive and distortion out of an amp alone (that is without effects pedals). The sound is the "natural" result of the gain stages of a tube amp being pushed. On the other hand, fuzz can only be obtained from a pedal (or a broken amp). In fact, the "sound" was discovered in "a faulty connection in a mixing board" on a bass track in 1961. There's different kinds of fuzzes as well, depending mostly on the type of transistors used: germanium (Fuzz Face) or silicon (Big Muff). (Not all fuzz circuits aren't based on transistors though.)

For further reading I highly recommend this article from William Weir (50 Years of Fuzz...), and if you're into electronics (you may know this already), A Musical Distortion Primer by R.G. Keen.

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Happy New Year / El Músico Loco

2011 is almost over. It's been 9 months of 8302 and I feel like saying thank you. Specially to Ryan from Dr. Scientist for the help. Also thank you Brian at smallsound/bigsound, Kyle at Blackout, Ben and Louise at Dwarfcraft, Jamie at Earthquaker, Guillaume at Fairfield Circuitry, Taylor at Iron Ether and Lawrence at Ohnoho. Thank you Pablo F. (our first customer). Thank you all for your loving comments.

/

Today I added two pedals from a new builder to the shop, the first Europe-based (in Dènia here in Spain), although american: El Músico Loco. One of the finest hand-made work I've seen in my life. I got the Blisterlily #9, an op-amp based line-driver low-gain overdrive with lots of tone capabilities. The other is the 74 Distortion (#8), a vintage transistor-based overdrive that sounds extremely fuzzy (I believe it's based on the Ibanez OD-850). Check them out at our shop. They're also available at Joe's in the UK and at Prymaxe in the US.

Happy new year. See you around.

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Total vanity demo of the old mighty TGD from Dwarfcraft Devices.

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New weird device from Earthquaker

Jamie from Earthquaker Devices has just posted a photo of a new device on his Facebook page, he commented:

It's not really comparable to anything that I know of. If I were to make attempt, I would place it somewhere between the first Eventide Harmonizer and the Digitech Space Station.

So there you go. It's called the Rainbow Machine and it's going to be around €225. Hopefully we'll have it in Europe for Xmas.

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Guitar pedals for bass

Most effects pedals are designed and advertised for guitar. A lot less are designed especifically for bass, and sometimes there's of course the "bass" versions of guitar pedals (official or modded). And bass players, correct me if I'm wrong, find themselves too often asking Does this work well on bass?. Guitar players, a lot less though, ask the question the other way around. And let's not forget about keyboard/synth players.

In my opinion, only one matter should be relevant: the possible loss of low-end. Some pedals let the whole frequency range through, but some others do cut bass frequencies in order to reduce muddiness, increase attack or clarity, or for no reason at all. For instance, the famous Tube Screamer (TS-9) overdrive has a high-pass filter with a corner frequency of 720 Hz, attenuating the signal below that. The fundamental frequencies of a 4-string bass should be between 41 and 343 Hz! (The "body" of an electric guitar is between 240 and 500 Hz).

With that in mind, the answer to the "does it work well" question can only be one: Give it a try, or have someone try it out for you. I thought the Iron Ether Oxide bass fuzz, extremely fat and versatil on bass, would work well with my analog synth, but to my ears it doesn't. On the other hand, it delivers really special and interesting sounds with guitar. Brian from smallsound/bigsound, Cymbals Eat Guitar's keyboard player, states his most used pedal on keyboards is a Rangemaster (treble booster for guitar) clone he built himself. Simply put, experiment.

If you've had any successful pedal misusing experiences, please share your thoughts below.

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2 old Youtube clips

These are the first 2 clips I recorded back in April. Before this blog existed. I thought they should be here as well.

If you're a Youtube user, you can subscribe to the shop's channel so you make sure you don't miss any clips in the future.

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Update on the Crystal Dagger

The fine people at Blackout Effectors estimate that the new pedal will be shipping before the end of November (obviously not October anymore), the octave-up gem is currently in production. Expect demos and diverse media real soon. And for the impatient, it's going to be around €245 (in Europe).

A raw-finish prototype in the picture (courtesy of Blackout on FB).

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Filters are easily associated with wah and auto-wah sounds (that you can also easily dislike). But a fat sounding analog filter with a versatile envelope follower and a clean-blend knob has a lot more to offer. 

In this video I try to demo 3 different things:

Use a tremolo before the filter to play with the envelope.

With the envelope follower turned off, mix highly resonant sounds with your dry signal (either to add weird sparkles or low fat frequencies).

Use your finger picking strength to create a sort of drone by slowly opening and closing the filter.

The filter used is the custom-finished Iron Ether Xerograph Deluxe (designed for bass, but you see how amazing it sounds on guitar) available at our shop. Trem is the Dr. Scientist Tremolessence and overdrive-distortion is my mighty Fuck Overdrive by smallsound/bigsound.

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A Dual Expression Pedal plus Meta-controllers

I just found out about a new product from Pigtronix: the Dual Expression Pedal. An expression pedal with two outputs for controlling two separate parameters (of any of your pedals with expression pedal input) simultaneously. Which I think is just awesome.

In the video below David Koltai controls the blend of a delay's wet signal and the rate of a tremolo at the same time. Delay comes in as the modulation slows down.

This made me think of an interview I read some time ago (with young artist/developer Tarik Barri published on cycling74.com) and a concept I've wanted to share ever since: meta-controllers. Meta-controllers basically mean to abandon the idea "that each slider, knob or button should correspond to a single parameter in the software", or in any circuit or system. In other words, a meta-controller is a single control unit (knob, slider) that you set to modify multiple parameters. Tarik explains:

They [meta-controllers] don’t just control a bunch of single parameters; they control whole ranges of parameters in different ways. Sometimes even one single parameter is influenced by three sliders simultaneously.

The concept behind this is, that as a live performer, I don’t care about the individual parameters any more; I care about aggression, dreaminess, melancholy, the subjective states that I can evoke in myself and the audience. So I want these states to be represented as directly as possible in my use of controllers, enabling me to react intuitively and quickly to the current situation. For instance, my ‘aggression’ slider influences the speed at which all objects move: the shakiness of the camera, the saturation of the colors and the roughness of objects’ surfaces.

Read the whole interview here. And feel free to post your comments below. You may have been using meta-controllers without knowing!

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Visit Original Link

This is what the new Speaker Cranker Overdrive from Earthquaker Devices sounds like. First clean, then More knob set to 25, 50, 75 and 100%. Currently sold out. Let us know if you want one!

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3 sounds you can get from a flanger pedal other than the typical airplane whoosh. (Flanger seems to be one of those either love it or hate it sounds according to the last post). I'm using my BYOC Analog Stereo Flanger.

I love flanger but I do see it more as a studio/production tool than placed on a pedalboard.