Pedal Love?

Anyone here into pedals?

There's a section on MG for pedals, but no section on the forum? Unless I am missing something? In which case I apologise!

Anyway, I am writing specifically to give a big song of praise to Chase bliss... wow! What a wonderful company and delightful people :D

If you don't know them already I highly recommend checking them out!!

Hi Kel,

Ha, ha, good that you mentioned the pedal section, I wasn't even aware of it, though kind of interested in it for adding some effects to all my "noise" ;-)

Indeed a bit weird that there is no Pedals section in this Forum.

Kind regards, Garfield.

Oh, yes...I have a nice "library" of stompboxes here. I've made sure to have DC supplies for them by each of the main routing patchbays in here so that I can "drop in" one if I need an extra something-or-another to a certain sound. Sort of like a VST...but hardware.

Love the Mood, btw...one of the best things Chase Bliss does. But there's a lot of CRAZY stuff going on down at the lower end of the price spectrum...there's quite a few Chinese pedals in the arsenal here now, and brands like Biyang, Aural Dream, etc are in there...along with several things from the Noisemasters of Beijing, CUVAVE.

Just get their FUZZ pedal. Seriously. Most anything that Cuvave's designed is somewhat off-kilter and weird, but the Cuvave FUZZ has "future classic" stamped all over it. I kid you not. I have two...and drum signals through these just sound like some sort of hideous industrial cataclysm. I even have a RAT R2DU (the dual rackmount version, original circuit), and the Cuvave can kick that device right to the curb! Before we get into some sort of moron-grade war with the PRC, you guys need to be scoping these Chinese pedals out...some of them are truly AMAZING.

Hi Lugia,

Thank you very much for the recommendations! I will check them out, checking a lot of pedals right now :-)

Kind regards, Garfield.

I love pedals well since I also play guitar that is a given! So far really like my Digitech Whammy DT pedal for pitch shifting madness and down tuning or up tuning as well as Boss overdrive and FX pedals and fuzz pedals. I put an ALM Busy Circuits S.B.G. module in one of my racks to use pedals with so fun.

I am exploring modular/pedal relations, there's a lot to discover and play with :)

Oh, yes...I have a nice "library" of stompboxes here. I've made sure to have DC supplies for them by each of the main routing patchbays in here so that I can "drop in" one if I need an extra something-or-another to a certain sound. Sort of like a VST...but hardware.

Love the Mood, btw...one of the best things Chase Bliss does. But there's a lot of CRAZY stuff going on down at the lower end of the price spectrum...there's quite a few Chinese pedals in the arsenal here now, and brands like Biyang, Aural Dream, etc are in there...along with several things from the Noisemasters of Beijing, CUVAVE.

Just get their FUZZ pedal. Seriously. Most anything that Cuvave's designed is somewhat off-kilter and weird, but the Cuvave FUZZ has "future classic" stamped all over it. I kid you not. I have two...and drum signals through these just sound like some sort of hideous industrial cataclysm. I even have a RAT R2DU (the dual rackmount version, original circuit), and the Cuvave can kick that device right to the curb! Before we get into some sort of moron-grade war with the PRC, you guys need to be scoping these Chinese pedals out...some of them are truly AMAZING.
-- Lugia

Well... it's not every day you get a post like this!!

Ordered... thank you for the treasure drop :D

Hey, no prob...info unshared is useless to everyone! BTW, another really odd Chinese pedal that the synth crowd might like is the Aural Dream Breath Delay. This simply looks like a basic ol' analog delay...but then, there's that "NO - GH" toggle switch and what IT does. And what that is is that it puts a sustain on the feedback path of sorts, and the result is that the delay tails stay at an even level and DON'T decay. Used properly (like, with a sequencer-driven line), the effect is just stunning! It's sort of like a Palmer Timepressor, but in the Breath Delay's case the tail compression is fixed. And it's loads cheaper than the Palmer! Aural Dream has a number of very odd stompboxes like that...I also have their Super Ring, sort of a tremolo...until you crank the oscillator in it into audio range and yeeeeeeeOW!

Very nice, I will definitely put that on the list of things to check out when things return to normal! Sounds fun - I can't think of anything that does this, at leas nothing I have around anyway, the closest I can think is the freeze option on the reverb on MI Elements!

I keep meaning to get into DIY for stomp boxes, there's an awful lot of these things around and a lot of them are quite simple circuits, which in turn means the are probably nice things to experiment with.

Hi Kel_,

Where did you found that Cuvave? I can't find it here in Germany, did you found a UK website where it can be ordered from? Till end of December I can order from the UK websites before taxes might complicate ordering stuff... :-)

Kind regards, Garfield.

Sure... just on eBay :)

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/193453605334

It's yet to turn up, but I have no reason to doubt it will - I can let you know if you like?

Haha... it's a load of ol' cobblers hey!

At least you will have the rest of EU to order from hehe, we here in the UK will have no trade deal with anyone, except the possibility of selling blue cheese to the Japanese, who invariably have a dairy intolerance...

Our illustrious Prime Minister thinks will save us along with a deal with Australia for Tim Tams - whoop!

I jest not:

Hi Kel_,

Ah eBay okay :-) I was hoping for a dealer that I might have known already. All right, will further look and if I can't find anything I might one day consider an eBay purchase. For the moment I have enough modules on my wish list, I can buy from my regular dealers, that (could) make me bankrupt so I am good for the moment ;-)

Yes true, at least we can buy elsewhere in Europe, though you got some lovely module manufacturers in the UK. The biggest concern I have will be the prices of Instruo in 2021, they are already expensive as they are now but after the Brexit I am afraid they become even more unaffordable :-( Instruo just being one example, you got quite a few interesting manufacturers.

I am going to do soon my last few orders with some UK websites "before it's too late" ;-)

Sigh... then perhaps in 10 or 20 years again ;-)

Kind regards, Garfield.

Also, you'll find these stompboxes on Amazon and Reverb. This might also be a suitable solution. Just keep in mind that if/when you see prices exceeding $50 for any Cuvave pedal, you'll get ripped off if you pull the trigger on those...since the normal prices for these are in the $25-40 range. Don't get snaked by the clipjoints!

Hi Lugia,

Okay found it, thank you :-) Kind regards, Garfield.

My Cuvave Fuzz turned up, a very nice solid little box, both physically and what it does to audio!

Smashing - thanks again :)

Literally smashing, even! The waveforms might complain, but oh...that ripped-up Cuvave SOUND...daaaaaaaaaamn...

Glad you dig it. Oh...if you have the right device for it, try DC-starving it some. That can get really nasty and really fun!

Hehe, someone gets my sense of humour... wonders will never cease :D

Yep, good idea, I have a nice bench power supply, can probably get quite specific!

Did you ever work out what the mysterious usb socket is for?

Yep...it's a secondary power inlet, so that if you don't have the appropriate 9V adapter, you can plug the nasty little thing into USB. Pretty effin' smart...and Cuvave does this on most of their boxes, which is one of the things that separates them from the other Chinese OEMers.

Oh nice, I was wondering if this was the case, that's really handy :)

Thank you!

Oh yeah, pedal talk! I'm admittedly a bit of a cork sniffer, but I'm very curious about those pedals Lugia mentioned. Quality for cheap is excellent! Chase Bliss is awesome, no doubt, though I've sold every CB pedal I've owned. Haven't tried the Mood, though.

I'm a huge Fairfield Circuitry fan. Speaking of fuzz/distortion on beats, I have a used Zvex Box of Metal inbound that I'm dying to run one of my Double Knots through. Could be cool on the Plumbutter too.

As an aside, Lugia, I picked up a Moffenzeef Kricket. Thanks for the recommendation, it's fitting in nicely!

Let's talk pedals then!
I'm also a big fan of the Digitech Whammy series already mentioned here, mainly for guitar, but also mangling any other sort of sound source I had so far. But I yet have to slap it on the small modular setup I have.

Is there any reccomendation for signal hottnes when going towards the pedal? I'm using the outs of my befaco output, but always checking with my interface that the signal doesn't peak etc. How would a pedal I/O module modify the signal (except from also accepting somethingback from the outside)

My humble recomendation for use with modular is the TC Electronic Arena, which is nice to create all sorts of Plate/Room/Church/Custom Reverberations and just giving a mono out some stereo width. I'm currently also using a custom Setup that takes all the attack and dry signal out to drone all the input.

best
alex

Is there any reccomendation for signal hottnes when going towards the pedal? I'm using the outs of my befaco output, but always checking with my interface that the signal doesn't peak etc. How would a pedal I/O module modify the signal (except from also accepting somethingback from the outside)
-- zuggamasta

Pedal send/return modules (if designed right) do TWO things. One of these, of course, is level matching; modular and "instrument" levels are VERY different, and as a rule, a direct output to something expecting the sort of level that would be incoming from a guitar pickup would result in a lot of distortion...and even if you could deal with this appropriately, there's the OTHER issue: impedance.

Impedance differences can majorly screw with your sound. They can skew frequency response, mess with level matching, and/or potentially introduce noise into a patch (some of that depends on the stompbox in question, though). So a properly-designed S/R module needs to address both the level AND impedance mismatching to be optimally effective. The only time you might want to circumvent this would be if you're shooting for a really nasty, overloaded sound...and if you do, I would STRONGLY recommend running a compressor as the first thing in the stompbox chain to get some control over the level swings. Still doesn't fix the return levels, though, unless you've got an actual input module.

Oh yeah, pedal talk! I'm admittedly a bit of a cork sniffer, but I'm very curious about those pedals Lugia mentioned. Quality for cheap is excellent! Chase Bliss is awesome, no doubt, though I've sold every CB pedal I've owned. Haven't tried the Mood, though.

I'm a huge Fairfield Circuitry fan. Speaking of fuzz/distortion on beats, I have a used Zvex Box of Metal inbound that I'm dying to run one of my Double Knots through. Could be cool on the Plumbutter too.

As an aside, Lugia, I picked up a Moffenzeef Kricket. Thanks for the recommendation, it's fitting in nicely!
-- baltergeist

Good call on the Moffenzeef...their stuff all seems to be designed using ultra-wacky EE methods designed to get everything BUT a "proper" electronic percussion sound...which is GOOD!

OK, Chinese pedals...aside of the GLORIOUS Cuvave rip-yer-face-off Fuzz (PUT IT IN A EURORACK MODULE, CUVAVE!!!), there's a lot of not-so-expensive goodness out there. F'rinstance, the Joyo Classic Flanger...sonically, there's a lot there that I remember from the old MXR plug-it-in-the-wall Flanger, but there's settings that the Joyo can get at that the MXR couldn't...it's especially good at long, rubbery sweeps with a lot of really extreme resonances. Or the really weird Aural Dream pedals which all seem to have settings that start where the source for that "clone" end.

Others...Daphon comes to mind, although their boxes are getting harder to find. Daphon was the OEM for Ibanez's 1980s-vintage bulbous-looking plastic-coated pedals...and they continued the production on these under their own label for a while. But the Daphons I dig are all housed in this unsmashable hammertone steel housing that resembles an industrial machine control pedal; the phaser is SO nice...not very extreme, but more in that "just right" pocket. And then, there's "it does something else"-types...like the Mosky Spring Reverb, which supposedly reworks the Malekko Spring Reverb...but DOESN'T, because when you turn the "dwell" up too high, the box will start to self-resonate and create some rather controllable feedback. On a synth.

Sure, some of these are, at worst, really mediocre. I don't have anything here (I don't THINK) by Kmise, for example. But even those you'd dismiss on appearance alone can still whip out surprises, such as some of the ugly, tiny Azor "tombstones" (their Delay in this line is just as solid as any other basic delay...but costs about $20-ish). The nice thing is that they're cheap enough that if you DO get something you just can't get happy about, it's not like you're out $200-400 (or worse!) for some boutique stomper. Or if you feel creative with something that turned out to be "meh.", you don't risk a lot of expense if you pop it open and start having at it with a soldering iron (provided you're used to SMDs...a lot of these use those).

For in/out for effects use, I like the ALM S.B.G. I have two in my now minimal eurorack set-up. Gain control for send and return, plus some CV control. I'm finally exploring plug-ins (hello Hainbach's Wires), but I still prefer pedals. I'm a gear fetishist, so I'm drawn to shiny boxes and blinking lights.

I went ahead and picked up the Cuvave fuzz, can't go wrong for the money. How does one pronounce it, though? Covfefe? I think that's how I will. Thanks again for the heads up on these, Lugia! I'm digging the Box of Metal, the built-in gate is a really nice feature.

The ALM S.B.G looks great! Added it to my whishlist! Thank you.

I went ahead and picked up the Cuvave fuzz, can't go wrong for the money. How does one pronounce it, though? Covfefe?
-- baltergeist

That's an interesting thing, actually. Apparently, the company pronounces it "kyu-VAEV", but the guitar crowd actually goes for "kyu-VAH-veh" after 60 Cycle Hum on YT called it that...then Cuvave actually made him some custom-marked pedals that has the Cuvave logo, but with an umlaut over the U and an accent over the E, so I suppose it's now the latter one.

EDIT: actually, I rather LIKE the "kyu-VAH-veh" pronunciation. It sounds like you should have Ricardo Montelban saying it in a sentence that also includes "rich Corinthian leather". ;-)

EDITED Dec 3rd 2020, 07:07

Perhaps I'll go with kyufefe....

Here's a goof with the Cuvave Fuzz on one of two Lorre-Mill Double Knots. They're accompanied by a Plumbutter v2 and a Morphagene playing some noise from a Soma Ether. Copious use of the Wires and Vinyl Strip plugins.

I shouldn't have watched the 60 Cycle Hum vid.

I've been looking for a thread JUST LIKE THIS ONE. I'm new to modular - currently dreaming about my first system - but a long time and unrepentant pedal collector and knob twiddler. My pedal collection is on the noise/circuit bending/live sampling/experimental side of things, and the more knobs the better, e.g., Lightfoot Labs Goatkeeper (pre-Malekko big box), WMD Geiger Counter, Meris Enzo, EarthQuaker Data Corrupter, CoPilot Android 2, Subdecay Noise Box, OHNOHO Utter Stutter, Red Panda Particle, and some of the EHX stuff that goes out there like the Flanger Hoax, Tube Zipper, and Ring Thing, and sometimes synced with a pair of 8-Step Programs and live looped with a Boss RC-300.

Currently looking at options for bridging modular and pedals - Intellijel, ALM006 S.B.G., Retro Mechanical Labs GPI., etc. I've got the Patchulator 8000 on my board, but I just found out Boredbrain makes the 3 channel INTRFX which would put the modular interface on the pedal board rather than in the rack, so I'm also considering that.

All that would (hopefully) work in concert with something like this, though as I said I'm new to this side of the sound tweaking world.

EDITED Feb 1st 2021, 15:29

Pittsburgh Modular also made a stomp-centric cab quite some time back, incorporating footswitches that could be added into your patch, etc. However, it's been quite some time since they were available new...but some poking around in the usual used device places could turn one up with a bit of diligence.

As for why it was discontinued...well, lots of itsy-bitsy knobs and jacks and wires + FEET. The problems for the avg. guitarist would be huge, especially onstage. Very much something for studio use only!

Haven't checked in for a little while, feeling a bit erm under the weather shall we say, but great to see lots of pedal love here!

I use my mixer auxes a lot, super convenient just to be be able to send anything to each pedal at the turn of a knob.

Other pedal IO modules include

Harvestman - Black Locust and Stilton Adaptor - big and hardcore - never used them though!!

Some of the bigger mixers, like the WMD Performance Mixer have send and return loops - might be worth checking if they are suitable?

ADDAC200PI also never used, looks good though.

I have just listed a pedal for sale, the first time I have done this, expecting it to appear in the regular Marketplace...

Turns out there is a whole separate Pedal Marketplace... who knew?

p.s. It's the Empress Zoia for a really good price :)