Effects Bay

A little while back Pigtronix contacted me asking if we’d be interested in demo’ing a pedal of theirs.  I’ve definitely highlighted their products in the past. They make absolutely great pedals, so I was very interested in what they wanted to send over. About a week later I received the Pigtronix Tremvelope.

The Pigtronix Tremvelope is a tremolo on steroids… and really thought out. First off it’s a optical stereo panning tremolo. For this demo we did not demo the stereo or panning capabilities but focused on the tremolo and the envelope aspect of it. The envelope portion of the pedal is what really caught my ear and what separates this tremolo from others. By adjusting the sensitivity, the tremolo will affect your signal as your signal fades, so it reacts to how you play. The speed and depth are affected by how hard you play. Pretty cool!

Pigtronix set the Tremvelope with all the controls to manage all points of the effect. You can turn the envelope feature on/off, as well as controlling the speed, depth, sensitivity and waveform.

Here is the official description from Pigtronix’s web site on the Tremvelope:

Tremvelope puts a new spin on a classic effect. This tremolo pedal allows the dynamics of your playing to change the speed and depth of the effect. The result brings traditional sound to a whole new level that is intuitive, engaging and totally addictive.

Tremvelope is a versatile, high fidelity optical tremolo with stereo panning outputs. The Tremvelope’s fat sounding audio path is modulated by SPEED, DEPTH and WAVEFORM controls. When the envelope is switched on, the tremolo effect is influenced by what you play. The SPEED and DEPTH knobs can each be assigned to increase or decrease in response to the strength of the signal coming from your instrument. These changes start from where the knobs are set and independently move in the assigned direction.

The ACCELERATION switch adjusts the response time of the tremolo to changes in your playing and the SENSITIVITY knob provides control over the amount of increase it takes to create changes in the tremolo settings. Expression pedal inputs for speed, and vol / pan add external foot control to this animated beast of a pedal. There is also a TRIGGER input for running the Tremvelope late in an effects chain but still allowing your clean signal (or even a different instrument entirely) to control the envelope directly.

Go forth and modulate!

For this demo, we have Jimmy Rolle and he’s using his American Fender Standard Stratocaster into his Germino Lead 55 head through a Marshall 4×12 cabinet. There is nothing between the guitar and amp except for the Pigtronix Tremvelope. Audio is captured using a Fathead Ribbon Microphone and a Shure SM57 Mic, both close mic’d.

You can listen to the high quality MP3 clip via SoundCloud

As you can hear, this is a great sounding tremolo that takes the tremolo effect into a new direction. I can see some guitarists going nuts for this thing. If the Pigtronix Tremvelope is something you are interested it is available for $249.00 at Amazon.

Please check out Pigtronix’s site for their other great products, as well as liking them on Facebook to see what they’re up to.

Popularity: 4%

Incoming search terms for EffectsBay.com:

• marshall vibratrem schematic
• pigtronix tremvelope review
• Marshall VT-1 schematic
• tremolo pedal
• simple tremolo vero
• schematics music effects phaser - tremolo
• pigtronix tremvelope own dislike
• schematic marshall vt-1
• schematics for transistor tremolos
• schematics music effects

Today’s pedal line is from Giacomo Cicirello. If you have a pedal line (doesn’t have to be in a board) for your rig, please email me a photo, bio, description of pedals and routing to pedallineateffectsbaydotcom. Every Friday I’ll showcase a pedal line submission. Make sure you include any links to your band or music page.

Hi all,  I am following all your posts and let me tell you this website is very usefull. Thanks all!

BIO/ROUTING:
I have being playing since the 90s in South America, I founded Gaia  (Paraguay-alternative rock) with a few friends, which is now one of the most important bands down there in the Paraguayan rock scene.  I was on hold for a while and 3 years ago I started a new project with my 2 brothers, and 2 friends, “La Porca”, in Lima-Peru.

PEDALS:
535Q Crybaby
Pigtronix Philosopher King
EHX POG2
Fulltone GT-500
Line 6 M13
EHX Deluxe Memory Man
Roland EV-1 (missing in the picture)
Line 6 Expression Pedal
Mesa Boogie Electra Dyne AMP footswitch (missing on the picture)

My chain starts simple, but gets a little more fun while getting into the Line 6 M13, and using the first 2 FX slots for PRE and the last 2 for POST with the FX loop setup in 4 cable method (4CM) for getting benefit of the sound on my Mesa Electra Dyne:
Guitar > WAH > Philosopher King > EHXPOG2 > Fulltone GT-500 > LINE6M13 (FX 1&2 on PRE for filters use) > AMP INPUT > Line6 M13 FX Return  (FX 3&4 on POST for Mods and Delays use) > EHX Memory Man > AMP RETURN > AUDITORY SYSTEMS

Great interaction between the POG2/PHILOSOPHER KING (Which I think enhance the tone, everything sound better with it) and the DMM.  The Philosopher and the DMM, gave a HIGH QUALITY sounding signal, very clean, warm and organic, while the POG2 adds nice ambient texture. I love passing the signal through  the line 6 M13 Octoverb and particleverb, which I love (you can mimic violins and ambient sounds like the sounding of “Other Lives” in “For 12″ song).

GT-500 is a great all drive in one BOX, Great OD, KIller Distortion and also I can boost, aside from the amp tone and 3 channels Clean, Crunch and high gain setups.

M13 combined with the other analogue pedals rocks, synth strings, with delays and Pitch Gliding expressions with an octave up, can get Depeche Mode sounding . I can also combine this with POG2 and Philosopher one shot function creating more synth possibilities.

I also use the FADE on the Philosopher King with an expression pedal, it gives you a nice foot controlled tremolo.
Also you can mix the Swell with the POG Attack to create weird swells.

As you can see, all of these pedals are big boxes, but there is a lot of possibilities with them, it is very cool to have just one pedal for Drive/ Distortion and boost, other for compressor-sustaine-tremolo- filter synth, and other for octave-organ synth ( also you use less cables, less hum!). The M13 gives me whatever else is missing!

It’s a heavy pedalboard.
I am thinking on getting a tunner pedal as the M13 tunner is just OK.
Any recommendation on how to improve my board or any extra pedal that can help or setup, would be appreciated!

Thanks again for this pedal line friday idea!
Cheers

Giacomo Cicirello,
Band: La Porca (electro rock-pop)
Lima-Peru
Haven’t recorded professionally, yet!!!

Popularity: 6%

Incoming search terms for EffectsBay.com:

• mike einziger pedal settings
• omar rodriguez gear
• dead meadow telecaster
• m9 line 6
• mike einziger drive video
• chris shiflett strat
• Pigtronix recommended expression pedals
• PIGTRONIX dual EXPRESSION PEDAL review
• volume pedal taper switch
• rack pedales line 6

Today’s pedal line is from Harvey Valdes. If you have a pedal line (doesn’t have to be in a board) for your rig, please email me a photo, bio, description of pedals and routing to pedallineeffectsbaycom. Every Friday I’ll showcase a pedal line submission. Make sure you include any links to your band or music page.

Hey, Here’s my submission for Pedal Line Friday.

I’m running a pretty simple setup these days that includes: Pedaltrain 2 pedalboard with Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 plus power supply, Ernie Ball VP Jr. Volume Pedal > Korg Pitchblack Tuner > Paul Trombetta Design FeederBoneMachine-Fuzz/Feedback/Distortion > Pigtronix Echolution-Delay > Malekko Spring Chicken-Reverb > Electro Harmonix 2880-Looper with footcontrol > out to amp. There are also 2 Boss EV-5 expression pedals to control the delay time in the Echolution and the other to control reverb level in the Spring Chicken.

My Best-
Harvey

www.harveyvaldes.net
www.youtube.com/harveyvaldes
http://soundcloud.com/harvey-valdes

Bio:
Harvey Valdes -

Guitarist, Harvey Valdes’s eclectic musical journey spans the East and the West, the electric and the acoustic, the ensemble and the singular power of the solo voice. Traversing expansive stylistic ground from jazz, world, and electronica, to funk, punk, and avant garde, Harvey also plays the oud and Turkish cumbus.

Endlessly curious about the guitar’s sonic range, Valdes plays with pushing its potential. By highlighting texture, stretching time, and shaping tone he re-imagines the guitar as a horn, an orchestra, a mechanistic roar. Overtones from East and West echo within his improvised sounds creating multi- layered sonic canvases.  His composition, “Listen, was recently chosen as Editor’s Pick by Guitar Player Magazine. And, his score for Utopians, which premiered at the 2011 Berlin Film Festival, had “one of the most long lasting guitar improvisations since (Neil Young’s score for) Dead Man.” El Tunnel, his album for solo guitar is forthcoming in Spring, 2011.

Also an Associate Artist with renowned downtown experimental theater company, The Wooster Group, Valdes worked over a three-year period playing electric guitar for Francesco Cavalli’s 1641 baroque opera, La Didone. This production toured Europe and had extended runs at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn and Redcat Theater in Los Angeles.

Valdes teaches Eastern and Western music theory, guitar, and oud both privately and at various music schools in the tri-sate area. Harvey gives equal respect to the musical interests of students at all levels and emphasizes individual creativity. He studied at The New School earning a BFA in Jazz Performance.

Collaborations include:

Rhys Chatham’s A Crimson Grail, Daniel Carter, Dub Gabriel, Anistar, K.Page & Sleepwalker’s Parade, Vlada Tomova, The Cool and Deadly, DJ KIva, Electric Red, Mental Notes

Popularity: 6%

Incoming search terms for EffectsBay.com:

• ernie ball vp jr
• malekko chicklet
• roland ev 5
• chris shiflett telecaster deluxe
• expression pedal schematic
• reggae guitar pedal
• Malekko Analog Tremolo
• Pigtronix Dual Expression Pedal
• Morpheus transport music
• paul trombetta pedal board

I posted about the Pigtronix Philosopher’s Tone Compressor in the past, but I just saw this recent video review.. and it’s a great demo of this pedal. For those that aren’t familiar with the pedal, here is the description:

The Philosopher’s Tone Compressor/Sustainer is an ideal front end to any guitar player’s pedalboard. It can also serve as the perfect companion to the Pigtronix Mothership Guitar Synthesizer or any other pitch-tracking musical equipment, delivering more accurate tracking and increased note duration. As a bonus, the Grit control mixes a layer of smooth, diode-clipping distortion into the effect.

Unlike the many compressor clones and their variations that have become so popular in the past 10 years, the Pigtronix Philosopher’s Tone is not based on a CA3080 chip. The result is more sustain and less noise. The dynamic range, touch sensitivity, overall transparency, and outright sustain of the Philosopher’s Tone is unparalleled in the crowded world of compressor pedals.

Here is the demo by Pete Thom submitted by sinasl1

The Pigtronix Philosopher’s Tone Compressor is available for $169.00 at Amazon.

Popularity: 4%

Incoming search terms for EffectsBay.com:

• philosophers tone schematic
• pigtronix schematic
• pigtronix philosophers tone schematic
• pigtronix philosophers tone
• philosophers tone clone
• pigtronix philosopher\s tone schematic
• Philosophers Tone Review
• pigtronix schematics
• philosopher\s tone review
• pigtronix philosophers tone review

Wow. Just stumbled across the Pigtronix Philosopher King Compressor and Sustainer. This is a great pedal.. with lots of sonic potential.

The Pigtronix Philosopher King is a compressor, sustainer, distortion and polyphonic amplitude synthesizer. Combining our award-winning Philosopher’s Tone circuit with a next generation envelope generator, the Philosopher King takes tone several steps further with a full set of ADSR (Attack/Decay/Sustain/Release) controls including swell, fade, hold level, speed range, one-shot mode, selectable auto reset, CV i/o and expression pedals for swell and fade times.

With the Swell and Fade functions switched off, the Philosopher King provides transparent optical compression with endless sustain on tap. Adjustable compression (ratio), sustain (threshold) and treble (2k cut / boost) controls allow the musician to tailor the nature of the effect to meet the needs of the material at hand. From a subtle dash of added punch to massive, over-the-top howling sustain, the Philosopher King delivers clean, powerful optical compression. The grit control blends in a layer of sweet harmonic distortion that plays nice with other gain pedals as well as amplifier-generated tube distortion.

The Philosopher King’s swell function provides a pick triggered volume swell effect. The volume swell can be reset at any moment by muting or held open by continuous playing. This “slow gear” type effect is smooth and controllable with variable timing from extremely fast to very slow.

The fade function can be used independently of the swell and is also pick triggered. A major new feature of the decay cycle in this pedal is the ability to fade out from peak level only partially, bringing the audio down to a predetermined level, set by the hold control. The hold level is then maintained until the player releases the note to close the cycle. With the auto reset turned on, the cycle will begin again immediately, creating undulating amplitude modulation and even pulsating tremolo stutter effects at faster decay settings. With the auto-reset turned off, the player determines the exact timing for the beginning of the next cycle.

Another new feature is the one shot mode, which causes the Philosopher King to run through the swell / fade / hold / release cycle regardless of what is played after the cycle is triggered. In this mode, the Philosopher King creates complex waves of amplitude modulation on top of the music coming from your instrument. A trigger input jack allows the swell and fade functions to be controlled by an external source such as a band mate or drum track.

Here is a video by pigtronix

You can pick up the Pigtronix Philosopher King Compressor and Sustainer for $299.00 at Musician’s Friend.

Remember, if you like reading about these pedals and seeing videos reviews from others, please subscribe to the RSS feed and get notified via email when there are new postings!

Popularity: 4%

Incoming search terms for EffectsBay.com:

• pigtronix philosopher king review
• PIGTRONIX PHILOSOPHER KING reviews
• philosopher king pigtronix review
• Pigtronix Philosopher King for sale
• pigtronix philosopher\s king review
• pigtronix philosophers king review
• pigtronix philosphers king review
• pigtronix philosopher king craigslist
• philosopher king pedal review
• philosopher king compressor

One of these years, I need to make it down to NAMM, I think it would be super fun. This year’s summer NAMM featured a new pedal that will be coming out in the Fall of 2010 called the Keymaster by Pigtronix. In a nutshell, it’s a dual true bypass effects loop in a pedal. It’s pretty cool with the ability to handle multiple inputs (XLRs, balanced, unbalanced, etc). Where I think it really stands out is the ability to run the effects in series or parallel. In parallel, they’re running at the same time, but you can fade into each other or blend. Pretty cool.

Here is a video that Blake from What’s The Dude Play posted featuring Dave Koltai introducing the Keymaster. “It’s the Keymaster.. it get’s anything done”. Billy Mays would be proud. You can read Blake’s post here.

Popularity: 5%

Incoming search terms for EffectsBay.com:

• pigtronix keymaster
• Pigtronix Keymaster review
• keymaster pigtronix
• pigtronix keymaster gearslutz
• pigtronix keymaster for sale
• pigtronix keymaster best price
• pigtronix keymaster stereo
• pigtronix keymaster phase phase
• pigtronix keymaster complaints
• pigtronix philosophers tone pcb

Last week I received an email asking me about the Pigtronix EP2 Envelope Phaser.  I wasn’t familiar with the EP2, I’ve heard of the EP1, but not the EP2, so I wanted to take a look. I think Pigtronix makes some great gear, and I’ve discussed a few pedals here in the past.  While I was doing some light research on this, I found the perfect video to help show me what the EP2 is all about. Basically it’s a side by side comparison between the EP1 and EP2.

Here is the official description of the Pigtronix EP2 Envelope Phaser:

The Pigtronix EP2 Envelope Phaser guitar effects pedal pours on the special sauce to take your tone into outer space. Accentuating and sweeping through the harmonics of any musical source, the motion of this revolutionary phase shifter can be controlled by Envelope, LFO or a blend of both. The Pigtronix EP2 pedal is a complete redesign of Pigtronix’ Envelope Phaser concept, built on 6 years of customer feedback from the original. The Pigtronix EP2 effects pedal sports sounds and smart features, in a considerably smaller package.

The Pigtronix EP2 guitar pedal makes it easy to dial in monster envelope tones for any instrument or playing style. The envelope in the EP2 kicks it up a notch with a “Staccato” function that is ideal for fast-picking, funk bass and tight rhythm guitar. The Stacatto circuit is an “intelligent envelope” that listens to your playing and quickly discharges the envelope between your notes. This crafty circuit enables incredibly responsive envelope performance, even during rapid-fire playing.

The Pigtronix EP2 pedal’s rotary modulation LFO provides adjustable depth and center controls for fine-tuning the frequency range of operation, from subtle swirls to screaming sweeps with a huge range of available speeds. Another crucial addition to this Pigtronix effect pedal is the “LFO smooth” switch, which automatically reduces the resonance setting when the LFO is in use. This performance-friendly function finally lets you switch between corpulent, Mutron-style quack, and deep, swirling Uni-Vibe sounds with a single footswitch stomp—no knob tweaking necessary on stage.

In addition to its unique voice and interactive modulation section, Pigtronix EP2 incorporates additional control options, including expression pedals for both Sweep and Speed, as well as a continuous blend between envelope and LFO modulation sources.

The Pigtronix EP2 guitar effects pedal retains crucial features from the EP-1 such as true bypass switching, + or – phase inversion and the signature “trigger” input for manipulating the envelope with an external audio source. EP2 guitar pedal runs on 18-volts for maximum headroom.

Here is the video by TheGuacamoleXplosion (by the way, my new favorite channel name):

You can pick up the Pigtronix EP2 Envelope Phase for $249.00 at Musician’s Friend.

Remember, if you like reading about pedals and seeing videos reviews from others, please subscribe to the RSS feed and get notified via email when there are new postings!

Popularity: 4%

Incoming search terms for EffectsBay.com:

• pigtronix ep2 review
• pigtronix envelope phaser review
• pigtronix ep2
• pigtronix ep-2 review
• pigtronix envelope phaser
• pigtronix ep2 envelope phaser review
• pigtronix ep2 envelope phaser
• pigtronix envelope phaser ep2
• pigtronix ep-2 reviews
• pigtronix ep-2 settings

So after looking at some of the responses from yesterday’s community question regarding compressor pedals, I noticed that the Pigtronix Philosopher’s Tone Compressor/Sustainer was mentioned a couple of times. I’ve heard of this pedal, but I wanted to take a closer look. At first glance, it seems like a versatile pedal allowing for sustain, treble boost/cut and diode clipping distortion. Pretty interesting!

Here is the official description of the compressor:

The Philosopher’s Tone Compressor/Sustainer is an ideal front end to any guitar player’s pedalboard. It can also serve as the perfect companion to the Pigtronix Mothership Guitar Synthesizer or any other pitch-tracking musical equipment, delivering more accurate tracking and increased note duration. As a bonus, the Grit control mixes a layer of smooth, diode-clipping distortion into the effect.

Unlike the many compressor clones and their variations that have become so popular in the past 10 years, the Pigtronix Philosopher’s Tone is not based on a CA3080 chip. The result is more sustain and less noise. The dynamic range, touch sensitivity, overall transparency, and outright sustain of the Philosopher’s Tone is unparalleled in the crowded world of compressor pedals.

Pigtronix Philospher’s Tone Compressor/Sustainer Guitar Effects Pedal Features:

* Adjustable threshold and ratio controls
* Blend control for parallel compression
* Smooth, diode-clipping distortion
* Treble boost/cut
* Ultracompact design
* Circuit design by Howard Davis
* Pigtronix 15VDC adapter included
* True bypass

I found a couple of great videos. This first one is by premiereguitar at the 2009 Winter NAMM

This next one is by gearwire, and also from the 2009 Winter NAMM show:

You can pick up the Pigtronix Philospher’s Tone Compressor/Sustainer for $169.00 at Musican’s Friend.

Remember, if you like reading about pedals and seeing videos reviews from others, please subscribe to the RSS feed and get notified via email when there are new postings!

Popularity: 9%

Incoming search terms for EffectsBay.com:

• white finger schematic
• pigtronix compressor reviews
• electro harmonix white finger schematic
• rothwell pedals schematics
• soul preacher schematics clone
• sHEMATIC White Finger
• pigtronix compressor schematics
• reviews of hartman compressor
• Rothwell Love Squeeze schematic#
• rothwell pedal schematic

Sunday morning coffee and nerd-surfing led me to the Pigtronix PolySaturator Distortion. I was corresponding with the winner of the Trumpet Fuzz, and we started talking about some Pigtronix pedals so I definitely have it on the brain lately. I’ve see the PolySaturator on a few boards, but wanted to take a closer look this morning.

Here is the official description:

The PolySaturator distortion pedal from Pigtronix takes the original design even further, adding a Class A J-FET booster stage to the front end and re-voicing the gain structure to provide an even wider range of sounds. The PolySaturator produces everything from subtle grit to blue velvet sustain inspired by our favorite tube amp lead channel.

The PolySaturator excels at gritty, edge-of-overdrive tones, but crank up the gain and you will be assaulted by face-melting ultra-high gain sounds that will please shredders and shoegazers alike with impressive string to string clarity and F.A.T. tube sound. Our JRC4558D powered EQ circuits provide 12 db / octave active filtering over three distinct audio bands. This powerful EQ structure combined with a state-of-the-art approach to tube emulation, allows the musician to dial up wildly diverse and satisfying textures of analog distortion. Unprecedented touch sensitivity and overall range of distortion tones is achieved through multiple gain stages, and active EQ, perfectly balanced to give the musician enhanced control and expression using picking dynamics alone.

The PolySaturator guitar pedal presents a flexible and affordable alternative that will outperform any other boutique or mass production distortion effect available.

I found another great video by gearmanndude demo’ing this pedal. Seems like the pedal definitely has wide range of tones, and has the ability to compress or get “flappy”.

You can pick up the Pigtronix PolySaturator distortion pedal for $169.00 at Musician’s Friend.

Remember, if you like reading about pedals and seeing videos reviews from others, please subscribe to the RSS feed and get notified via email when there are new postings!

Popularity: 3%

Incoming search terms for EffectsBay.com:

• pigtronix polysaturator review
• polysaturator review
• review pigtronix polysaturator
• pigtronix polysaturator
• comparaison transistor tube sine
• polysaturator review fuzz
• polysaturator pigtronix review
• Polysaturator
• pigtronix review polysaturator
• pigtronix polysaturator review fuzz

Today I had a few minutes to check out some videos, and I came across an interesting one by PigTronix. This particular video is old (NAMM 2008) where Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead checks out the Pigtronix Echolution Delay. This video mentioned the ‘Golden Ratio’ effect which I thought was pretty cool.

Here is the official information about the PHI switch:

Engaging the (PHI) switch realigns all of these fractions to values based on the Golden Ratio. The Golden Ratio creates a spiral rhythm that is found throughout the universe. It is observed in the shapes of galaxies, sea shells, DNA, the Egyptian Pyramids as well as in the work of many great visual artists and musicians.

Popularity: 4%

Incoming search terms for EffectsBay.com:

• pigtronix echolution
• golden ratio delay
• echolution review
• echolution
• delay golden rati
• echolution golden ratio
• echolution diy
• diy Echolution clone
• echolution reviews
• golden mean pedal