cool new effects

[Caevan O’Shite]

1 hour ago, Dannyalcatraz said:

And if we’re talking The Inner Squared Circle of the Hellfire Crapulator Lodge, the Metasonix Ass Blaster is either the president or the jerk they kicked out and blackballed.😂

Haahhaahhaahh!! Well said- and funny!

I like some of the sounds that the Metasonix Ass Blaster is capable of; I'd have to cover-up the graphics around the exposed vacuum tubes, though. Evokes horrible things happening to an animal, even if a cartoon animal. Not something I need to be looking at- I'm a bit sensitively empathetic regarding animals. Even cartoon animals. But, yeah- sounds like a fun and fertile pedal for creative sonic degenerates!
        
 

[Caevan O’Shite]

Something new and different for the DAW set, centering on something old and well established for the electric guitar set:
 

       
 

[Winston Psmith]

Somehow, the idea of a Big Muff plug-in goes against the grain. A Fuzz box, by its very nature, should be somewhat of an Anarchy Box, loud, brash, sometimes harsh and sputtering. There aren't too many other devices that are . . . let's say enhanced, if not improved, by having a dying 9-volt battery in their guts. It may be remotely possible to reduce all those random elements to a series of Ones and Zeroes, but why would you? Sometimes, you can't improve on imperfection.

 

Admittedly, nearly every MFX ever made has included some effect intended to model or mimic the Muff Fuzz sound, so this isn't an altogether new idea, but IME, they generally fall short. VEMY, of course . . .

[Caevan O’Shite]

21 minutes ago, Winston Psmith said:

Somehow, the idea of a Big Muff plug-in goes against the grain. A Fuzz box, by its very nature, should be somewhat of an Anarchy Box, loud, brash, sometimes harsh and sputtering. There aren't too many other devices that are . . . let's say enhanced, if not improved, by having a dying 9-volt battery in their guts. It may be remotely possible to reduce all those random elements to a series of Ones and Zeroes, but why would you? Sometimes, you can't improve on imperfection.

 

Admittedly, nearly every MFX ever made has included some effect intended to model or mimic the Muff Fuzz sound, so this isn't an altogether new idea, but IME, they generally fall short. VEMY, of course . . .

Tantamount to Fender trotting out those expensive Joe Strummer signature Telecasters with the artificial "relic" wear and damage (amazing how he managed to put his signature to 'em after being cremated, huh?!); or the shiny new corporate owned CBGB franchise?

Or maybe not. Isn't it kinda cool that instead of using a plug-in digital-model of a Big Muff, you could plug in a genuine, actual, physical, analog Big Muff (the titular "Hardware"), including real, actual diodes and transistors for the clipping- with stereo I/O, within your DAW? 'Re-amping' with a Muff made easy? And- unlike a digital-model of a Muff in a software plug-in, you can actually use it as a pedal with your amp and other pedals if you wanted to, unlike a digital simulation of that?

Here, this pedal is NOT made to "reduce all those random elements to a series of Ones and Zeroes"- it's an actual, physical Big Muff circuit with real components, sandwiched in-between the D/A and A/D conversions and I/O to be able to inject it into your DAW. Any and all random elements that a typical "violet era" Big Muff pedal would be capable of imparting, will still be possible, and all-analog derived. No more converted to binary code than if you recorded your vintage '70s Big Muff into a vintage '70s Marshall, Orange or Hiwatt amp and cab via a mic and then into a DAW.

It can also be used as a USB recording interface, in full stereo, with or without the Muff fuzzelry.

I don't know if you could use an adjustable voltage power-supply to lower voltage like a dying battery, though. I'm sure that the actual Muff in there would be fine with that, but I don't know if the rest of it would allow it to work, what with the stereo I/O, converters and all...

Speaking of which, just using it as a stompbox with your amp(s) (the plural being made more easily possible here) and other pedals, you could run stereo effects or instruments through this Muff.
           
 

[Dannyalcatraz]

My take in that kind of thing is: if it works for you, great! If it doesn’t, great!  The real and virtual have their own strengths and weaknesses.
 

And let’s be honest: not many of us have Eric Johnson’s ears, sensitive enough to rival those of Heimdal*.  Most people couldn’t tell the difference between a Tele or a LP, much less a piece of physical hardware compared to an electronic simulation thereof.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* I bet Eric Johnson heard me typing that sentence on my iPad’s on-screen keyboard.

[Larryz]

I'm no Eric Johnson LoL!  I've heard he could tell a difference in tone if you had 3, 4 or 5 springs hooked in the back of his Strat and he left the spring cover off so you could challenge him at any time!

But, when it comes to keyboard synths, I preferred Analog over Digital for strings, brass and organ.  Digital for piano.  Analog just has more warmth IHMO.  But having digital sampling is very cool too.  I guess all effects in the right hands make some very cool sounds...😎

[Caevan O’Shite]

4 hours ago, Dannyalcatraz said:

My take in that kind of thing is: if it works for you, great! If it doesn’t, great!  The real and virtual have their own strengths and weaknesses.
 

And let’s be honest: not many of us have Eric Johnson’s ears, sensitive enough to rival those of Heimdal*.  Most people couldn’t tell the difference between a Tele or a LP, much less a piece of physical hardware compared to an electronic simulation thereof.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* I bet Eric Johnson heard me typing that sentence on my iPad’s on-screen keyboard.

 

3 hours ago, Larryz said:

I'm no Eric Johnson LoL!  I've heard he could tell a difference in tone if you had 3, 4 or 5 springs hooked in the back of his Strat and he left the spring cover off so you could challenge him at any time!

But, when it comes to keyboard synths, I preferred Analog over Digital for strings, brass and organ.  Digital for piano.  Analog just has more warmth IHMO.  But having digital sampling is very cool too.  I guess all effects in the right hands make some very cool sounds...😎

But the 'Big Muff Pi Hardware Plugin' is NOT an electronic simulation or digital modeling; it's an actual, physical, real-deal "violet era" Big Muff Pi with transistors and diodes clipping. It's got a real, actual, analog Big Muff Pi inside it. You can use it with your guitar and amp just like a real pedal, because it is a real pedal; and again, it's not a digital model or simulation of a Big Muff, it's an actual analog Big Muff. It's a vintage-style analog Big Muff set within a package that allows you to connect it to a Digital Audio Workstation; a 'Hardware Plugin', instead of the usual 'digital software plugin'.
           
 

[Winston Psmith]

Not trying to be deliberately dense, as to this being a physical object, as opposed to simply a piece of software, BUT . . .

 

While the essential Big Muff components (diodes & transistors) may be all Analog, in order to interface with your DAW there are likely to be multiple levels of A/D & D/A conversion involved. Any pedal that can store presets likely involves Digital Memory, as well. It seems like we're kind of stretching the concept, if not the very definition, of Analog, in a case like this.

 

The old Boss GT-3 & GT-5 MFX had Analog Distortion effects, but your signal still went through multiple levels of Analog-to-Digital and Digital-to-Analog conversion between the Input and Output jacks, in order to have Analog OD & Distortion effects onboard. Any MFX with a S/R Loop also involves D/A & A/D conversion at the respective ends of the S/R Loop. How "Analog" is a signal that's been converted back and forth from Analog to Digital to Analog, many times over in the course of processing?

 

Not to dismiss the potential for the product; people will buy this, I'm sure. I have at least one friend who plays Synths, and has long complained about Dirt boxes having only Mono I/O jacks, when most Synths are rigged for Stereo Outs. He'll be glad to see this . . .

[Mark Schmieder]

I really couldn't wrap my head around this one, and this past week has been crazy beyond belief in terms of no free time, so my reading comprehension may not have been at its best, but when I finally got around to re-reading my email alert last night, I was surprised to see that it seems to basically be following the Roland Plug-out concept.

 

It's funny timing, as one of my tasks today is to compare my Bass Big Muff and Nano Big Muff on guitar, and to do the same with my two compressors, as I am thinking of consolidating to one pedal set for both guitar and bass, if the bass versions of those two pedals work as well on guitar as the non-bass versions. I did enough reading last night on specialty forums to have an idea about how to further slim down my pedal collection.

 

In terms of the concept of outboarding pedal hardware in the context of in-the-box music production, the timing is also quite laughable for me, as I only a few weeks ago finally decided it was a worthwhile investment, to buy Radial's EXTC Effects Reamper.

 

So really, that can be used with ANY pedal, but this "plugout" version of the Big Muff is just one pedal. It's going to have to be awfully awesome to go up against the more general solution offered by Radial.

[Scott Fraser]

If EHX want to build plug in hardware versions of the xxx9 pedals I'll be all over that.

 

Digital control of analog circuitry doesn't make it a digital circuit. Analog controls (pots) are just devices for turning voltage down. A chip can also be configured to do exactly that same function, while receiving commands from a software controller. One of the favored mixing consoles of the transitional period (1990s) when digital mixers were becoming all the rage was the Euphonix, which were all analog circuits, all under digital control. People loved them.

[Winston Psmith]

8 minutes ago, Scott Fraser said:

Digital control of analog circuitry doesn't make it a digital circuit. Analog controls (pots) are just devices for turning voltage down. A chip can also be configured to do exactly that same function, while receiving commands from a software controller. One of the favored mixing consoles of the transitional period (1990s) when digital mixers were becoming all the rage was the Euphonix, which were all analog circuits, all under digital control. People loved them.

 

@Scott Fraser- Thank you for the clarification on the control circuitry.

 

My thought, perhaps mistaken, is that at some point, the signal itself is converted to a Digital signal?

 

FWIW, if it's not absurdly priced, I'll probably buy one, just to run my Synths through it in stereo.

 

Just checked - $329US - not for me, at that price.

[Mark Schmieder]

As if on cue, I received an email from Sweetwater a few minutes ago that talks about using hardware effects pedals at the computer-based mixing stage:

 

https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/using-pedals-mixing/

[Caevan O’Shite]

8 hours ago, Scott Fraser said:

If EHX want to build plug in hardware versions of the xxx9 pedals I'll be all over that.

Now, THAT says A LOT, particularly coming from you.

I like most of their 9 Series pedals, myself, and I already have one- the original B9 Organ Machine. Their C9, Key9, and Mel9 really call my name, too.   

That being said, over the years before the B9 came out (and even after, including since

I got the B9), I really, really very much enjoyed using combinations of pedals I had (and other tricks of my own) for more or less copping keyboard sounds like organ (especially with a Leslie sim), Rhodesy electric piano (oh, MAN, beautiful with phaser or tremolo!), funky Clavi (especially with wah, sometimes with envelope-filter AND wah), approximations of John Paul Jones' synth sounds on "In The Light" (with faux tape-echo)...
            
 

[Mark Schmieder]

My new Fender MTG Distortion pedal arrived as a mostly non-functioning pedal, unfortunately, so I have to return it. I did eventually get some sporadic signal out of it, but am not sure if I should use that to judge it. If those rare occasions represented the tube and the circuitry actually working, then I would say this is NOT a distortion pedal, but rather, a mild overdrive pedal. Completely different animals, as the harmonic series is the opposite. But I think I prefer Big Muff fuzz sounds to actual distortion anyway.

[Scott Fraser]

3 hours ago, Winston Psmith said:

 

@Scott Fraser- Thank you for the clarification on the control circuitry.

My thought, perhaps mistaken, is that at some point, the signal itself is converted to a Digital signal?

FWIW, if it's not absurdly priced, I'll probably buy one, just to run my Synths through it in stereo.

Just checked - $329US - not for me, at that price.

It's digital coming out of the computer into the interface part of the fuzz, analog throughout the pedal, then converted back to digital to resume it's place in the DAW. If used just as a pedal it's an all analog device. I find it odd that their first hybrid analog pedal with digital interface abilities is a fuzz. A legendary fuzz, but not something which is all that applicable to general DAW use. I'd be interested if it were a Deluxe Memory Man, Holy Grail, Ravish Sitar, or of course a Mel9.

[Larryz]

15 hours ago, Caevan O’Shite said:

 

But the 'Big Muff Pi Hardware Plugin' is NOT an electronic simulation or digital modeling; it's an actual, physical, real-deal "violet era" Big Muff Pi with transistors and diodes clipping. It's got a real, actual, analog Big Muff Pi inside it. You can use it with your guitar and amp just like a real pedal, because it is a real pedal; and again, it's not a digital model or simulation of a Big Muff, it's an actual analog Big Muff. It's a vintage-style analog Big Muff set within a package that allows you to connect it to a Digital Audio Workstation; a 'Hardware Plugin', instead of the usual 'digital software plugin'.
           
 

Sorry Caevan, but I didn't say anything about the Big Muff Pi being "a digital model or simulation of a Big Muff". I get that "it's a real and actual analog pedal." My comment was comparing the analog and digital sounds. I prefer analog for strings, brass, organ, etc.  I'm not talking digital simulators or analog circuits with a few volumes control pots.  In 1982 I bought a Juno 60 synthesizer (and have kicked myself in the ass ever since for selling it!) with all sorts of sliders, envelopes, oscillators, arpeggiators, chorus, bender, transposer, etc., etc., pre digital keyboard stuff.  It didn't have drums like the sounds used in your demo.  I really can't see "adding Big Muff grit to the strings" like the guy did in the vid, but heh? It sounded OK.  I didn't care for adding it to the drums but different strokes for different folks.  I liked the by-pass sounds for the most part LoL! 

 

I did like the Yamaha digital pianos when they came out as my analog synth piano sounds were not as good as digital.  My synth did have great bass and could be dirtied using the various controls...I get it that the Big Muff Pi is a pedal that can be used with a guitar and amp with onboard pre-sets and is a piece of hardware.  Here's a demo of what I was talking about i.e., "when it comes to keyboards." you can hear a difference and the sky is the limit to the sounds you can create using analog controls.  The patches your guy is adding to the Big Muff Pi pre-sets, could be created using digitally recorded keyboard synths (analog or digital), and electronic drums tracs, etc...

 

😎👍

[Winston Psmith]

16 hours ago, Scott Fraser said:

It's digital coming out of the computer into the interface part of the fuzz, analog throughout the pedal, then converted back to digital to resume it's place in the DAW. If used just as a pedal it's an all analog device.

 

Thanks again, Scott. That was pretty much the point I was trying to make, that the signal had to undergo D/A & A/D conversion in order to work with a DAW, not that the circuit itself was Digital.

 

As to the "Why?" of making the Big Muff their first hardware Plug-In; maybe Mike Matthews just got sick of hearing lame Digital "Fuzz" models in DAW's and MFX.

 

IME, one of the most difficult sounds to reproduce with Digital MFX is a good, convincing Fuzz tone. YEMV, of course.

[Caevan O’Shite]

1 hour ago, Winston Psmith said:

Thanks again, Scott. That was pretty much the point I was trying to make, that the signal had to undergo D/A & A/D conversion in order to work with a DAW

But is that terribly different from recording your analog guitar rig, pedals and all, to a SAW of any kind? As long as the A/D Converters/Conversion is good- decades ago I used to hear comments regarding that in various devices, including CD players that had tubes...
 

 

1 hour ago, Winston Psmith said:

As to the "Why?" of making the Big Muff their first hardware Plug-In; maybe Mike Matthews just got sick of hearing lame Digital "Fuzz" models in DAW's and MFX.

Could well be! And I'm sure that there'll be a market for these, for similar reasons.
 

 

1 hour ago, Winston Psmith said:

IME, one of the most difficult sounds to reproduce with Digital MFX is a good, convincing Fuzz tone.

My experience is the same. My DigiTech GNX4 prompted me to buy more and more real fuzzes and octave-fuzzes- and wahs, and a distortion pedal, and a flanger and a chorus and a phaser, and an echo pedal, and...
    
 

[Mark Schmieder]

I spent a lot of time today trying to see if I could consolidate my pedal collection to be the same for guitar and bass, but ultimately concluded that the needs of the two instruments -- specifically due to the different frequency spectrum and dynamics -- really are quite different.

 

The funny thing about the Muffs is that there are so many and yet they really are different from each other. I had found posts in other forums about how to make the Bass Big Muff (green Sovtek style) work for guitar, but I could never get it to match the Nano Big Muff Pi, regardless of settings. Both are good on both instruments, but I now have a better understanding of why I will always get my best results with each one dedicated to its targeted instrument.

 

Anyway, this brings me to the cork-sniffing rebuttal, which is that I now am on the same page as those that say that the range of Muffs is big enough that you'll probably never have just one that "does it all". So it will be interesting to see how this hybrid model plays into that!

[Winston Psmith]

@Mark Schmieder- I counted 18 different versions of the Muff on the EHX website, just now. Take yer pick . . .

[hurricane hugo]

cool ancient effect

 

 

[Mark Schmieder]

After listening to several Big Muff shootouts, I concluded that I made the right choice in buying the Nano for the guitar and the Bass Big Green Russian for the bass guitar, but the Triangle model intrigues me. The Op Amp model sounds awful to me except on power chords, which is what it is known for (Smashing Pumpkins).

 

In the regular Distortion and Overdrive category, my Vox ValveEnergy Cutting Edge High Gain Distortion Pedal arrived yesterday. I find that I have to use slot 5 or 6 in my VoodooLabs pedal power, or it won't turn on. Thoretically slots 1-4 should have enough juice (and I had nothing else plugged in). The Fender MTG pedals (which also have tubes) do best on slots 5 and 6 as well, but for some reason work fine on slots 1-4 even though they potentially draw 120 mA.

 

Anyway, it's an interesting pedal and I ordered the Copperhead Drive as a result, figuring I'd have a similarly open sound for both distortion and overdrive. I had just recently sold my Fulltone O.C.D. Germanium Edition (Custom Shop) and bought an EHX Glove, which I love, but I may sell the Glove once the Marshall clone arrives from Vox. I own a Vox AC15 amp and prefer 15's to 30's anyway, so doubt I'll order their AC30 emulating overdrive pedal.

 

One of the interesting things about the VE series from Vox, is that they are designed to also work well on line levels from keyboards, such as a Rhodes, Clavinet, B3, Wurly.

 

In initial use with a Fender Deluxe Reverb amp's clean channel, I am finding a wider range of distortion character with the Cutting Edge than with typical distortion pedals (I have my Suhr Riot Reloaded up for sale at the moment). I do think this counts as Distortion vs. Overdrive, and the harmonic series seems in that category as well.

 

Is it a specific amp? Some say Mesa, but I have a Mesa amp (Royal Atlantic, which isn't typical Mesa and is more of their take on the Marshall sound, having EL34's). I think it sounds more like a Soldano. Whatever the case, it's a lot more articulate, and yet powerful at the same time, compared to typical high-gain "metal" distortion pedals. In fact, it covers a wider range of genres and sounds and can be quite subtle and transparent, serving almost like a Boost Pedal if you prefer.

[Winston Psmith]

@Mark Schmieder- Looking at the specs for the Cutting Edge, it draws 95mA, so as you say, it should be fine in any of the slots on your Pedal Power.

 

Are you running into this problem when you're also using the Fender MTG pedals, or just when you try to power the Cutting Edge pedal, no matter what else is plugged in?

[Caevan O’Shite]

WHOA! Foxrox Octron4!  Still 100% all analog. Now with Sub-Octave (including a new Octave-and-a-4th down?!), as well as the original octave Up and Octave Down Fuzzes, and Direct...  Not small, but Dave Fox managed to make it a little smaller than the Octron 2 was...

This has to be an incredible pedal...

I've had and dearly loved the original Foxrox Octron for many years.  I've never, ever heard a demo video or clip that seemed to do it justice; and I've managed to play chords, voice-lead chord/bass-line stuff, all kinds of things with more than one note and get decent tracking and good behavior- albeit via playing fingerstyle and sometimes finding a 'sweet-spot' with my guitar's volume-controls and my "touch".  My guitar's hot pickups probably help a lot, too...

In any case, it's my very favorite fuzz and one of my favorite pedals, period. Very, very versatile. It's AMAZING for stacking into either other dirt/drive pedals or an overdriven/distorted tube-amp, largely due to its excellent Direct/'clean-blend', as well as its blendable separate individual level controls for Oct-Up, Oct-Down, Direct, and now Sub. KILLS stacked into distortion!! KILLS!! Pretty damn cool and gnarly fed into a clean amp, too.

This new Octron4 will be a must-have for me.
   





My old original Octron:

[Mark Schmieder]

On 9/18/2022 at 7:57 AM, Winston Psmith said:

@Mark Schmieder- Looking at the specs for the Cutting Edge, it draws 95mA, so as you say, it should be fine in any of the slots on your Pedal Power.

 

Are you running into this problem when you're also using the Fender MTG pedals, or just when you try to power the Cutting Edge pedal, no matter what else is plugged in?

When it's the sole pedal plugged into the Voodoo Labs Power. Others have commented on this issue as well. But it's fine, as that Pedal Power has two high-amperage slots available. Usually these are ganged together for 18V pedals, but I just sold my final one in that category (MXR Flanger).

 

The Copperhead arrived a few minutes ago. I'll try it out after dinner. It's meant to be an OCD style Marshall Overdrive sound.

[hurricane hugo]

I know that DIs don't really count as effects, but I gotta get 1 (maybe 2) of the HPs for my baby modular synth:

 

 

[Mark Schmieder]

The Marshall, I mean Copperhead, pedal is amazing! My favorite of all! Definitely sounds like a Marshall amp being overdriven (or the dirty channel); whereas the Cutting Edge does sound like distortion from a high gain amp, so Vox was correct to categorize these pedals differently.

 

I don't yet have a final verdict on whether to keep the recently purchased EHX Glove, which I bought to remove the taint of Fulltone in my collection (I recently sold those pedals for a gazillion dollars). The sound is quite similar, as expected, but I need to drive at higher volumes during the day tomorrow to tell whether the Glove offers anything that I can't get with the Copperhead. The latter sounds like an amp; the Glove sounds like a pedal (albeit a very good one, and cheap too).

 

Ultimately, I am immediately inspired by the Vox pedals and feel like I am playing my guitar through an amp, whereas the Glove, even plugged into my Fender Deluxe Reverb clean channel, makes it stop sounding like an amp. Weird. It sounds more like processing one would apply in-the-box during mixing of a digital project.

 

I don't remember whether the ValveEdge pedals have actual tubes in them, analog emulation circuitry, or are even digitally modeled with A/D and D/A inside the box, and I don't care. I generally shy away from digital pedals, but not on principle, so if one comes along that is inspiring, three-dimensional, and organic, I'm all for it.

[Mark Schmieder]

I saw an article that says that overdrive is a way of making your tube amp sound like a solid state amp, and is mostly used by country and blues players.

 

The same article says that distortion pedals are almost exclusively used by heavy metal guitarists, and that it's a variation on compression.

[Caevan O’Shite]

2 hours ago, Mark Schmieder said:

I saw an article that says that overdrive is a way of making your tube amp sound like a solid state amp, and is mostly used by country and blues players.

The same article says that distortion pedals are almost exclusively used by heavy metal guitarists, and that it's a variation on compression.

So this article was put out by moronic nimrods?
     
 

[Mark Schmieder]

I actually saw a SECOND article that said the same thing using different words, so maybe that's where she got the idea. She's awfully young, unlike the author of the other article (who has been around the block, so ought to know better).

 

I can see how the sustain aspect of distortion can be thought of as meeting some similar goals to a compression pedal (depending on how it's used), but I personally would not think of the pedals as interchangeable, regardless of setting.

 

The other comment is somewhat stranger in many ways, as overdrive tends to produce even harmonics (like tubes) and distortion is more often used for odd harmonics (like solid-state amps), but of course one must be careful about US vs. UK or European conventions about which harmonic counts as "1", vs. zero-based counting. 🙂