Trek PWM fuzz Tourbox

by **goroth** » Tue May 19, 2015 6:02 am

And a (to my mind) far better demo of the Trek PWM fuzz.

This was a lot of fun, and the interaction between the pulse width and the tone knob was really cool. Just like OAM I think the pulse-width could have gone deeper (more bassy) and less thin stuff.

by **goroth** » Tue May 19, 2015 6:08 am

Oh yeah, my thoughts on the gyro:

It was a fantastic pedal, and I'm disappointed I couldn't get my groove on better in the video. Partially I'm just not used to playing with a rhythmic filter sound, and mostly I was having an insipid night with the guitar when I demoed it. I found the relationship between the two frequency controls a bit hard to work out, especially with the instruction that for the best effect I shouldn't turn them past half way (or whatever it was, sorry, I've forgotten now!). I have no doubt that the control is quite powerful, but I didn't get the most out of it as I just couldn't grasp exactly what it was doing.

I found myself really wanting to be able to separately set the bottom and the top of the sweep, but I don't know if this is possible! I found the dark sounds to be really quite inspiring, but I would have liked to have raised the lowest cut off for the filter, and lowered the highest cut off, to get in that really vowel like deep zone.

I was surprised at how much character the filter has. It is quite different to the filters I've played before - Subdecay Proteus, Dod FX25B, DOD 440 or whatever it is... I liked the tone of the gyroscope quite a lot more. It was really good on its own and with fuzz. :thumb:

Edit: A final suggestion: I found it difficult to get the tap right with two taps. My Empress tremolo takes the average of the last 4 taps, and I know David (Rainger) was talking about using a tap to retrigger the tempo on his tap devices. It was quite clever and intuitive whatever it was. Anyways, that was my only real beef is that for the really rhythmic stuff I couldn't quite tap it as I wanted. Could be a practice thing as well - I didn't spend a whole lot of time with the pedal.

by **goroth** » Tue May 19, 2015 7:18 am

Lastly a demo of the Mantis.

It tracks a lot better than the Mantis ii (which itself tracks really well) and the octaves are clearer. Stack better with fuzz too.

That said I really like the 5 knob Mantis ii as well. It is more unpredictable and unruly. I could probably have both of these on my board without too much overlap.

I didn't demo the Caracol because I just couldn't get any sounds out of it that I was happy with. I don't think it was the fault of the pedal, it was more I just didn't know what I was doing haha.

by **autopilot** » Tue May 19, 2015 10:02 am

Awesome, thanks

trek - i really like the thin sound, i think the solution to get a deeper/ballsy is perhaps to add a switch, because the perceived sonic range will jump a lot with just a knob. in my case i 70% of the time im around 0-55% on the range, due i play in a shoegaze band and having lots of ballsy tones makes me feel lost in the mix, (since i also ran reverb and modulated delay). And yeah filter into the trek is super cool

gyro - it takes some time to get the range and the aux, is similar to what you propose the aux sets the lower cutoff point in some sort of way, and the range the max, but i will check on it and try to see if it can be more intuitive for a tweak on the go.

yeah - i love the mantis both incarnations

thx for your feedback, it really helps

by **goroth** » Tue May 19, 2015 10:49 am

Maybe just make a detailed instruction? Or maybe I'm just not turning knobs with any system and my random turning wasn't delivering results haha.

I want to really make sure that I think the gyro has a huge range of tones in it :thumb:

, I just wasn't sure how to dial them in with the range/aux.

I also really dug the thin tones in the PWM! I just wanted it to go even lower!

by **autopilot** » Tue May 19, 2015 10:46 pm

i think i got what you meant about the gyroscope, range and aux knobs, about setting a min point of the cut and max, the actual configuration is that the aux is a fine tune for the sweep, you can set the lowest point of the cutoff sweep, but while you increase the range the sweep amount it expands, so it wont stay fixed at one point, for example, if you only want a lower frequencies cutoff, you need to reduce the aux and range, and set the aux to taste, if you increase a bit the range the previous lowest point will react and depending how much you move the range knob, the lowest frequency cutoff (could have increased). In theory the type of configuration, could be implemented but it will need a larger case to fit all the circuitry, and unless i sacrifice other stuff on it, it wont fit , but for the larger gyroscope supreme design it could happen along with some of the tristan and oldangelmidnigth feedback/suggestions

by **autopilot** » Tue May 19, 2015 11:11 pm

i will do a video from my perspective, so probably it will provide a better perspective and how to use, since the broadcast also use a similar range/aux controls

by **autopilot** » Mon May 25, 2015 6:27 pm

i was tweaking today. i reworked a bit the osc knob/footswitch on the trek, i changed to be more interactive (instead of being static at certain pitch) it will give a nice change and the decay has some movement so it gets a nice perceived change (kinda similar to the flanger-esque of sweeping the pulse width), and the parts count im positive it will fit in the pcb, so hopefully i will build one and do a video of it, and will lower a bit so it can get more bass with the range knob at max

by **Bellyheart** » Mon May 25, 2015 7:50 pm

I got tons of low from the trek. Definitely depending on the knobs. I can't imagine more bass being necessary. I guess for a less circumstantial bass response? The setting in my demo wasn't the heaviest but it was really low, hence why I played a doom riff. Damn iPhone audio didn't pick up the balls well.

Like the osc idea.

by **goroth** » Tue May 26, 2015 2:00 am

Oh wow, sounds awesome Adam!

Also I think D'arcy's video really showed off the oscillation function perfectly.

by **goroth** » Tue May 26, 2015 2:01 am

Disarm D'arcy's awesome video

by **Disarm D'arcy** » Tue May 26, 2015 5:18 am

Oh yeah forgot to post it in there. Thanks suited extinct beast.

by **autopilot** » Tue May 26, 2015 10:11 pm

it looks that it will have both :!!!:

, lets see if i can squeeze a toggle option, so you can select your destiny. yeah disarm d'arcy was very dope and he used the oscillation in an awesome way, so i had a hard time not to keep it (well i'm trying since i havent tested the board yet)

Also dont know if you have tried, but the mantis into gyroscope is pure :!!!:

, set the range around 8:00-10:00 and the aux around 7:00-12:00 (to taste), the wave knob at max (ramp up) in the gyroscope and feed your subsound from the mantis, and enjoy :!!!: