Ayahuasca

[D.o.S.]

ahahahahahaha I mean wizards and cauldrons are pretty much de rigueur for serious talks around here.

[UglyCasanova]

Ah, yes. Quite! *sips elixir*

[JonnyAngle]

I have no clue what you are talking about

[cherler]

Does it feel like Knobs wrote most of the stuff on the website to anyone else?

[D.o.S.]

Quite possible (especially considering he did the demo), but akashi is an ILFriend and we've got nothing but love for the homie.

[Disarm D'arcy]

So if I TL:DR: Marketing.

[baremountain]

Very curious to learn more about this company. Mine should arrive Tuesday, so I'll post the rundown on what packaging reveals. All I know is that it shipped from Sherman Oaks, CA.

[JonnyAngle]

A cool person got one!

[baremountain]

A cool person got one!

I'll definitely take some audio/video and share it with y'all. Pretty excited for this.

My current understanding is that it's basically a Gravitas except the gain circuit in it is a pretty shapeable fuzz. I've never had a CBA pedal (though I've messed with a few) so this whole dipswitch thing will be lots of fun. I also scooped one of the Spectres you etched I think they'll go well together.

[cherler]

Quite possible (especially considering he did the demo), but akashi is an ILFriend and we've got nothing but love for the homie.

Totally, I was just thinking about who all is involved. Knobs and Joel seem tight so that seemed likely, and they both seem like rad dudes.

[mysteryroach]

A cool person got one!

My current understanding is that it's basically a Gravitas except the gain circuit in it is a pretty shapeable fuzz. I've never had a CBA pedal (though I've messed with a few) so this whole dipswitch thing will be lots of fun. I also scooped one of the Spectres you etched I think they'll go well together.

It's also got a low+high-pass filter on the tone control. Dunno if that's different from the Gravitas.

Are we positive that it's essentially a mod and not a ground-up rebuild? If so, it'd just make it a lot easier to let go of my Gravitas. I pride myself on having the whole set of CBA pedals, and if the Ayahuasca's essentially a souped up Gravitas anyway then the collection's still kinda in tact.

I won't receive mine for at least another 2 weeks unfortunately, as it's gotta be forwarded. Can you take a photo of the guts?

Quite possible (especially considering he did the demo), but akashi is an ILFriend and we've got nothing but love for the homie.

Totally, I was just thinking about who all is involved. Knobs and Joel seem tight so that seemed likely, and they both seem like rad dudes.

It is speculated that ZVEX is involved too, due to the hand-painted enclosure and also cause Joel used to work there.

[baremountain]

Warning: long post ahead. Brevity has never been my strength
Got mine yesterday!! Serial #00002. Here's a writeup for those of you who care. Also mysteryroach, I didn't bother to take a gut shot yet, but if you look on Reddit/TGP someone else posted a gutshot. Not a Gravitas PCB onboard, but all the Gravitas functionality is pretty much intact. It came in a black stained CBA box, and the bottom is adorned with a CBA sticker, so I can 100% confirm Chase Bliss's involvement - surprise, surprise. The pedal itself has a gorgeous black coat with sparkles, and in the spots that it's not painted it looks like the Pretty Years. Also like the Pretty Years, the sparkles are difficult to capture on camera and it's one of those things you gotta see in person. The paint job is stellar and has a real nice, thick coat of finish on it so hopefully it lasts for quite some time.

Sounds-wise, this thing rips. The guy on Reddit/TGP said this, but this beast is a FUZZ first and a (state of the art) tremolo second. Once the Input knob (which controls input signal level) is anywhere past 10:00 you're already in pretty saturated territory, and gives a warm boosted clean tone when dialed down to the lowest possible settings. The color knob is absolutely nuts - akin to a tone knob. Unlike your traditional LPF sound, around 9-10:00 some high treble frequencies start to bleed in, creating an almost hissy sound. After about 1-2:00 the highs catch up to those bleeding frequencies and from there to about 4:00 you've got a nice heavy full-bodied fuzz. From 4:00 onward (with mid-level Input gain) you start to get really noisy textures and almost a compressy sound (maybe a low-cut/HPF would be a good way to describe it).
This may be blasphemy of sorts on this board, but I've not messed with a whole lot of gain pedals (ss/bs Team Awesome, Buzzz, & Pretty Years, Dwarfcraft Eau Claire, Sitori Harem & Fulltone OCD are the only ones I've owned, but I've played with a Fuzz Factory, Big Muff, Your & You're, and Fuck for at least a few minutes each) so I may be way off here, but the hand-painted design & the fuzz tone I hear make me think that ZVex is indeed the other company largely involved in this pedal's design.
Anyone who's played with a Gravitas probably knows what's up with the bottom 3 knobs (tremolo/modulation rate, depth, and balance/wave center) and the standard/harmonic/combo tremolo sounds. If you don't know about that, just watch the CBA videos about the Gravitas to hear an example. The slowest trem you can get is pretty dang slow and the fastest is into audio rate. Combine audio rate trem with cranked color and input and you've got yourself a wild ring-modulation-like oscillating fuzz that really reminded me of some of the sounds I got out of the Your & You're.
And of course the ramping takes everything to the next level. You can get seasick-style warbling tremolo if you just focus on ramping the trem knobs, but the real beauty of this pedal comes when you also ramp the gain-shaping knobs. I've never had, nor even heard/heard of, a pedal where the gain settings could auto-modulate, but WOWZA does that add a lot to the sound. What was once a weird tremolo is now a swirling psychedelic mishmash that sputters and stutters and spits your input signal out in little peaces. The Knobs demo shows this side of the pedal really well (I'm pretty sure when it gets really crazy he's just using the lefthand factory preset, which has pretty much everything ramping). I dialed in several sounds, but I only got four of them recorded with decent audio. You can find that on my Instagram if you want to hear it (@EvanGordon). I'll post more soon. I spent a little time running my Pretty Years into it & there were some interesting interactions between the two for sure. For my first CBA-style pedal, this thing has been a real treat so far and I'm excited to dive back in after I get off work today.

[baremountain]

Warning: long post ahead. Brevity has never been my strength
Got mine yesterday!! Serial #00002. Here's a writeup for those of you who care. Also mysteryroach, I didn't bother to take a gut shot yet, but if you look on Reddit/TGP someone else posted a gutshot. Not a Gravitas PCB onboard, but all the Gravitas functionality is pretty much intact. It came in a black stained CBA box, and the bottom is adorned with a CBA sticker, so I can 100% confirm Chase Bliss's involvement - surprise, surprise. The pedal itself has a gorgeous black coat with sparkles, and in the spots that it's not painted it looks like the Pretty Years. Also like the Pretty Years, the sparkles are difficult to capture on camera and it's one of those things you gotta see in person. The paint job is stellar and has a real nice, thick coat of finish on it so hopefully it lasts for quite some time.

Sounds-wise, this thing rips. The guy on Reddit/TGP said this, but this beast is a FUZZ first and a (state of the art) tremolo second. Once the Input knob (which controls input signal level) is anywhere past 10:00 you're already in pretty saturated territory, and gives a warm boosted clean tone when dialed down to the lowest possible settings. The color knob is absolutely nuts - akin to a tone knob. Unlike your traditional LPF sound, around 9-10:00 some high treble frequencies start to bleed in, creating an almost hissy sound. After about 1-2:00 the highs catch up to those bleeding frequencies and from there to about 4:00 you've got a nice heavy full-bodied fuzz. From 4:00 onward (with mid-level Input gain) you start to get really noisy textures and almost a compressy sound (maybe a low-cut/HPF would be a good way to describe it).
This may be blasphemy of sorts on this board, but I've not messed with a whole lot of gain pedals (ss/bs Team Awesome, Buzzz, & Pretty Years, Dwarfcraft Eau Claire, Sitori Harem & Fulltone OCD are the only ones I've owned, but I've played with a Fuzz Factory, Big Muff, Your & You're, and Fuck for at least a few minutes each) so I may be way off here, but the hand-painted design & the fuzz tone I hear make me think that ZVex is indeed the other company largely involved in this pedal's design.
Anyone who's played with a Gravitas probably knows what's up with the bottom 3 knobs (tremolo/modulation rate, depth, and balance/wave center) and the standard/harmonic/combo tremolo sounds. If you don't know about that, just watch the CBA videos about the Gravitas to hear an example. The slowest trem you can get is pretty dang slow and the fastest is into audio rate. Combine audio rate trem with cranked color and input and you've got yourself a wild ring-modulation-like oscillating fuzz that really reminded me of some of the sounds I got out of the Your & You're.
And of course the ramping takes everything to the next level. You can get seasick-style warbling tremolo if you just focus on ramping the trem knobs, but the real beauty of this pedal comes when you also ramp the gain-shaping knobs. I've never had, nor even heard/heard of, a pedal where the gain settings could auto-modulate, but WOWZA does that add a lot to the sound. What was once a weird tremolo is now a swirling psychedelic mishmash that sputters and stutters and spits your input signal out in little peaces. The Knobs demo shows this side of the pedal really well (I'm pretty sure when it gets really crazy he's just using the lefthand factory preset, which has pretty much everything ramping). I dialed in several sounds, but I only got four of them recorded with decent audio. You can find that on my Instagram if you want to hear it (@EvanGordon). I'll post more soon. I spent a little time running my Pretty Years into it & there were some interesting interactions between the two for sure. For my first CBA-style pedal, this thing has been a real treat so far and I'm excited to dive back in after I get off work today.

[baremountain]

Ugh sorry for the double post - my work computer can be wonky haha

[mysteryroach]

I might have to pay extra for faster shipping D: Reading these reviews are absolutely killing me. Seems like everybody's already gotten theirs. The next 3 weeks are going to be hell - especially if more demos are made.