Hamstead Odyssey anyone?

[Christophe]

Hi there,
I'm quite surprised there's been no talk about that pedal here yet... It sounds like a new breakthrough in the world of dirt pedals; gain ranges from boost to fuzz, powerful eq you can set pre or post dirt, several levels of clipping... Seems like this beast addresses a lot of issues. Is it too TGP for Ilf?

Has anyone tried it? Best demo so far is here, at 2:10:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCACyqhJBSU&t=1158s
(sorry, embed doesn't seem to work...)

[Chankgeez]

Hi there,
I'm quite surprised there's been no talk about that pedal here yet... It sounds like a new breakthrough in the world of dirt pedals; gain ranges from boost to fuzz, powerful eq you can set pre or post dirt, several levels of clipping... Seems like this beast addresses a lot of issues. Is it too TGP for Ilf?

Has anyone tried it? Best demo so far is here, at 2:10:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCACyqhJBSU[/youtube]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCACyqhJBSU
(sorry, embed doesn't seem to work...)

You have to get rid of the "s' after the "http" and also rid yourself of the time stamp to get it to embed.

[Inconuucl]

How is it a breakthrough? Really nothing genuinely new has come up for dirt since the Molecular Junction was made, and even that only sounds marginally different. How does this compare to the Aescher Europa Resonator?

[popvulture]

Is it too TGP for Ilf?

Very, haha.

[Doctor X]

It's very deep, I haven't been able to pin it down.
Most other pedals I settle on one or two settings, I'm still figuring this one out.
I haven't found it goes gradually from clean to drive, it gets heavy and saturated very quickly.
The middle clipping setting is very raw.
This demo is accurate:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta2ciEoj7Kk[/youtube]

[Christophe]

Is it too TGP for Ilf?

Very, haha.

Hé hé! I thought so!

How is it a breakthrough? Really nothing genuinely new has come up for dirt since the Molecular Junction was made, and even that only sounds marginally different. How does this compare to the Aescher Europa Resonator?

Well, maybe "breakthrough" is too strong a term, but it looks like a more versatile OD than most.
Since we discuss issues like "how can I beef up my rat", "what's a Hotcake without blurred lows", "I need a new distortion", etc... well this Odyssey might cover that ground, since you can approach a lot of basic dirt sounds with it, and still have a lot of settings to elaborate from...
I think it might be worth investigating... Just curious!

[jrfox92]

Since we discuss issues like "how can I beef up my rat", "what's a Hotcake without blurred lows", "I need a new distortion", etc... well this Odyssey might cover that ground, since you can approach a lot of basic dirt sounds with it, and still have a lot of settings to elaborate from...

Honestly, a lot of that is just...I don't know if I'd say laziness or ignorance per se, but stuff like that definitely tends to come from a place of not really knowing enough about pedal circuits to recognize how easy it can be to tailor the circuits and customize them for maximum versatility (I mean, a good majority of overdrives and fuzzes are as simple as an op amp with some gain control, clipping, filtering, and maybe another op amp or transistor boost as a recovery stage).

The pedal's interesting enough, but it falls prey to the "obscure amp company builds straightforward drive pedal and then tries to make it just unique enough to charge double what it's worth and just accessible enough that it's a pretty boring pedal in general" trope. I mean, it seems like they saw the Jackson Audio Prism and went, "what if we did that, but added an EQ to it?"

[coldbrightsunlight]

Sounds pretty damn good to me, magic fairy tone or not.

[popvulture]

Yeah I always love hearing new ODs—they're by far my most-owned type of pedal, and I'll fully admit that I'm a bit more susceptible to that TGP toan pixie dust than plenty of people on here.

But. Still haven't found anything that beats a Mini yet (for me). And I must say, that's been a wonderful place at which to arrive...

[Christophe]

Since we discuss issues like "how can I beef up my rat", "what's a Hotcake without blurred lows", "I need a new distortion", etc... well this Odyssey might cover that ground, since you can approach a lot of basic dirt sounds with it, and still have a lot of settings to elaborate from...

Honestly, a lot of that is just...I don't know if I'd say laziness or ignorance per se, but stuff like that definitely tends to come from a place of not really knowing enough about pedal circuits to recognize how easy it can be to tailor the circuits and customize them for maximum versatility (I mean, a good majority of overdrives and fuzzes are as simple as an op amp with some gain control, clipping, filtering, and maybe another op amp or transistor boost as a recovery stage).

The pedal's interesting enough, but it falls prey to the "obscure amp company builds straightforward drive pedal and then tries to make it just unique enough to charge double what it's worth and just accessible enough that it's a pretty boring pedal in general" trope. I mean, it seems like they saw the Jackson Audio Prism and went, "what if we did that, but added an EQ to it?"

Well my topic was motivated by the simple fact that almost every new pedal out there is discussed here at some point and this one wasn't...

I see what you mean, but what we find inspiring in a pedal is very personal, there's no place for objectivity. What if you find the Odyssey inspiring for your playing and not the Prism? Let's pretend they share the same circuit, one could inspire you more than the other, regardless of the price...

Still haven't found anything that beats a Mini yet (for me). And I must say, that's been a wonderful place at which to arrive...

Still intrigued by the Mini. I wish I could try one out...

[popvulture]

Still intrigued by the Mini. I wish I could try one out...

If you ever get a chance, you definitely should. I like them so much, I bought two; the bias knob covers such a crazy range of sound, from fuzzy/splatty to more focused, so I wanted to have both sounds available. The big plus is that they're also very reasonable price-wise, but I guess that also very much depends on where you're located.

Also, the SS/BS Fuck is fantastic.

On the topic of currently attention-grabbing ODs, the new ProAnalog Manticore V2 is pretty damn fantastic sounding. Almost bought one this weekend, but alas decided to stick with the Mini. Felt good

[Chankgeez]

I think I'd be more interested in tryin' the Manticore than the Odyssey.

[popvulture]

It's very cool. The "drive" knob is a clean boost that runs before the gain circuit, really does a nice job of adding harmonics etc. That field of pedal is littered with all kinds of catch phrases, but I would describe it as sort of "broad spectrum" enhancement, haha.

[Chankgeez]

I still wouldn't mind messin' around with an Odyssey, but it seems like it's too Swiss Army knife to me.

The Manticore's more specific, but since it's loosely based on the Klon, I pretty much know what it can sorta do.

[popvulture]

Hmm. I think the original Manticore was, but this one feels like it's gone into different territory. It can get a TON gainier than a Klon, and also a lot more tweakable. Granted I kept it on sorta lower gain because that's more my thing, but seems like it could indeed be kinda Swiss Army.