Eddies

[coldbrightsunlight]

Part of my afternoon was occupied by putting an EHX Eddy through the paces. It sounds just as lush in person as the demo and seems more like a Small Clone than a Polychorus in terms of texture. The vibrato mode is chewy and dense with plenty of seasick warble. My only gripe is that stock sensitivity of the envelope trigger is set absurdly high, i.e., the input signal has to be pretty hot for anything to happen. Still, definitely not bad for 99 USD street.

thx for review! I probably don't need this but it seems very neat.

[Dowi]

Your sensitivity concern remains even when you've adjusted the ENV knob? I wonder if there's a trim on the inside?

Asking the real questions here. Maybe ck3 can check the insides?

[dubkitty]

99 bucks, huh? well, sign me right the fuck up.

it's interesting how it does all kinds of odd shit while retaining the characteristic sort of boxy, controlled, slightly artificial sound of many EHX pedals. this makes it sound slightly unexciting in the demo where it appears in isolation or with conventional overdrive, but could make it a great building block in your signal chain that gives you the warble without tons of tone coloration. which is downright weird for a BBD [insert Bell Biv DeVoe gif HERE] analog circuit which one would expect to distort up the wazoo. definitely has my interest.

[dubkitty]

Your sensitivity concern remains even when you've adjusted the ENV knob? I wonder if there's a trim on the inside?

Asking the real questions here. Maybe ck3 can check the insides?

to extend the question a bit further, how adjustable (if at all) is the decay rate when you use the envelope to control vibrato? it seemed to ramp off awfully fast in the video, and a longer slowdown time would help with doing the Leslie thing as well as for atmospherics in general. i suppose you could use an expression pedal to control it, but not having to do the adjustments in real time has its advantages.

[ck3]

Your sensitivity concern remains even when you've adjusted the ENV knob? I wonder if there's a trim on the inside?

Asking the real questions here. Maybe ck3 can check the insides?

to extend the question a bit further, how adjustable (if at all) is the decay rate when you use the envelope to control vibrato? it seemed to ramp off awfully fast in the video, and a longer slowdown time would help with doing the Leslie thing as well as for atmospherics in general. i suppose you could use an expression pedal to control it, but not having to do the adjustments in real time has its advantages.

Finally had some time off from work today to address abovementioned queries. There were no trimmers under the backplate, and internal components appear to be of the micro SMD variety. The ENV +/- knob affects how dramatically either the rate or depth are impacted by an input signal and has no discernable effect upon envelope sensitivity. I'm thinking that the stacked P90's on my main axe are pretty weak compared to most pickups, and traditional humbuckers may achieve more consistent results without having to practically knock strings out of tune. Vibrato ramping seems pretty swift, though may vary if the ENV +/- knob is tweaked. I plan to conduct additional pickup (including humbuckers and active vs passive) and vibrato tests later today and now have a Sea Machine, Futura, and Wardenclyffe on the same board for comparison purposes.

[Dowi]

Thanks for the report. No sensitivity control on an envelope-based pedal seems to be a major oversight. P90's may be weaker than humbucker, but If the pedal reacts poorly to those ones I can't imagine the response with cheap single coils.

[Dandolin]

thanks for that update ck3

I've had other envelope triggered pedals where I needed to put a boost upstream to get better triggering, but that is a pita, especially if said boost throws other pedals off...could throw the boost and envelope pedal in a tbp loop together, but now we're getting into extra cost/complexity/size considerations, so...merhumblegrumble.

[ck3]

Humbuckers (especially active ones) seem to trip the Eddy's envelope more readily than my Agile Les Paul copy's P90's, though clipping often inadvertently happens with the amount of thrust required. Paradox Effects was wise to include a sensitivity control on the Futura.

There was no absolute "winner" when directly comparing the Eddy, Sea Machine, Wardenclyffe, and Futura. Each has its own unique charm and textural niche. The most surprising outcome today was finding a chor-vibe setting on the Sea Machine with the perfect degree of eerieness for dark psychedelia.

[Dandolin]

The Sea Machine is really nice and tends to get over-looked among the newer entries....