Tasty Chips Integral Convolution Reverb Pedal

[Blood_mountain]

Anyone have one?

https://www.tastychips.nl/product/integral/

I just ordered one, and am excited to try it out. I was gassing pretty hard for the Poly Verbs, but there were a few things about it that I didn’t like - it can’t do 100% wet, no expression capability, etc. This seems like a cool alternative.

Would be interested to know if anyone has experience with it.

[dubkitty]

i love the way he pronounces "slew" as "schleu."

[Blood_mountain]

i love the way he pronounces "slew" as "schleu."

Yes, the Dutch accent is quite endearing. Maybe I’ll make a “Schleu” IR and use it as a reverb.

[dubkitty]

when i was dating i wished i could have found a woman with a Dutch or Irish accent. Dutch-accented English can be a hoot when combined with regional pronunciations.

[le lambin]

I haven’t tried this but I have my eye on it…being able to sample directly into the pedal is pretty awesome

[Blood_mountain]

I haven’t tried this but I have my eye on it…being able to sample directly into the pedal is pretty awesome

Yeah, that was definitely a major selling point for me. I always like the idea of being able to craft external sounds to manipulate, but sometimes get bored with the process because ADHD and instant gratification and all that...so I think it will be interesting to be able to record a sound directly in and then utilize it as a "reverb". I'm definitely more interested in it from an experimental effect perspective than from pristine reverb creation; there are a ton of companies that do an amazing job of that already.

I was emailing back and forth with the builder Joeri, and he was saying a similar thing, and that one of his favourite IRs that is included with the pedal is of drumsticks being dragged across window blinds, which creates a weird percussive delay - say no more, I'm sold.

The major sellers for me were:

- Direct recording; confirmed with the builder it's going to record an IR of whatever it hears at the input, so you could essentially "sample" any reverb type you can get your hands on, or creative super interesting IRs with other effects - fuzzy, distorted wails, delays, etc.
- Dual convolution - you have two IRs active, one in the foreground and one in the background, and you can use expression to modulate the crossfading of those two
- Selectable Analog Dry Through or Full Wet - this was one of the things I didn't like about the Poly Verbs - it can't do full wet, which seems like a major miss for a pedal that has a lot of experimental potential. Integral can be full wet, or you can select Analog dry through, and then your input signal goes through at Unity.
- more control over parameters - the Verbs is actually pretty basic in terms of overall control; you have onset, mix (again, can't do fully wet), low cut and "smoosh". Cool feature set, but the integral is a lot deeper in terms of control over the stereo spread, IR pitch, attack/release envelope, onboard editing of the EQ and "position" of the IR - it just seems to cover a lot more ground in a more intuitive and complete way.
- expression control - totally missing from the Verbs, which seems crazy to me. With integral you can control the pitch, crossfade, position or wet level via expression. Joeri did say it's not set up to accept CV, and while technically expression inputs i/should/i be compatible with CV, this is not tested and would not be covered under warranty if you blew it up with incorrect voltage...I may still try to figure it out because I love the idea of being able to automate the crossfade of two different IRs.
- It also ends up being more affordable than the Poly Verbs.

Poly Verbs seems awesome, don't get me wrong. This one just seemed to fit more with what I wanted to do.

Yeah, so I hope it's dope and lives up to my expectations. I should have it sometime next week. He is out of stock now, but I believe he said he'd have more available in the next 2-3 weeks.

[le lambin]

That all sounds right up my alley- thanks Mr mountain I may pick one of these up

[dubkitty]

this thing could potentially be the One Reverb/Processor To Rule Them all for ambient, post-rock, and shoegaze types. i'm immediately thinking of Slowdive's multiple Eventides obsoleted. now, if i could just understand it i'd be getting somewhere.

[le lambin]

Finally got around to trying out the Integral- here are my thoughts. I am only using it in mono at the moment, so I can’t speak to its stereo width control:
-it comes with a bunch of IRs and they sound great for the most part. Out of the normal sounding spaces, I only liked a few- I thought most sounded strange and very artificial. I was surprised since they are intended to sound realistic. Maybe this was user error, or just playing it in mono. At any rate, the effect-y ones are awesome- especially the spectral stuff and the resonators. Instantly started playing things I’ve never played before, very fun and I look forward to exploring more of this stuff.
-the controls are easy to understand and the screen is informative and easy to read. The UI isn’t mind blowing but it doesn’t get in the way of using it either.
-it has a full size USB port to plug USB sticks or sd cards to load impulses- very nice
-the ability to record anything directly into the pedal and immediately use it as a reverb is a cool feature, but it’s more cumbersome than I imagined. You have to use the input jacks to record in, meaning you have to unplug your guitar and plug in whatever device you’re playing audio from. There is an instrument/line level switch but it isn’t perfect- I still got clipping sometimes and wish there was some kind of input gain control. Recording is easy, but it’s difficult to know if the input signal is too loud/quiet until you finish recording and play it back, meaning you have to guess and check a few times before it’s at a good level. Finally, there’s very limited editing capabilities once you’ve recorded the audio. Overall, it’s more convenient to record and prepare the audio you want to use as an impulse in a DAW or something, then load it into the Integral via USB. I’m sure the more I use it, the better sounding impulses I’ll get, but it’s not the spontaneous audio capturing device I thought it would be.
-I used a zoom recorder to record 4 impulses: a metal slide striking a half empty water bottle, running a drumstick across window shades, running a drumstick across the outside of a metal trash can, and running a mallet across an empty wooden box. The first one was just bad- I’m new to this sort of recording so it was probably just a dumb idea. The other three had potential to be very cool, but I really wanted to EQ the audio and the Integral only has a HPF.

Overall, this is a cool pedal that I need to spend more time with to really get the most out of. Next I’ll try stereo playback, and messing with recording some more.

[le lambin]

Okay second round with Integral- I hooked it up mono in, stereo out and it sounds very, very good. The key with getting a "natural" sound, with guitar anyway, is to set the wet mix a little lower than you normally would and set the width control to noon or a little higher.

I also set it 100% wet with a longer, more reverberant IR and, with the adjustable attack, got some incredible sounding ambient-ness.

The pitch control is interesting- its not a pitch shifter, i.e. it doesn't just pitch the reverb tails up by an octave or whatever. According to the manual, it "changes the timing and formant" of the IR. To my ears, it seems to emphasize different frequencies- higher pitch emphasizes treble frequencies, and lower pitch really gets some cool bassy reverb.

Next I'll try some creative uses of the crossfade control, and I'll load in some other third party IRs, starting with the Modcaf Testchamber IRs.

[Blood_mountain]

Oof, sounds awesome.
I’m still waiting on mine!!

[Blood_mountain]

Okay second round with Integral- I hooked it up mono in, stereo out and it sounds very, very good. The key with getting a "natural" sound, with guitar anyway, is to set the wet mix a little lower than you normally would and set the width control to noon or a little higher.

I also set it 100% wet with a longer, more reverberant IR and, with the adjustable attack, got some incredible sounding ambient-ness.

The pitch control is interesting- its not a pitch shifter, i.e. it doesn't just pitch the reverb tails up by an octave or whatever. According to the manual, it "changes the timing and formant" of the IR. To my ears, it seems to emphasize different frequencies- higher pitch emphasizes treble frequencies, and lower pitch really gets some cool bassy reverb.

Next I'll try some creative uses of the crossfade control, and I'll load in some other third party IRs, starting with the Modcaf Testchamber IRs.

Finally got mine today (it arrived at my office a week ago and I've been on vacation). Looking forward to trying it out. How has it been going with yours?

[le lambin]

Nice! I’m interested to hear what you think.

I didn’t dive into the weird stuff yet- I’ve just been using it as a stereo reverb with a digital piano going into it- it’s such a cool way to close my eyes and pretend I’m playing piano in all these different places. There’s so much potential for strange sounds though- much to explore!

[dubkitty]

possibly dumb/obvious question: could you use the recording capability to capture the sound of a particular space from a recording--e.g. the King's Chamber, Royal Albert Hall, that mausoleum in Scandinavia the guys improvise in--and more-or-less reproduce the space?

[shikawkee]

possibly dumb/obvious question: could you use the recording capability to capture the sound of a particular space from a recording--e.g. the King's Chamber, Royal Albert Hall, that mausoleum in Scandinavia the guys improvise in--and more-or-less reproduce the space?

Yes, but you can also add those particular spaces to the unit via USB. There's a great IR of Vigeland that was available for free online I added to my TC Integral. Then you can tweak to taste with the internal EQ.