They have arrived!
As quite a few know, I've been hunting for some theSYLE pedals these past two weeks. I have acquired a few other pedals along the way, but most importantly I got some theSYLE (aka Holowon). So I thought I'd make a thread sharing my thoughts and some warnings.First, the warning. The dude who makes the Syle and Holowon pedals, Bill York, is extremely unreliable. There are quite a few records in the depths of the internet that support this and I had a bit of run into it myself. I bought three of the pedals from Bernunzio Guitar Shop in Rochester, New York. Apparently he lives right around the corner from them. And is still building from time to time. Anywho, I wanted to buy the Photo Hammer delay as well from Bernunzio, but Bill had it. They tried contacting him for a week and thought he would come by the store but he didn't...
and I just gave up and told them to send me the three pedals they have in the store. Therefore, I have a Hardwire delay and a Memory Boy Deluxe coming my way. ANYWHO, NOW TO THE PEDS.
First, the Umiom Distortion. This things kicks a lot of butt and can hurt a lot of ears. I can't turn the frequency knob past noon without getting some intense treble ear killing tones. Other than that, when the frequency knob is behind noon, it creates wonderful and versatile distortion. Has a built in noise gate too which add some more gain in certain settings. Thanks to this guy I don't think I'll be needing Earthbound Audio anytime soon. Hell, I'm thinking of picking up a second one in the future because there are too many tones I like in this box.
Solvent Blender: Now this is the pedal I was most excited about. A True bypass/feedback looper with dry/wet blend and plenty of volume to boost any quiet effects. I can add a clean blend to any fuzz and make it feedback/oscillate? DIBS. In the photo I have the Hardwire set to reverse delay (the reverse mode is 100% wet signal on the hardwire) so I can have my clean blended in. I spent an hour having the hardwire reverse looping chords and fuzzing it up with the mind eraser. Definitely one of the most useful looping pedals I've come across.
Mind Eraser: This one I have owned before and I bought it back from Kosta. A very interactive, unpredictable gated fuzzstortion that is quiet and more meant for textures. There's some serious voodoo magic in this guy, I can't explain. It makes other effects act strangely even when it isn't engaged. It can become more harsh and trebley by rolling your guitars tone knob down... When I had my Sunny Day Delay and used the mind eraser the delays would only appear when I strummed and when I stopped playing the delays would disappear entirely from the signal. No repeats what so ever unless a signal was running through the line. Odd shit, and I will never understand it, but I will always love it.
Spacematic Warmer: Pretty basic Tremolo. Sine and square wave, incredibly fast and really slow. Not an end all be all tremolo but definitely fun to play with.
Here are a couple the stores that still (will?) have the SYLE:
http://www.axeandyoushallreceive.com/pr ... yle-pedals
http://bernunzio.com/category/accessori ... s-effects/
Ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/the-syle-proto- ... 500wt_1169
So that covers the gist of theSYLE. I also received a Gloom Drive from Dirge effects, which is uber sexy fuzz, and emo mann (randel_07) Torn's Peaker/Aenima clone, which is quite possibly the meanest, ugliest torn's peaker I've owned. Very E13.
Hope this thread was useful!
