The Chorus of the Cosmos... first demo page 34!

[sylnau]

With your recent test Ryan, how does the phase inverter switch sound on the v3?
Except the stereo output and the phase inverter any new sound available on the final version of the v3?

[Ryan]

Right, a cool silver black style finish hey Danny? I betcha we'll do something in that style for the v3 too, it's such a cool look, although I agree, it's cooler to have it in vinyl. We'll definitely start with zombies though, black and green zombies will be numero uno.

Some folks get excited about running pedals at higher power so I figured I was gonna disappoint some people with that no-18V announcement but I personally don't care about 18V, I like 9. Most importantly, I think the pedal should be perfectly tuned in for the power it receives and the standard is undeniably 9V so that's cool by me. (some pedals just don't care about the power much, like the RRR, as long as its caps are high enough rated it could actually be run at 30V, same with the Elements, but it ain't easy like that for a pedal like the Cosmichorus)

Syl, the phase inverter switch is a solid addition, I really like it.. it's like having two different chorus styles or voices to play with. The v2 has an out of phase wet signal with the dry signal and it sounds very cool in my opinion, but putting the wet signal in phase with the dry signal also has an interesting sound. A more resonant quality although it's hard to describe exactly. (I'm talking about in mono here) I'll show the two sounds in a demo as soon as I have a proper proto.. I'll do it with fuzz going into the chorus to really accentuate the different qualities of the two phases.

In stereo operation, the phase switch changes how the stereo spread works between the two amps... in phase it makes it sound like both amps are chorusing the same way, out of phase makes it sound like the chorus moves between the amps, sort of swirling from left to right.

But yeah, the stereoness and the phase inverter switch are the main changes to the circuit as far as sounds go. I'm going to leave the clock settings basically the same as the v2 although I'm using a different pot taper to leave the more exaggerated sounds at the end of the rotation rather than in the middle. I like those weird sounds but they need to be less prominent, my goal being that with all knobs at noon you have a killer chorus sound with any toggle setting.

The treble control goes a little brighter now too, so that's one other slight difference in the sound..

Also, you v2 guys probably noticed that the pedal is quite bassy when on, bassier than your bypassed signal, I evened that out a bit. You might also have noticed a very slight volume drop with the mix set at noon, especially with a drive pedal going into the v2, well I sorted that out too and gave the v3 a very small volume bump to keep it even.

I'd say the v3 offers all the sounds of the v2 but it's more refined, more careful with your guitar tone.

[Waterpilot]

Also, you v2 guys probably noticed that the pedal is quite bassy when on, bassier than your bypassed signal, I evened that out a bit. You might also have noticed a very slight volume drop with the mix set at noon, especially with a drive pedal going into the v2, well I sorted that out too and gave the v3 a very small volume bump to keep it even.

I'd say the v3 offers all the sounds of the v2 but it's more refined, more careful with your guitar tone.

I like bass! Any idea how it would effect a bass signal? I've got to be honest... I don't understand most of what you're talking about because I'm kinda dumb. I do find comfort in the fact that you and others do though and am looking forward to it! I do understand 9v and am fine with that. I

I kinda would like another noise pedal though...

[sylnau]

I'm only using 9v here I tried 18v for some pedal and don't like that (too clean or something). So 9v is fine with me.
That is some very good news Ryan. Hope finish #2 won't take too long.

[AngryGoldfish]

Right, a cool silver black style finish hey Danny? I betcha we'll do something in that style for the v3 too, it's such a cool look, although I agree, it's cooler to have it in vinyl. We'll definitely start with zombies though, black and green zombies will be numero uno.

Some folks get excited about running pedals at higher power so I figured I was gonna disappoint some people with that no-18V announcement but I personally don't care about 18V, I like 9. Most importantly, I think the pedal should be perfectly tuned in for the power it receives and the standard is undeniably 9V so that's cool by me. (some pedals just don't care about the power much, like the RRR, as long as its caps are high enough rated it could actually be run at 30V, same with the Elements, but it ain't easy like that for a pedal like the Cosmichorus)

Syl, the phase inverter switch is a solid addition, I really like it.. it's like having two different chorus styles or voices to play with. The v2 has an out of phase wet signal with the dry signal and it sounds very cool in my opinion, but putting the wet signal in phase with the dry signal also has an interesting sound. A more resonant quality although it's hard to describe exactly. (I'm talking about in mono here) I'll show the two sounds in a demo as soon as I have a proper proto.. I'll do it with fuzz going into the chorus to really accentuate the different qualities of the two phases.

In stereo operation, the phase switch changes how the stereo spread works between the two amps... in phase it makes it sound like both amps are chorusing the same way, out of phase makes it sound like the chorus moves between the amps, sort of swirling from left to right.

But yeah, the stereoness and the phase inverter switch are the main changes to the circuit as far as sounds go. I'm going to leave the clock settings basically the same as the v2 although I'm using a different pot taper to leave the more exaggerated sounds at the end of the rotation rather than in the middle. I like those weird sounds but they need to be less prominent, my goal being that with all knobs at noon you have a killer chorus sound with any toggle setting.

The treble control goes a little brighter now too, so that's one other slight difference in the sound..

Also, you v2 guys probably noticed that the pedal is quite bassy when on, bassier than your bypassed signal, I evened that out a bit. You might also have noticed a very slight volume drop with the mix set at noon, especially with a drive pedal going into the v2, well I sorted that out too and gave the v3 a very small volume bump to keep it even.

I'd say the v3 offers all the sounds of the v2 but it's more refined, more careful with your guitar tone.

Firstly, the only reason I've found for using higher voltages is to provide more amplitube for modulation and more headroom for dirt. With the Malekko Vibrato, for instance, it really should have been listed as 12v operation only, not 9 OR 12v, because a lot of people complained about a volume drop when the pedal was engaged, which almost totally went away when you upped the voltage. It was kind of a bad decision, in my opinion. It was a wonderful little thing at 12v, but cut too much volume at 9v.

Secondly, taming the depth of the Cosmichorus is definitely one thing I would personally appreciate. It would be another reason to reinvest into the design. The depth control currently never goes beyond 9 o'clock, and certainly not with either of the two outside waveforms, even at slower speeds and with less effect mixed in. That toggle is barely used as a result. Although I like the more unique chorus settings, I can achieve that with the tone, speed and mix knob, but the depth was just too much for subtle tweaking.

Thirdly, a brighter treble range is a great thing, IMO. I really liked the dark tones, but I did fancy a little more brightness so that I could reach that 80's glassy chorus sound every now and again.

And finally, the affect of the V2 Cosmichorus engaged in my amp's FX loop was definitely quite strange. It's a uniquely warming and sickly tone, but I would prefer more transparency.

[nightterrors]

stoked for this. NEED a better chorus. 80's DOD Stereo Chorus FX95 isn't doing the trick.

[Ryan]

I like bass! Any idea how it would effect a bass signal?

I like bass too, I love it! I'd never make the pedal cut any bass from you signal, that's a huge no-no, but for me and how I want my pedals to sound, having them add bass to your signal isn't ok either. I just don't like that, I want your tone to sound the same when you click the pedal on. And this is going to be a run of 500 right out the gates, a big quantity, the pedal big-leagues, and in my opinion you don't take any liberties with the signal's eq in the big-leagues.

And finally, the affect of the V2 Cosmichorus engaged in my amp's FX loop was definitely quite strange. It's a uniquely warming and sickly tone, but I would prefer more transparency.

You mean in your effect loop with gain, right?

Here's the thing, and this has come up so much with the Cosmichorus.. you can't expect the wet signal to have anywhere near the high frequency content of the dry signal when you use the pedal with distortion/fuzz/overdrive/lots of gain. The wet signal is the output of a 1970s delay processor with a signal to noise ratio of 60dB. As a reference, a top notch digital delay like the Empress has a S/N ratio of over 100dB. What that means is the output of the Cosmichorus has a ton of noise in it, a super ton.

Now the other thing is this... it's easy to make a signal as bright as a clean guitar signal. There isn't a ton of harmonic content there, it's doable. When you add gain to a clean signal though, through fuzz/distortion/overdrive/lots of gain what you're doing is dramatically increasing the harmonic (high frequency) content of the signal. You're filling that signal up with a ton of highs that weren't there before.

**Nobody should expect their Cosmichorus to be able to reproduce those added highs from gain** but this comes up a lot...

To keep the pedal even reasonably quiet you have to filter the hell out of the wet signal. You have to filter it in more than one place even, I'm talking filter it LOTS. It has to be in order to kill the clock noise and the excessive wooshing hissing noise you get through the BBD chip and yeah, that's even with a compander!

So with a clean guitar signal, it's easy for the treble control on the Cosmi to make the signal basically as bright and clear as when bypassed, with the treble knob all the way up. But when you click on some distortion you can't expect that control to do the same job, now it's fighting with such a heavily filtered signal that the extra highs just aren't there anymore and can't be restored by the treble knob... it's good but it ain't that good, no treble control is.

If a person wants a sparkly clean and shiny bright chorus pedal, get a digital one! If you want a warm, filtered chorus pedal, get an analog one! But don't expect that either will or should sound like the other!

[sylnau]

No matter what you do... I don't like chorus. But I love COSMICHORUS a lot.
I had a digital one in the past... T-Rex Twister... I didn't like that steryl sound.

By a batch of 500 do you mean 500 zombies?

[Ryan]

Nah, 500 pcbs is the minimum run we can start with, so we'll be geared up to make 500 of the pedal which is a pretty big commitment...

I don't know if we'll do one or two batches of zombies... probably two since every single store is going to order them... so 250 zombies and then we'll probably do one of the spacey finishes like the home sweet home or the green galaxy.

[sylnau]

A new finish... something like the white Elements would be cool as a second finish (full of sparkles).
Just my though.

[Ryan]

Well we're gonna make this pedal for years and years so you'll see tons of finishes for it..

The reason we're gonna do the ones I said first is because they get requested all the time, for a couple years now. Almost every email I get about the CC is one of those finishes, with the zombie being the most asked for pedal finish of all time by stores and customers. So we're gonna give the people what they want!

Then who knows, you're right, it could be a new finish after that, I never really know anyway, Tanya always surprises me with finish ideas...

[Eric!]

Stop being the coolest builder ever.

It makes it hard to not be able to throw money at you all the fucking time.

[AngryGoldfish]

You mean in your effect loop with gain, right?

Here's the thing, and this has come up so much with the Cosmichorus.. you can't expect the wet signal to have anywhere near the high frequency content of the dry signal when you use the pedal with distortion/fuzz/overdrive/lots of gain. The wet signal is the output of a 1970s delay processor with a signal to noise ratio of 60dB. As a reference, a top notch digital delay like the Empress has a S/N ratio of over 100dB. What that means is the output of the Cosmichorus has a ton of noise in it, a super ton.

Now the other thing is this... it's easy to make a signal as bright as a clean guitar signal. There isn't a ton of harmonic content there, it's doable. When you add gain to a clean signal though, through fuzz/distortion/overdrive/lots of gain what you're doing is dramatically increasing the harmonic (high frequency) content of the signal. You're filling that signal up with a ton of highs that weren't there before.

**Nobody should expect their Cosmichorus to be able to reproduce those added highs from gain** but this comes up a lot...

To keep the pedal even reasonably quiet you have to filter the hell out of the wet signal. You have to filter it in more than one place even, I'm talking filter it LOTS. It has to be in order to kill the clock noise and the excessive wooshing hissing noise you get through the BBD chip and yeah, that's even with a compander!

So with a clean guitar signal, it's easy for the treble control on the Cosmi to make the signal basically as bright and clear as when bypassed, with the treble knob all the way up. But when you click on some distortion you can't expect that control to do the same job, now it's fighting with such a heavily filtered signal that the extra highs just aren't there anymore and can't be restored by the treble knob... it's good but it ain't that good, no treble control is.

If a person wants a sparkly clean and shiny bright chorus pedal, get a digital one! If you want a warm, filtered chorus pedal, get an analog one! But don't expect that either will or should sound like the other!

I don't know about others here or eslewhere, but I never really use modulation with distortion from my amp. I just like the way it sounds in the loop (and with front-end distortion) because the loop in my Fryette is nicely buffered while my guitar to amplifier input is not as buffered. In other words, the fewer pedals I have out front the better.

I never expected the Cosmichorus to be pristine, to be honest. I like the way it modulates my clean signal as well as the wet signal. I mean, I would prefer a little more transparency, but I should say that I love the way it warms everything up and makes it super sickly and juicy sounding. It's kind of hard to explain, but it's particularly noticeable in the loop of my amp. But don't worry, I'm not hoping for anything unrealistic with the next version or with my current one.

It's funny you should mention the SuperDelay since I didn't like that with dirt very much. It sounded thin while the Cosmichorus sounds voluptuous and sloppy.

[sylnau]

Got a Cosmichorus v2 and a Superdelay in my amp fx loop. They sound nice there.

[Waterpilot]

I like bass! Any idea how it would effect a bass signal?

I like bass too, I love it! I'd never make the pedal cut any bass from you signal, that's a huge no-no, but for me and how I want my pedals to sound, having them add bass to your signal isn't ok either. I just don't like that, I want your tone to sound the same when you click the pedal on. And this is going to be a run of 500 right out the gates, a big quantity, the pedal big-leagues, and in my opinion you don't take any liberties with the signal's eq in the big-leagues.

Got it! Perfect! And only 499 will be available because one will be mine.