After a year+ long over-haul the Cosmichorus is finally (nearly!) ready for production again! The pcbs are ordered and the enclosures are ordered and it's pre-order time!
Firstly, the features of the Cosmichorus v3:
- *Fully analog BBD chorus using MN3007 chips
*Controls include MIX (fully dry to fully wet, fully wet is true pitch vibrato), LEVEL (adjusts the wet signal level, dry signal is fixed at unity), TREBLE (active eq control to cut or boost the treble content of the wet signal), CLOCK (adjusts the intensity of the effect by increasing the delay time), RATE (huge range of rate smoothly distributed on one knob turn), HOLD (adjusts the rise/fall time of the chorus signal when in Hold mode)
*Stereo in and out (using TRS jacks) with two identical but separate Cosmichorus circuits, can also do mono in stereo out
*Soft touch switching with true bypass using relays
*3 different clock range toggle-switch settings for 3 different intensities of chorus effect, further controlled with the Clock knob
*Hold Mode toggle-switch lets you engage the chorus effect by holding down the stomp switch, fades out when you release the stomp (with the Hold knob at min the effects starts and stops instantly, at maximum the effect takes a few seconds to fully fade in when the stomp is pressed and a few seconds to fully fade out when the stomp is released)
*Phase inversion toggle puts the wet signal either in-phase or out-of-phase with the dry signal. In mono this changes the character of the mixed sound, in stereo it changes the width of the stereo spread between the amps
*Expression pedal input for controlling the rate
*Rate knob is clear with LED underneath that flashes with rate of effect (looks cool, man)
*CV input for controlling the chorus effect, can also be used with expression pedal for manually sweeping the effect
Check out this video for a quick sampling of all the features in stereo:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrQnsLkbDA4[/youtube]
The Pre-Order Package includes the following:
- 1 x Dr. Scientist Cosmichorus v3 in your choice of the following powder-coated and screen-printed finishes: Sparkle grey stylized Home Sweet Home or Green and Black Zombies, numbered out of 100 and signed inside by Tanya and I. (The pedal comes with a lifetime warranty.) (There are no pics yet, soon as we can there will be, but these finishes will look totally awesome.)
1 x Dr. Scientist T-shirt in your choice of size (S,M,L,XL)
2 x Dr. Scientist stickers
2 x Dr. Scientist guitar picks
The shirt looks like this:
Here's how the Pre-Order Package ordering shall go down:
The package price is $275 CAD including shipping in North America, $290 CAD including shipping to Europe/Asia/Australia. (I'm sorry about that, overseas guys, your shipping will cost me $35 and it won't include tracking. *apologies*) (The MSRP for the v3 will be $325 in stores, so you're saving $50 plus shipping, a t-shirt, and goodies.)
You don't have to pay the full price to get on the pre-order list, you can put down whatever deposit you feel comfortable with. The 100 Pre-Order Packages will be numbered and sold on a first-come-first-served basis with people paying full price getting the first ones. So the first person to put down $10 will be on the pre-order list. The first person to put down $275 will get Cosmichorus #1. The second person to put down $10 will also be on the pre-order list. The second person to put down $275 will get Cosmichorus #2. (The partial deposits will still be first-come-first-served, just after the full payments.)
I will begin shipping the packages at the start of December. The people who paid full price up front will receive their packages first. The people who put down deposits will then be asked to pay the remainder and then their packages will ship. I will make all 100 packages in the month of December, it'll take me the whole month to make all 100 but I'll bust my butt to get them all in the mail by Christmas.
To get yourself a Pre-Order Package please send your deposit or full payment to paypal@drscientist.ca, in CAD, please, and leave me a note saying what finish you'd like and what t-shirt size you'd like. You can also email me those details if you don't want the PayPal people reading about them, ryan@drscientist.ca.
*Disclaimers and Details*
We've gone through this box and pcb ordering process a few times now and it's always gone as expected, but the possibility remains for delays in ways that we can't predict... like a problem with the production of either boxes or boards or a problem with shipping... I'm expecting it to go smoothly and predictably like it has in the past. In the event of an unforeseen problem or hold-up, I'll make sure to be as informative as possible about it but we won't be able to do refunds. The deposit and the Pre-Order Package are non-refundable, no returns, I'm sorry but that is the way it's got to be. And no, the birthday discount doesn't count for this pre-order.
*Cosmichorus Caveats*
This ultimate Cosmichorus pedal flat out owns in every way and that's no exaggeration but with any analog BBD device there's some details that should be covered so there's no false expectations, as this kind of BBD circuit is always a balance of sound quality vs noise levels vs headroom.
The Cosmichorus v3 doesn't have infinite headroom. It probably won't be happy with your 18V bass or your line level effects loop or your extreme high output humbuckers fed into a SHO... you'll clip it. (There's a level trim on the pcb that you can turn down if you have clipping, but I'm just saying, it ain't got unlimited headroom.)
The Cosmichorus v3 isn't 'dead silent'. The MN3007 BBD chips have a S/N ratio of 60dB... half that of a CD player... so the wet signal has a noise floor, even with the compander this noise floor is unavoidable. Depending on how you set the mix, the level, the treble, and the clock, you could make a lot of hiss. I don't mean to say it's a hissy pedal, it's quite quiet, but the controls can take you to a noisy place, depending.
Thank Yous
OK, that's my spiel! Feel free to ask me any and all questions you have about all this, either here or at ryan@drscientist.ca, and thank you very much for reading all this and considering it! Tanya and I appreciate it very much and we're really excited to be making the Cosmichorus again!
