Sometimes Brian Wampler should just shut his whore mouth...

[univalve]

I love Brian! Rad dude, rad pedals.
Thanks for droping in!

[Chankgeez]

The harmonic antagonizer is just an ulyface and the extra knobs don't even do anything. It makes everything sound like this only without the rainbow colors.

There were three complaints we heard all the time about the noisebox.
1 hard gating
2 gate/squelch control being inside.
3 loss of low end.

1 I just hit the input harder if I don't want as much gating
2 I didn't even know there's a gate/squelch control
3 I just EQ in more low end after

Thanks, Brian, can't wait to hear some more clips.

[Dandolin]

Thanks, Brian!

I love it when Brian talks dirty dirt tech. I can spend hours trying to dumb down the explanations enough so my puny fuzz brain can interpret them

No, actually, while I'm no engineer, I do work with them all day every day, and Brian is a very good engineer-excellent summary! It takes all kinds in the fx world, but I appreciate that Brian really knows what he wants to do, how to do it, and what he done did so he can explain it well.

I'm not sure I'm ready to move on from my Noise Box. It was my first of a full handful of Subdecay pedals, and while there are times I think to use [*]gasp[*] a different pedal, I never really wished that pedal were different--love what it does, love coming up with little ways to make it behave just a little bit differently. Your description has got me intrigued though Brian--I'd love to hear a side by side demo comparison and some more in-depth tweaking of the pedal....

Also...love the way your pedals evolve.

Well designed, well engineered, well built, well explained.

ilovefuzz ilovefx ilovesubdecay ilovethisplace

Erm, gushy Dando, off to find that shamwow...

[brian m]

Nomination seconded.

Beers + information = 100% good.

Agreed

Really interesting post Brian

Out of interest, what happened to the voice control on the Noise Box - or rather is there any equivalent to the different sounds you can produce with that in the Antagonizer? And chaos?

The blend has taken it's place. The voice knob on the noisebox acted like both a tone control and a mix control, though what they mixed between were somewhat similar. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I found I always set the voice knob to one extreme or the other.

:!!!: Thanks, Brian!

I love it when Brian talks dirty dirt tech. I can spend hours trying to dumb down the explanations enough so my puny fuzz brain can interpret them

No, actually, while I'm no engineer, I do work with them all day every day, and Brian is a very good engineer-excellent summary! It takes all kinds in the fx world, but I appreciate that Brian really knows what he wants to do, how to do it, and what he done did so he can explain it well.

I'm not sure I'm ready to move on from my Noise Box. It was my first of a full handful of Subdecay pedals, and while there are times I think to use [*]gasp[*] a different pedal, I never really wished that pedal were different--love what it does, love coming up with little ways to make it behave just a little bit differently. Your description has got me intrigued though Brian--I'd love to hear a side by side demo comparison and some more in-depth tweaking of the pedal....

Also...love the way your pedals evolve.

Well designed, well engineered, well built, well explained.

ilovefuzz ilovefx ilovesubdecay ilovethisplace

Erm, gushy Dando, off to find that shamwow...

I'm not sure I'm really an engineer. I'm marginally educated. If I have an idea I'll learn a few new tricks if necessary. I also worked with engineers occasionally at my old job. Most were interested in off the shelf solutions for off the shelf problems. Pretty dry and boring most of the time.

What usually excites me is the out on the edges stuff that many people will just deem unusable, because it doesn't fit in their uber-conservative "establishment" rock and roll mindset that thinks nothing new can be done after 1975. Seriously what happened to rock and roll? Well that's another topic entirely.

[insubordination]

The Vitruvian is probably my favorite pedal ever, so I'm excited to check out the Harmonic Antagonizer at some point. To unify this thread I think the Keeley Absolute Wurst would pair well with the Harm. Ant. Now to find ~$400 to find out!

[D.o.S.]

I have never played any of your pedals, to my knowledge. Where should I start.

[Inconuucl]

I've been meaning to get the new Starlight flanger, but other pedals have stunted me financially.

On that note, sound wise what's the difference between the mkII and the old deluxe? Or is the actual flanging bit the same?

[brian m]

I've been meaning to get the new Starlight flanger, but other pedals have stunted me financially.

On that note, sound wise what's the difference between the mkII and the old deluxe? Or is the actual flanging bit the same?

The DLX used an MN3007 with a voltage doubler. It's tuned to be more of a noise maker than vintage-ish with self oscillation.
The V2 is different. It uses an MN3207 running just above 8 volts. While the circuit is different it's tuned closer to the MXR117 sound (my favorite of vintage flange)

We may do another DLX, but the old one was a huge pain in the ass. It seemed like every pedal we built needed to be taken apart and fixed for some reason. Even at $379 I think we may have been losing money on each one.

[Dandolin]

I'm not sure I'm really an engineer. I'm marginally educated. If I have an idea I'll learn a few new tricks if necessary. I also worked with engineers occasionally at my old job. Most were interested in off the shelf solutions for off the shelf problems. Pretty dry and boring most of the time.

What usually excites me is the out on the edges stuff that many people will just deem unusable, because it doesn't fit in their uber-conservative "establishment" rock and roll mindset that thinks nothing new can be done after 1975. Seriously what happened to rock and roll? Well that's another topic entirely.

No disrepect intended-I guess I've been blessed to work with some engineers that like to get a lil creative. I love my guys, but you're right maybe the old school engineers were a little bit modular, boxy even. My college room-mate was an engineer and he was textbook boring; hell, I don't think I even saw him blink more than twice in three years.

You're certainly a far cry from some of the fx "artists" who seem to splatter solder on a vero and call it a design stage (not that there's anything wrong with a little serendipity some times- I like great sounds whether stumbled upon, the result of incorrect/malfunctioning thinking/equipment or meticulously planned) , and we don't have to get into the cloners and goopers. I appreciate the time and effort you put into r&d is all I'm saying, and your demos illustrate you've got a creative musical ear. Makes for a nice combo with solder and rock'n'roll.

Rock'n'roll electronics in excelsis!

As always, thanks for coming by for teh gear chitchatz.

[Chankgeez]

The voice knob on the noisebox acted like both a tone control and a mix control, though what they mixed between were somewhat similar. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I found I always set the voice knob to one extreme or the other.

That's exactly how I always set the voice knob too.

I have never played any of your pedals, to my knowledge. Where should I start.

I like the Octasynth and the Noise Box. Looking forward to the Antagonizer. Apparently, I like the envelope-y SubDecay pedals.

[lordgalvar]

The voice knob on the noisebox acted like both a tone control and a mix control, though what they mixed between were somewhat similar. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I found I always set the voice knob to one extreme or the other.

That's exactly how I always set the voice knob too.

I have never played any of your pedals, to my knowledge. Where should I start.

I like the Octasynth and the Noise Box. Looking forward to the Antagonizer. Apparently, I like the envelope-y SubDecay pedals.

Yea, Octasynth is awesome. It singlehandedly got my wife to want to play an instrument again. She had no idea such neat stuff was coming out of the pedal world.

My love for the Rattle Crow and Biloma makes me think I would really like playing one of these Antagonizers too.

[phantasmagorovich]

The Vitruvian is probably my favorite pedal ever!

I loved the idea on paper but it never sounded right to me on guitar. I fucking love to sing through it though!

[insubordination]

The Vitruvian is probably my favorite pedal ever!

I loved the idea on paper but it never sounded right to me on guitar. I fucking love to sing through it though!

Totally! I just tried that recently, it was awesome.

[jrmy]

I have never played any of your pedals, to my knowledge. Where should I start.

Nobody seems to believe me, but I swear by the Baby Quasar.

[brian m]

No disrepect intended-

I didn't feel disrespected at all.

The Vitruvian is probably my favorite pedal ever!

I loved the idea on paper but it never sounded right to me on guitar. I fucking love to sing through it though!

Sometimes i bring my 5 year old daughter in to work and I hook up a vitruvian mod to the mixer and she'll sing the frozen theme song through it for two hours.

Yea, Octasynth is awesome. It singlehandedly got my wife to want to play an instrument again. She had no idea such neat stuff was coming out of the pedal world.

You know that comment just totally made my day. It's great when people enjoy stuff we design and build. They are really like babies to me and hearing that they actually inspired someone is really cool.


Also, I'd totally post here if I felt like I had something more to contribute.