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Pitchgrinder and Surrender Dorthy initial reactions

Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2012 11:10 am
by Jwar
A couple of quick notes. I have only played with these pedals for about 20 mins. I worked late last night and did not get to mess with them until this morning.

Build quality-this is your typical run of the mill Dwarfcraft craftsmanship here folks. Even with the Surrender Dorthy being a proto, still looks and sounds great. The only flaw in that box that I can see is maybe added a clear coat to the paint and it might have a slight grounding issue (popping when engaging the footswitch), other than those minor issues, it's flawless. Lots of gain and volume on tap. My initial reaction to this box was, shit it does sound kind of like TGD but it doesn't hum or make any nutso sounds! This is a HUGE plus for me. When I play my Great Destroyer, I always leave the oscillation fully off. Only every once and awhile do I use it, but it's rare. Why? I just don't dig oscillation on fuzz. It doesn't sound right to me. So this to my ears, is a more perfect Great Destroyer. The circuits don't sound identical though, so I'm assuming there has been some other changes. I haven't taken the time to pop the back off and look, but I am quite curious. I will be ABing them soon.

As far as the Pitchgrinder goes. WOW. So overwhelming and awesome. Hahaha. The amount of changes that happen when twiddling with just one knob is crazy. This is a very complex pedal it seems. I would needs months to learn how to properly use this sucker. I have however founds some really gnarly sounds already. A cool little trick I discovered too is that if you turn the length all the way off in some settings, you actually get octave down with some distortion behind it. So rad!

One thing that surprised me though about the Pitchgrinder is that there is not a lot of volume behind it. Kind of odd for a Dwarfcraft pedal. So I'm wondering if that happened somewhere in the tourbox (I know people are rough with shit...) or if it's a bad pot or if it's simple just supposed to be like that. I have to have the volume maxed out to get what I want out of it. So that's one thing to consider I think.

Again, these are initial reactions. I am sooooooooooooo happy to be included in on this tourbox and want to think Aen and the Misses for letting me take a shot at trying these awesome boxes. I am going to be doing some demos soon, so look for those.


Pedal porns

Image

Re: PitchGrinder Mega Thread.

Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2012 11:22 am
by Wes Mantooth
Yeah I noticed the volume was a bit on the quiet side as well. I'm guessing that's just on the proto though.

Re: PitchGrinder Mega Thread.

Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2012 11:24 am
by aens_wife
So glad you are enjoying the tour box!

On the subject of the Surrender Dorothy - all the production units for kickstarter will have clear coat on them. That one just went out in a hurry, since we weren't planning on including it until the last minute.

Aen can answer on the circuit design stuff, but I know he is working on the volume issue with the PG.

Re: PitchGrinder Mega Thread.

Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2012 11:27 am
by aen
I JUST did some mods yesterday to make it considerably louder. It sounded "a bit louder than unity" in the workshop, but it became clear we needed more. So it's there now. When I get the Tourbox back I'll mod it, and it's just a matter of resistor values, so really easy to change on production models.

That pop on the Dorothy - It's probably gonna be there always. One of the chips in the circuit is switched on and off with the bypass switch, because it creates an unholy noisy bleed through.

I'm glad you're digging it! I'm pretty hooked on both of them, too. Big part of the new Raygun material.

Re: PitchGrinder Mega Thread.

Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 12:10 pm
by Jwar
Some basic demos. I play on doing more.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVzi6LecADg[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_GRPCqUBV0[/youtube]

Re: PitchGrinder Mega Thread.

Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 12:36 am
by bronzetalon
After having the grinder we found that we quite liked it as a fuzz box...maybe a single pitch grinder with a clean blend would be cool?

Re: PitchGrinder Mega Thread.

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 11:58 am
by aens_wife
Some updates!

The volume issue has been dealt with.
The tour box is on its way to Bellyheart now! (I tried to PM you, BH, but it is stuck in my outbox)

Brian and Mike of Russian Circles have the last prototype!

Kickstarter is almost done. If you are considering backing this project, do it now!!!!

And as far as making a single pitchgrinder with a clean blend, I think that would be too close to a basic bit crusher, of which there are many. Maybe we will get around to that someday, but for the coming months/years, we are trying to focus on stuff that hasn't been done already. We aren't even sure we will try a delay, because we don't want to do something that already exists.

Re: PitchGrinder Mega Thread.

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 12:03 pm
by Chankgeez
aens_wife wrote: (I tried to PM you, BH, but it is stuck in my outbox)


I think that's normal. I think it'll be stuck in your outbox until bellyheart opens it.

Re: PitchGrinder Mega Thread.

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 12:20 pm
by kbit
Oh shit, I forgot I was on the tourbox. Can't wait to make some pads with this -> reverb.

Re: PitchGrinder Mega Thread.

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 12:27 pm
by skullservant
Me either. This should be a lot of fun. Going to do a shit ton of noise demos with it

Re: PitchGrinder Mega Thread.

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 4:44 pm
by Dr. Sherman Sticks M.D.
kbithecrowing wrote:Oh shit, I forgot I was on the tourbox. Can't wait to make some pads with this -> reverb.


:!!!: :!!!:

ssorry to live vicariously through you on this one man :lol:

Re: PitchGrinder Mega Thread.

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 10:56 pm
by kbit
Dr. Sherman Sticks M.D. wrote:
kbithecrowing wrote:Oh shit, I forgot I was on the tourbox. Can't wait to make some pads with this -> reverb.


:!!!: :!!!:

ssorry to live vicariously through you on this one man :lol:


No worries brah. I kinda feel like it will be more your thing anyways haha. I'm super stoked on the Dorthy, too.

Re: PitchGrinder Mega Thread.

Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 11:22 am
by aens_wife
Last day for the kickstarter, everybody!

7 hours left to pre-order the pitchgrinder and the surrender dorothy.

Thanks for all the support for this project! Can't wait to start shipping these out!

Re: PitchGrinder Mega Thread.

Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 7:10 pm
by behndy
FUUUUUUUUUUU-they just tried to charge my card. i thought the payments were s'posed to go through in September for some reason. lol. and with a little warning.

i would have the money in there if i hadn't just dropped $400 on a Ciokolate. gotsta shuffle stuff around now.

Re: PitchGrinder Mega Thread.

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 7:51 pm
by Derelict78
So... whats going on with this.
I want more demos!