ilovefuzz.com

Hi All,
If any of you own and are using a Gamechanger Light Pedal, do you find the output kind of quiet? I like that it's not a massive, overpowering sound, and maybe that's a facet of it being an analog spring reverb, but I'm finding sometimes it seems a bit too subtle? That's not not even the term that captures it exactly, because it does some very unique and distinguishable sounds, but it just seems to lack some "oomph" or something.

I've reached out to Gamechanger to see if there is an internal trimpot to adjust wet output, and haven't heard back so I'll probably just open it up at some point and have a peek.

Does anyone else find this or is it just me?

Might be just yours, or maybe I just didn't notice. I haven't messed with it for a couple of weeks now, so I'll try it again tonight and report back.

Like, you can't get parity with bypass, or it doesn't get wet enough? Mine gets pretty washy compared to most reverbs if I dime the spring and optical volume especially with some drive, but maybe not the washiest of all. Have you been happy with other spring reverbs, or were you maybe expecting the sound of a larger tank? I find it's got a pretty versatile control setup that covers a wide gamut of presence and intensity, but the one thing you can't change is it's fundamental character, so I gotta think either yours is faulty or you just don't jive with it's sound, which is a bummer for such a pricey box.

Tried mine. Just guitar straight in and out, into a Tourmaster with the reverb off.

With all the controls at noon, selector on "optical", and only varying the drive control, mine gets pretty washy with the drive dimed. To the point of almost being musically unusable, except if you're into really trippy acid stuff. The Tourmaster's reverb on max doesn't even come close to how washy or echoey the pedal can get.

Maybe yours took a knock in shipping and it knocked one of the sensors out of alignment? Just spitballin'.

I'll have to play with it this evening. When you turn the dry signal off entirely is it fairly quiet in general?

Can you define in what context you mean "quiet"? Low input signal? Low output signal? Overall effect noise?

Just so I know to listen for the same thing you're hearing.

Like I said before, I tested it with all controls (except drive, which I manipulated) at noon. You'll notice that they use pots with center detents on most of the controls as well. If the output is low with a low dry setting, this may be useful in situations where you might be feeding it a really hot signal. Which to me would make sense, since they don't know where in a chain you might stick this. For my test, having everything at noon gave me unity for a straight in/straight out application.

IMO the "wetness" is always going to be pretty subtle and not deep with these pedals that are real spring but fit everything in a small enclosure for the simple fact that the longer the springs are, the longer the decay (perceived "wetness"). You need really long springs like what you get in 6G15s or amps to get really deep lush spring verb, I don't think short springs are physically capable of making deep verb...maybe someone who knows about this stuff can confirm or shoot down that theory? I've owned a bunch of 'real spring' verb units in pedal enclosures this size and they all have that really short weak decay to the verb making them sound IMO bad. The circuit designers always seem to compensate by pumping a really hot signal into it (which doesn't work and brings out a weird, overbearing resonance...at max levels the signal disappears into a murky resonant mess, not really being in a deep, lush reverb if that makes any sense...maybe disappearing into a mud pit instead of the Mariana Trench ). The Recovery Endless Summer was the worst at this, to the point where it sounded so dissimilar from a traditional verb that it became it's own sort of effect and was actually quite interesting sounding because it was so different.

repoman wrote:IMO the "wetness" is always going to be pretty subtle and not deep with these pedals that are real spring but fit everything in a small enclosure for the simple fact that the longer the springs are, the longer the decay (perceived "wetness"). You need really long springs like what you get in 6G15s or amps to get really deep lush spring verb, I don't think short springs are physically capable of making deep verb...maybe someone who knows about this stuff can confirm or shoot down that theory? I've owned a bunch of 'real spring' verb units in pedal enclosures this size and they all have that really short weak decay to the verb making them sound IMO bad. The circuit designers always seem to compensate by pumping a really hot signal into it (which doesn't work and brings out a weird, overbearing resonance...at max levels the signal disappears into a murky resonant mess, not really being in a deep, lush reverb if that makes any sense...maybe disappearing into a mud pit instead of the Mariana Trench ). The Recovery Endless Summer was the worst at this, to the point where it sounded so dissimilar from a traditional verb that it became it's own sort of effect and was actually quite interesting sounding because it was so different.

I had the Endless Summer and quite liked it because of that!! I am/was primarily interested in the Light Pedal for similar sounds, not to get the sound of an in-amp reverb tank. I've had the Anasounds Element and a Make Sounds Loudly Springsteen'd that connect to an external tank, and they do a pretty good job of that lush, drippy reverb, but did less interesting resonant weirdness. I think I maybe just had the idea from demos that it the wet signal from this pedal was much "bigger" than it seems to be in my hands. I like it best when I have it before my empress reverb to give it just a bit of extra space and stereo width, and I guess that's ok. I got a response back from Gamechanger, and am going to send them some video clips and I suspect they'll confirm the unit is working appropriately, I maybe just had different expectations of what it would sound and feel like.

digi2t wrote:Can you define in what context you mean "quiet"? Low input signal? Low output signal? Overall effect noise?

Just so I know to listen for the same thing you're hearing.

Like I said before, I tested it with all controls (except drive, which I manipulated) at noon. You'll notice that they use pots with center detents on most of the controls as well. If the output is low with a low dry setting, this may be useful in situations where you might be feeding it a really hot signal. Which to me would make sense, since they don't know where in a chain you might stick this. For my test, having everything at noon gave me unity for a straight in/straight out application.

Low output signal is what I'm referring to, but I'm really thinking that it's just a matter of expectation vs reality. Nothing really gives me the sense that it's not working right, it just seems to lack some oomph to my ears. I really love some of the sounds it's capable of tho, particularly if you dial in a good feedback sound. Loving that and the harmonic setting for sure. Have found less that I like with the reflection setting, which I thought I was really going to dig.

Gamechanger got back to me after I sent them a video, and said my pedal sounds like it's working properly, so I guess I just had different expectations for the pedal.