#116

I was not aware of the guy’s personal prejudices but I had an unknown aversion to him anyway. Maybe this is why…
But I did know that the JHS range is pretty much all clones. They haven’t appealed to me generally but as far as I know the Crayon is not a pedal clone and sounds like it is unique in a guitar pedal. I would love someone’s suggestion for an alternative if they know one?? I had actually been looking for another alternative myself some time ago.
As far as cloning goes, I guess its largely part of the guitar pedal world and particularly for overdrives. I can’t really complain because I have DIY’d cloned circuits myself

Wait, isnt it JHS that make clones and then gunk the circuit board so people can’t copy ?!

#117

For what it’s worth, he has since stated that he doesn’t support that organization or its views (scroll down a bit, he posts a fairly concrete reply mid-way down):

3 Likes
#118

From the department of makers who are nice people: I’ve had the Landscape Stereo Field for a little while now and really more than anything it behaves like a distortion effect, and a really nice one at that. Tonight I’ve been playing the digitone through it and it brings a whole warm gritty world to the fm sounds. Hands-on expression of the distortion is weird and wonderful too.

5 Likes
#119

:point_up_2:This post is only intriguing without attached media. :smiley:

#120

Haha, I did record some guitar through it last night. I’ll hopefully be able to make a nice edit.

#121

broadcast anyone?

imagen
imagen.jpg1600×1600 283 KB

1 Like
#122

I’ve been exploring this method of patching up non-linear distortion described in a post by Rob Hordijk and it’s a lot of fun. Basically you mult a signal to both inputs of a ring modulator to double its frequency, and then use that product to apply negative amplitude modulation to the original signal. There are so many ways to play with the tone and it sounds absolutely lovely. Really nice for delay feedback too given its self-limiting behavior.

15 Likes
#123

Just followed the link. I think I followed how that works. Is there a chance you could outline your patch?

#124

very nice text. thanks for the link. i’m very interested in distortion right now so can’t wait to try this.

#125

I guess the easiest way is to draw a picture.

This is the basic gain cell:
single%20cell

And this is the gain cell within an additional feedback loop so you can make things extra crunchy:
dual%20cell

EDIT: important to note, you want to be using a linear VCA for this.

2nd EDIT: Also, you’ll need to mix your inverted ringmod signal with an offset if your VCA doesn’t have an onboard bias/initial level control.

11 Likes
Cold Mac Ideas
#126

Intriguing. I used the basic path since i’m only after a mild overdrive and the amount of control is surprisingly high already. I had tried to model something similar before on my own, without consulting any literature and couldn’t get the desired result. This, however, works, and seems quite versatile.

With a µVCA it’s interesting to overdrive with CV in both directions - negative and positive (i.e. not inverting the ringmodded signal, just saturate the CV path).

The only downside is the sheer number of patchpoints it “costs”. The upside is, unlike e.g. Tallin, the level stays constant as the overdrive changes. Will this talk me out of wanting an Optodist? Maybe not, but it calms me down somewhat =]

1 Like
#127

What I really love about patching up a function that’s usually contained behind a single face-plate like this is the opportunity to mess with the in-betweens. Takes a lot of real estate but you’re essentially building your own unique distortion circuit. I tried out the larger feedback patch with a lowpass on the feedback return and that added some interesting character. Some time this week I’m going to try sending different parts of the circuit through my D0 for its minimal phase shifting and see what happens. And see what I can get from injecting noise into different parts of the patch.

1 Like
#128

I have one. It’s a different version than the one in the picture, I have a store-limited edition in white that runs internally at 24v, with the old flipswitch rather than the dual stomp they added later. Looks like this:

bcast

Closest thing I have to an always on pedal, makes everything sound better. I tend to stack it with other pedals, don’t often use it on its own. The low cut is invaluable, surprised more pedals haven’t copied the idea. I use it mostly with guitar, been a while since I’ve tried it with other sound sources, can’t remember what I thought of it in other contexts.

1 Like
#129

Going to build this on both the Zoia and the Modular tonight! thanks for the link.

1 Like
#130

So it is that simple. I’ll definitely have to try this the next time I have a free block of synth time.

#131

thanks so much for your explanation, steve. i prefer your version than the dual one i posted.
definitely on my top5 wishlist devices ( next to the jhs colour box).

pug

#132

Just started playing with the feedback variant this morning. Interesting sounds. For some reason, if I don’t attenuate the CV in on my VCA, the sound cuts out.

#133

Would love to hear how that that worked out on the ZOIA.

#134

I just gave this a try and it is a hoot and a half. Thank you for sharing!

#135

One thing i’ve noticed lately is the richness of sending stereo signals into stereo distortion units. I have nothing against analog gear or guitar pedals, but for analog gear and traditional guitar pedal format distortion units stereo is the exception rather than the rule and i’m just a sucker for interesting stereo images. Two tools have captured me in this regard lately.

In hardware land Line 6 Helix let’s me run stereo line inputs (often from modular or volca fm) and quickly audition lots of different dirt stompboxes in stereo and layer back in the clean signal or another parallel distorted version, or both. Super fun, hands on, immediate, and dirt modeling sounds damn good these days (grew up playing low-end Digitech multiFX and even my naive ear at the time had a nagging sensation that something was seriously awry).

In software land, Izotope’s Trash 2 is more distortion than i’ll ever need outside of Ableton’s stock tools and is great for in depth pre/post EQ and convolution in a non-reverb context. It’s long enough in the tooth to be discounted at times, i think it came free when i bought another $3 plugin.

With distortion it seems harder to put yourself in a listeners perspective - maybe people don’t enjoy hearing destroyed acoustic drums or crushed DX7 marimbas but it never fails to bring me some joy.

5 Likes