High time I did a gear review around here again. In keeping with things I’ve obsessed about in the past, this time around it’s a stereo fuzz box, as in two inputs, two outputs, one box.

Now sure, the average punter might say “Stereo fuzz? WTF is the point of that?” but hear me out on this. I could net the same result with two regular fuzz pedals, but I have three reasons for wanting a self-contained stereo fuzz effect box: 1) fuzz on two channels, but runs on a single 9-volt power source; 2) I use two samplers that each have only stereo outputs, so a single stereo effects box is a lot tidier when used as an in-line effect; and 3) since what I use is a portable, modular, tabletop-based and mostly stereo set up, I’d like new things to match that description. It has always irked me that some effects just aren’t available as non-racked stereo effects, especially distortion. This actually fills out most of what I’ve been looking for in stereo effects, as I now have a delay, two filters, a compressor, a digital reverb and a spring reverb all in stereo (and a DSI Evolver, which, though I rarely use it, can be a stereo multi-effect). It’s a shame my Bugbrand Bugcrusher and Devi Ever Aenima aren’t stereo, but what can you do.

This fuzz is a clone of the Ampeg Scrambler circuit modified with a gain boost at the end. The Scrambler is a crazy sort of fuzz. When all settings are dimed, it has this ring mod/phase distortion-like effect that seems completely atypical of the guitar music being made at the time the pedal was first manufactured (late 60s, early 70s). Since nothing like a stereo fuzz actually exists on any manufacturer’s docket, I had this custom made by Brad at Creepy Fingers Effects. Brad does really nice work, this pedal is really solid and the guts are very tidy. One thing I like about it is that it has a reasonably low noise floor, so doesn’t add a lot of noise to the signal. I’d highly recommend anyone deal with Brad, really good guy. He’ll be making a mono version of this effect soon, called the Pink Elephant Fuzz.

Here’s what it looks like, in all its orange glory:

Since it’s a custom job, there are no markings on the face. I’ve considered marking the I/O jacks, but I think I’ve got their configuration memorized (it’s essentially two pedals in one box, so goes from right to left input #1, output #1, input #2, output#2). The outside knob on either side is that fuzz’s character control (from normal fuzz to the weirdo ring mod). The two inside knobs are shared controls between the two fuzzes (reason #4 for wanting a stereo effect box, shared parameter controls). Inside right is the output gain. Inside left is the wet/dry blend, which is one of the reasons I went with a Scrambler clone. I’d wanted a fuzz with wet/dry since I will often use this as an in-line effect, and the Scrambler works well with buffers. The flip switches turn each channel on and off. I opted for flip switches over standard pedal switches as they suit my way of working better.

Here are some examples of what it sounds like. I haven’t quite sussed what material I’ll tend to use with it, but I’ve varied the material here to give a reasonable idea of what the effect is like. To start, here’s a two-bar drum beat I put together, first dry, then run through various settings:

Stereo fuzz beat

These next two examples show the effect on more complex, tuneful material. In each case, the signal starts out dry, and then moves to various affected forms. I’m inclined to use this effect more subtly, with blend set only around 30%, since I’ve come to like how it sounds there, and the effect of different distortion settings on each channel makes for a nice stereo field:

Stereo fuzz tune

Stereo fuzz viola

This last one is a plain synth drone with the two effects run in serial, so I don’t have to use it as a stereo box if I don’t wish to and now have two Scrambler clones at the ready. This clip shows some of the waveshaping possibilities the Scrambler circuit offers:

Synthdrone serial fuzz

I’m pretty excited with how this turned out. I still can’t really understand why nothing like this exists on the market, sending me off in search of a bespoke solution instead. There are at least a few manufacturers of stereo analog effects for electronic musicians (Jomox, eowave, The Squarewave Parade), seems reasonable that there’s a boutique market for a range of distortion effects aimed at the same intended use.

Audio Damage has a multiband distortion plugin called Kombinat in development. Chris has been providing updates here and there on Analog Industries about its development progress. As always with AD plugins, I have the privilege of testing Kombinat while still in beta. It’s a fantastic, ridiculously versatile signal shaping tool.

Here’s an example of the range of effects you can achieve with fairly simple adjustments to a set configuration. You can see the settings I started from in the above picture.

Audio Damage Kombinat demo clip

This clip has first a dry recording of some skin drums, followed by four affected iterations. In each instance, the settings are exactly the same except for a few changes: it starts out set to multi mode with the input gain at 40%, then input gain is set to max, followed by the same iterations in serial mode.

With only a few minor adjustments, you can go from tame to destroyed quite easily. Which I think stands in nice contrast to its most obvious competitors, Izotope’s Trash and Ohm Force’s Ohmicide, neither of which are what I would describe as straightforward and simple to use (both have their merits, but personally I think they’re both too cluttered up with a lot of useless junk that obscures the good stuff).

I think folk are really going to like this one. It has a very responsive gain structure that has a nice effect on the sustain/gating of the distortion (much more like a proper fuzz pedal than most plugins). And it has a fantastic, heavy-handed one knob compressor thrown in for good measure. I’m really hoping we see a separate plugin of just the compressor with its parameters broken out.

One little site update, my webhost, Dreamhost, is in the midst of the slow process of restructuring the file servers this site uses. Sadly this means that my site’s going to be slow for a little while, so please bear with it.

While I await Big City Music’s reply to an email regarding a more substantial purchase (since their web store can’t handle international sales) , I had an urge to go out and buy something. Usually I resist those urges by convincing myself the shop doesn’t have what I was looking for (or I remind myself of the last thing I bought on an urge, the disappointing in every way EH Holy Stain). But today chose to resist resisting, so I went out and got this:

It’s a BenFox Dual Tone Generator. The toggle is all silver instead of red on mine, but that’s essentially what it looks like. Click on the picture to go to the BenFox site. He’s a French effects pedal maker, who has a few little sound boxes on the side. It’s really just two oscillators with pitch control, voltage starve and a mixer. The circuit itself doesn’t look particularly complex, pretty much just a big old IC. I paid too much for it, I’m sure, but I’m comfortable with paying for good stupid fun once in a while. And this is good stupid fun and way cheaper than a Tenori-on.

The voltage starve sort of acts as fine tune for the oscillators, and at really low settings will break up, but isn’t a particularly significant effect. Much of this thing’s tone is governed by phasing from the oscillators. Here’s what it sounds like:

Benfox Dual Tone Generator

Not a particularly elaborate example, but you should get the idea. You can hear it dry at the start and then run through a pitchshifter pedal and digital delay, just for some context since I’m not likely to run it dry. It actually sounds really cool through my Smokey amp. Maybe one of these days I’ll take it out and busk the subway system with what must come close to being the smallest electronic performance rig in the world (I can use little bits of metal on the Smokey’s speaker for filters and effects, surprisingly cool results doing that).

In an effort to effectively deal with that whole “five wall warts where only four will fit” situation, I’ve ordered one of these:

Powersquid Surge Protectors

I’ll report back once it arrives on how it works out, although I foresee no problems. Too bad it didn’t have six connectors instead of just five, that would have covered most scenarios I’d throw at it for my live set up. But five will do under most circumstances. Right now I’m using a really big power bar that has two extra wide spaces for wall warts, but usually it’s still a little tight to get everything in.

I have three criteria that are always on top of my list when looking for electronic music gear, especially effects. They are: full stereo signal path; portability (i.e. small and designed for non-rack tabletop use); and (a little lower down the list) 1/4″ TRS-style input/output jacks.

It’s amazing to me just how hard it is to find stuff in any given category of hardware effect or processor that meets these three requirements. There are of course things here and there that do match my criteria , but then audio and build quality may not be up to snuff and there likely isn’t much in the way of alternatives.

The few people I discuss gear with regularly have been subjected to many rants by me over the years about this subject (including several in past blog entries), as it’s the one thing that drives me crazy about the music gear market. Sure it’s a selfish rant, since effects manufacturers mostly cater to guitarists (mono only) or DJs (RCA jacks and lots of blinking lights), and I fall outside of those two categories and somewhere in the “mostly insignificant niche” demographic. My hope is that if I and my few dedicated like-minded brethren talk about using portable outboard gear for electronic music on as many blogs and forums as possible, eventually we’ll convince enough laptop musicians to mix and match hardware with software so that we can build up a critical mass of demand. On a related tangent, go buy lots of Jomox effects, since both the M-Resonator and T-Resonator match my three criteria perfectly and they are really creative effects.

Lately, I’ve been obsessed with trying to find a compressor that is stereo, portable, offers at minimum a specific set of parameters (ratio, threshold, attack, release, output gain, and in a perfect world input gain/drive), and that has a bit of mojo. Closest thing I’ve found is a DBX MC6, which is now discontinued and I’ll likely have to subject myself to the great pains of eBay to get one. There’s also the FMR compressors (RNC and RNLA), but I’m dubious about the presence of mojo and I only really want a compressor in this case for extreme effects use. I suspect that the FMR boxes are best used as straightforward compressors. Now that I’ve pimped Jomox, I’m really hoping Jürgen makes a dynamics processor modelled on the Resonator series. The differential envelope follower he uses would be super cool in a little portable compressor/expander/distortion box.

I’ve mostly made do with what’s available to me, using RCA to TRS cables or mono effects sitting on a mono send buss (don’t get me started about portable full-stereo mixers), but in some case it’s a pain in the ass, especially if you want to effectively maintain a stereo field.