Quatschmacher

I have had chance to AB these now and actually I think the octave on the Zeus is fatter. Not tweakable but a really fantastic sound, feel and tracking. The fuzz is definitely gnarlier than the ON too. The thing that let the Zeus down for me is that there were very definite sweet spots and then areas where the sound was really noisy or even almost disappears. I’d be worried that if a knob were to get knocked slightly in a playing situation it could have disastrous consequences.

I’m aware of the capability to stack drives on the Aftershock. It’s news to me that you can load an octaver into it. Have I understood that correctly?

Say what? Do you mean the Octavia clone?

There is but it’s a bit pricy for a used one I feel.

Interestingly the Wonderlove, which is the descendent of the GR2 is the one I use the most. The loop and the control over both attack and decay make it so usable, especially with dirt pedals, which are often killers of dynamics.

Took delivery of a couple of pedals from Darren yesterday. Really quick service, well packed, as described and friendly communication. Also, one of the pedals he sent me with the option to return if I didn’t get on with it. I did that today and was promptly refunded. Heartily recommended. Many thanks.

Recently sold Shaun my MXR Bass Distortion pedal. A straightforward transaction with friendly communication and prompt payment. Many thanks!

I’m guessing the new ones will be at the non-discounted price so around £650 for the Squaver and £330 for the Convertor. Getting an actual synth has been a great way for me to learn more about sound design. I’d seriously recommend getting a Behringer Model D (£299) and hook it up to any MIDI keyboard it’s totally worth it.

Choosing to hang on for the new versions depends on what you plan to use it for. If you plan to use it to control an external synth via CV then the current Convertor is pretty good. If, on the other hand, you want it as a stand-alone synth then the Squaver does more (2 oscillators, pulse width modulation, ring modulation, variable state filter). Personally if going for the Squaver I’d wait for the new version for the improvements to the filter envelope response. It was a really nice-sounding filter on the original but the envelope control didn’t give much in the way of shaping options so it wasn’t possible to get a really fast sweep. Currently I’m using either my Doom+Octabvre or my Octo-Nøjs into the Wonderlove. Or the EHX Bass Microsynth. That’s giving quite pleasing results but I really want to get a dedicated 4-pole lowpass filter so will be checking out a Xerograph Deluxe this week. If that doesn’t do it, my remaining option is to get the Moog MF-101 again but get a CP-251 to go with it to have finer control over the sweep. It’s a bit of a big and cumbersome setup though. The best thing I’ve encountered for synth bass sounds though is… synths, unsurprisingly. I recently acquired a Behringer Model D which gives exactly the sounds I wanted, hence my desire to pickup a midi bass and simply hook the two up.

Reading the article linked above he says that user toneprints are the most popular so it implies they’ll be making them shareable.

Hooray! As Cameron said, it’s long overdue. Having to do it via the PC is a pain and I’ve never got around to installing the editor because of that. It was always frustrating that it was possible to upload presets via phone but not edit them. Finally I’ll be able to more easily explore what the Sentry can do. Hopefully they’ll add the ability to see what patch is on the pedal when booking up the phone.

I hadn’t read the stuff about the Squaver on Talkbass. I bought one back in February. It was pretty cool but there were a few issues with the noise gate. Quite a few customers had the same issue, particularly on bass and guitar. The guys at SonicSmith were great and offered to carry out the modification to fix it (which has now also been done to all remaining stocks) free of charge. In the end, I didn’t end up taking them up on the offer as there were other limitations that made me feel I ought to keep searching. (Ultimately I’d like to get an Industrial Radio MIDI bass and use that with my synths.) I honestly wouldn’t worry about wasting your money. If you buy it, you have the right to return it under the distance selling regulations if you don’t like it. The guys at that company are really great, friendly, helpful and care deeply about their products and their customers. I’m actually looking forward to seeing what they’ve done to improve the new versions which will be out soon (this month hopefully).A few of my gripes will be addressed in the new version (100% duty cycle on the square wave PWM, more gain for the downward envelope sweep and the noise gate threshold). The latency at the low end of the bass will always be a problem due to physics (but this was about as good as it gets). Playing up an octave and pitching the unit down an octave halves the latency and was pretty usable. Did you own the Zeus or try it out somewhere? If so, where? I’d like to try one.

Cool. After checking out that video it seems quite similar to the Sonicsmith implementation (though the SS stuff has more control over the input tracking now after a round of improvements).

I’m reviving this thread in light of recent discoveries. Anyone heard the Red Witch Synthotron? Also, the SonicSmith Convertor and Squaver are worth a look.

The 12 models in the OFD are exactly the same ones that can be used on the Aftershock. The Aftershock has the ability to swap them out for a whole bunch of others or to tweak them further than the OFD allows. I’m presuming it’s either this enhanced tweakability or the models which are different from those on the OFD that forms the basis of that statement.

That’s my current thinking. I also don’t like deep menu diving in order to create sounds; I like having every control to hand and as much visibility of settings as possible.

That’s part of the reason I moved it on - I get overwhelmed by the abundance of possibilities sometimes to the point that it stops me from being creative.

SonicSmith Convertor or Squaver P1. They are heavily discounted at present as they are about to launch new models. Moog Freqbox. Iron Ether Subterranea (currently relaunched for a limited time). Pigtronix Mothership 2. If you don’t need it to track fast playing then you could get a Sonuus G2M v3 and hook it up to any MIDI-controlled analogue or digital synth. There’s loads of good hardware stuff out there around £200-300 (Korg Monologue, Behringer Model D) or as iPhone apps for under £15-30 (Korg ARP ODYSSEi, Moog Minimoog Model D).

Not had them side by side but it’s exactly the sputtery fuzz that sounds amazing on the Zeus (and I love my Octo Nøjs, but it can’t achieve that effect, nor does it have control over the gate; it does have a tone control for the octave (on both sides of the pedal)).

It’s just been added to my list, along with the Mastotron. Really wish you and I could meet up as we could save each other a bunch of money trying out eachother’s stuff. It’d probably justify the train fares.

See here:

How has no-one mentioned the Red Witch Zeus? (I couldn’t find and entry in this thread using the search function.) I didn’t realise this was an octave and a gated fuzz. The demos sound great. @CameronJ, you’ve tried one, right and you have one, don’t you, @GisserD? The demos I’ve checked out sound pretty great. The Uriah Duffy one shows off the gated fuzz really well.