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Electro-Harmonix Knockout Attack Equalizer


fifeq
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my friend just send me this video
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjgRfQOOR70"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjgRfQOOR70[/url]
any one tried it?
with bass sounds very nice !
do you think it would add more punch when plugging that between sansamp Bass Driver and amp?
or it works similar? Edited by fifeq
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[quote name='dannybuoy' post='149277' date='Mar 1 2008, 01:23 AM']Sounds to me like it just makes your signal a bit thin and weak sounding. With guitar and bass, I preferred the sound before the pedal was turned on! Am I alone here?[/quote]

It can do, but It's capable of doing pretty much the opposite too, it can really thicken up a sound add depth & warm it up, the differences are really obvious if you wire it early in your pedal sequence & add additional effects after, I use it to get a really dirty funk sound with my Bass Balls/Bass Juice after it, I occasionally use it on its own if I don't think my bass is cutting through the rest of the band, it's generally quite a subtle box I don't bother with it when I'm playing through my 15 watt practice amp, just when I'm using the 4x10 big rig.

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Hi,

I had a little bit of time to try the Knockout and I decide to write some comments about it. I hope you will find them interesting.

[b]* What it is[/b]
It is an equalizer- nothing more nothing less. I run the pedal in a frequency analyzer and it confirms that. There might be something else involved but I can’t hear it.

[b]* How it works[/b]
Essentially, the incoming signal is divided in 3 parts: dry (the input signal), low (everything below 85Hz) and high (everything above 6.5 kHz). The low and high filters are quite aggressive (7 and 6 poles) so nothing below/above the threshold frequency escapes. In other words, the 3 knobs add to the output signal: dry signal, everything below 85Hz and everything above 6.5 kHz. The diagram shows how this works.

Because the 3 parts of the signal are mixed after the processing, if the 3 knobs are all at 0, the output is zero. If low is 0, bass is 0 and dry is 12:00 o’clock, the output signal is a copy the input signal.

[b]* How it sounds[/b]
It works very well with guitar. My Gibson-335-like guitar can be easily transformed in Fender Stratocaster and with more extreme setting it can produce sounds that are close to an acoustic guitar with piezo pickup.

Ok... but how does it sound with a bass? I tried it with my Status Graphite King Bass and I managed to transform the sound quite dramatically without creating annoying distortions and unpleasant side-effects.

With the bass control at 12:00, dry 11:00 and high to 0, I can produce a very convincing fat Precision sound that I would find more difficult to produce with a standard eq.

Even with more extreme settings it is a very musical effect. If I turn the bass to 9:00, dry 10:00 and high to 4:00 my bass is converted in a guitar that sounds great with a little bit of reverb.

[b]* What I don’t like[/b]
- The only thing I can’t understand about it is the size. In the age of extreme miniaturization, Electro-Harmonix insists in producing effects that are unreasonably big. The Knockout box is half empty. I am not asking the tiny size of Catalinbread pedals. However, little bit of effort in trying to, at least, use the standard 1590B size would be appreciated by musicians that don’t want carry around pedalboards bigger than the instrument they play.

- It is not the most silent pedal in the world. Considering the extreme eq involved it is hard to say if the hiss comes from the pedal itself or the amplification of the noise coming from the input signal. Having said that, I wouldn't be too worried about it. It is not noisier than the average equalizer.

[b]* What I like[/b]
- It is easy to use. At the beginning it can be slightly confusing but after a couple of hours even the less technical-oriented musician can control it quite well.
- It sounds nice. It is a very musical equalizer. I am surprised that there aren’t more pedals around that work on the same principle.
- True-bypass.
- Solid construction (metal box).
- Reasonable price.

[b]* What I would have liked[/b]
- A smaller box.
- A two channels version. Considering the range of different sounds it can produce, it would be nice to have two settings available in the same pedal.

Silent Fly

P.S. the Knockout box contains two free DVDs:
- “Effects sampler vol.1”
- “Russian Tube Battle”

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[quote name='cheddatom' post='152890' date='Mar 7 2008, 09:48 AM'](...)
If the box is half empty, and you want two settings, why not buy another and build it into the same box? Then you'd have 1, 2, or 1+2 settings.[/quote]
To be honest the box is [i]almost[/i] half empty. I had the same idea of putting two boards in the same box after 2 seconds I opened the box to remove the battery :)

I checked inside the unit to find out the size of the board and components. It is all SMD so there isn’t too much to cut/move around. On the other side, because of the SMD, the board is very thin so in theory 2 boards could be stacked. I need to take precise measurements to find out if it is possible.

The more I use it, the more I like the Knockout – it is quite an addictive effect :huh:

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  • 2 months later...

I got one of these recently and i like it. Step on it and turn up the bass and you'll [i]shake your foundations[/i], to quote AC/DC. The bass (low) knob controls the output volume of the low pass filter, which has a cut-off frequency of 85Hz. The treble (high) knob is a high pass filter, which has a cut off of 6.5Hz. Yes, they could have made it narrower in size, but it's actually quite light (without a battery, which i don't use). The 'Dry' knob in the middle let's you mix in/out your input signal. I'm recording a couple of tunes this weekend and i intend to use it.

I bought it for my bass, but i tried it on my guitar too (Gibson SG standard) and i wasn't particularly impressed, but perhaps i should have fiddled a bit more. But it really comes alive on bass. When you turn it off and hear your original bass tone, you think hmm that's weedy, lol! :) I might just keep it on all the time.

Edited by Tee
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  • 1 year later...

Dude your review is brilliant!

You should ask Electro Harmonix to pay, I'm already going to buy it! :)



[quote name='Silent Fly' post='152485' date='Mar 6 2008, 04:36 PM']Hi,

I had a little bit of time to try the Knockout and I decide to write some comments about it. I hope you will find them interesting.

[b]* What it is[/b]
It is an equalizer- nothing more nothing less. I run the pedal in a frequency analyzer and it confirms that. There might be something else involved but I can’t hear it.

[b]* How it works[/b]
Essentially, the incoming signal is divided in 3 parts: dry (the input signal), low (everything below 85Hz) and high (everything above 6.5 kHz). The low and high filters are quite aggressive (7 and 6 poles) so nothing below/above the threshold frequency escapes. In other words, the 3 knobs add to the output signal: dry signal, everything below 85Hz and everything above 6.5 kHz. The diagram shows how this works.

Because the 3 parts of the signal are mixed after the processing, if the 3 knobs are all at 0, the output is zero. If low is 0, bass is 0 and dry is 12:00 o’clock, the output signal is a copy the input signal.[/quote]

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