Vegans. What’s not wrong?

Pasty faced individuals who refuse to touch anything. Jes-louis! You rarely get anything more annoying than a Vegan going off on ‘one’.

Yep. That’s it, Vegan are everything that’s wrong with society.

Ok, let’s look at the facts…

Red meat in any quantity is a bad thing, science has proved bowel cancel, and a heap of other things are linked to red meat.

Death is not a good thing. Death is the most natural thing in the world but breeding hundreds of animals in mini Alcatraz’s before going to Mr Spinning Automated Meat Clever of Death to a conveyor belt that also does Tesco/ASDA/Sainsbo/wherever shrink wrapping ain’t a good thing.

Forcing a cow to be in constant after birth state, aka lactating through hormones and constant artificial insemination to keep them rearing new calfs to aid in additional income is not good.

Ok, what’s wrong? I agree with the old native Americans and their view towards the Buffalo. If you’re going to murder something thing (that’s what it is at the end of the day) the least you can do is use all of the animal. If you’ve got a cow you can use its skin for shoes, its meat for tasty goodness, innards for pies or cat meat, its tail for a good soup, its eyes for secondary school science classes, its bones for your dog or making into gelatin ummmm, Haribo!

Free range is certainly better, luckily it seems there is a bit more emphasis now on keeping animals in a happy lifestyle before they go to chicken/pig/….Heaven.

The idea of forced lactation is a horrible one, and it really isn’t right. There seems to be lots of propaganda around the health benefits of milk, it is a good substance being naturally developed to help Calves become big Cows . But there’s the problem right there, calves to cows. Breastmilk from Babies to Men and Women. We don’t breastfeed at 21 (I’d hope the majority of the population would stop around 20 years before that age!)

There’s a case that ‘skimming’ the fat, e.g. anything that’s not gold or silver top takes calcium levels down by halves. In which case eating most green vegetables will give you more Calcium.

Fair enough we’re not developed to handle dairy every meal time but we can digest the odd bits and piece like eggs.

Now eggs get shat out by a hen most days of the week unless shes bored or pregnant. I’d love love love love to hear the vegan argument against eggs.

Yes they have a high fat content, a high protein content, a high Omega 3 content, they get shat out anyway and will rot unless eaten, where’s the problem. Seriously? We need all these aspects of a diet to survive.

Omega 3, there’s another buzz word. So you get this amazing oil in fish, some other white meats, eggs, seeds, nuts and other birdfood.

I’m a purveyor of the old birdfood until I find Omega 3 from seeds and nuts can’t be digested if you have particulars in your body such as alcohol, high acid levels… rah rah. Time to cut out the drink in that case.

Stuff you might not know!

The powers that be filter wine and most commercial lagers through a substance that is basically fish guts.

Most cheese needs a component called rennet to set, which is formed from the lining of a cows stomach.

Milking cows don’t tend to get eaten, they tend to get milked as long as possible, e.g. until the flesh is too stringy to eat so either a natural death or the Haribo factory for your boney goodness.

There’s a few good things about the vegans we know for a fact…

That last steak in the reduced section of the supermarket wont get grabbed by a vegan…

the last pair of Dr Martins in the sale won’t get bought by a vegan.…

I can sit in a major chain coffee shop drinking those bloody tasty hot chocolates with the fake whipped cream and marshmallows in without fear of a vegan tea leafing it.

I can’t be sure about the following…

Your fellow Vegan might buy the last vinyl copy of 1000 Hurts under your nose.

This is because Shellac is naturally derived from bug shells, not from killing. Debate it next time you go to your local independent record shop. The fact that the vinyl isn’t made from Shellac and Albini has probably eaten every creature in the rainforest doesn’t count.

…I agree with the old native Americans and their view towards the Buffalo.

Additional Research Notes :

Linda McCartney was a hardcore vegetarian. She died of cancer. What does that say for you vegans? Animal products alone aren’t going to save you from the inevitable.

Chugging away...

Street and Phone based Charity Collectors.
Charity Muggers. Spoonerism : Chugger.

Walking down the street. That person has a nice smile. Are their eyes on yours? They're saying hello! What a nice change. How friendly!

Oh hang on there. Wait a minute, children in Ethiopia? Dogs in Spain? My bank card? I've been charity mugged.

Phone call? This time? Might be important. Security questions. Oh it is important. They sound really nice.

Wait a minute, children in Ethiopia? Dogs in Spain? My bank card? I've been charity mugged.

Oh I know your type. I used to share an office with the lot of you. You do one area in the morning as 'Greenpeace', lunchtime comes and you're changing into 'Shelter' mode. Really? Really? Do you really have a soul doing this? The moneys great though, I love using my looks, my charms, my lovely voice to manipulate others so I can get a little more of that commission pie...

CHINK CHINK CHINK goes my coins into your BACS transfer, CHINK CHINK CHINK goes the pick axe on the nice parts of your soul.

Where does your money go when a Chugger has wh*red at you enough to make you give over a monthly BACS?
It goes on commission, it goes on charity admin, it goes on management.
B*llsh*t if they tell you nothing goes on admin, they lie at African dictatorship governmental type proportions.
If it was admin free they simply pay a 'grant' to someone who does the work for free and that 'grant' has no admin associated.

The volunteers who do the work may not get paid but the manager’s definitely get some money. Around 5-12% is the expected admin cost on your Chugger cash. If you're paying £8 a month, £0.96 is going on the management fees if we're doing 12% admin. If threes commission involved for our Chugger at say 10% there's another £0.80 gone. £6.24 is going to our old pot bellied sick African child.

This means you're giving them £74.88 a year in good costs and £21.12 in admin costs. What can you do for £74.88 over the coarse of a

year? How many gallons of petrol in the Chugger Landrovers will £74.88 fuel? I reckon just under 15 gallons of petrol. How far is it from Chugger base camp to Village Middle of nowhere? Once they get to Nowhereville what are they going to do? They’ve spent your money on petrol. Radio crackles, Chugger #1 to Chugger #2 we need another victim, guerrilla clipboard tactics ahoy! Send the troops back into the streets and the cold calls…

Ok Chuggers get in more cash than the charity cases had before but it doesn’t change the fact that I f*cking hate our fellow souless Chuggers.

Why trying to get a book published these days is like trying to suck your own cock By Opium Dennis

I wrote a book. It’s not Thus Spake Zarathustra or A Clockwork Orange, but it’s decent enough for a first effort. Now I want to get it published. So would you if you’d literally been driven mad in the process of writing and editing the swine. I was possessed to the point where I saw blue spiders burrowing into my palms. I spent weeks without speaking to a soul and with only my fracturing psyche for company. Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t have to flagellate yourself to create great art. But for this particular story I had to live it, no acting or contrivance, feeling the way the character felt, even if that meant feeling like fucking the wet sand your sister just pissed on. Problem is, our dear friends in the publishing industry have little interest in whether or not your work is authentic, from a real place that will connect, perhaps, with others. It sounds so obvious, but they want work that is GUARANTEED TO SELL. Doesn’t matter if it’s the most spineless, yellow-bellied, cookie cutter shit you’ve ever clapped eyes on – if it’s been written by a celebrity cook or singer then those pound signs start pulsing in Jemimah Bookseller’s noggin, down come her coolots and there’s Satan’s black cucumber fucking her in the ass before you can say ‘Henry Miller wouldn’t have stood for this shit’.

It’s enough to make you sick. Just a peep in the window of your average bookseller and you see what gets those registers a-singing: books by The Stig (lord love a duck), Jeremy Clarkson, Alan ‘fucking’ Sugar Tits, Cheryl Cole out of Girls Aloud, Dannii Minogue – and then of course the parade of cuntdom that is the ‘celebrity cook TV series spin-off’ by a variety of the country’s most fuckhanded individuals – Jamie ‘please piss on my face’ Oliver, Nigella ‘my Dad looks like a used condom but I’m happy to lick the cake mixture off your terrific cock’ Lawson, Huge Fearnley Cripplestalk and, of course, England’s number one cunt (sorry Bono, you’re Irish) and bully, Gordon Ramsays. He says ‘fuck’. It’s his trademark. “Make sure you put a few ‘fucks’ in with the recipes, Gordo, give the punters what they want, eh?” Page 78 - Chicken fucking curry with a side fucking garnish of fucking mindless bullying because Daddy didn’t love me, and I felt so, so small, now fucking cook it again and don’t burn it this time or I’ll say fuck again, or maybe even something really scary like I’M JUST A FRIGHTENED LITTLE BOY AND I’M GOING TO BULLY YOU SO I FEEL BETTER, EVEN THOUGH I’M 50 AND LOOK LIKE GRANITE MAN.

However, the book that really, really got my goat was Food for Friends by Levi Roots, featuring the Reggae Reggae Sauce man on the cover laughing like a Rastafarian hyena at the bewildering fact that he’s got a book on the shelf when all he’s ever done is jazz up tomato sauce a bit and wank off a dragon. I’m sure he’s a real nice guy, but that image and that book summed up for me what has gone wrong ACROSS THE FACE OF WESTERN CIVILISATION. Yes, Mr Roots, you are the epitome of the downfall of all that is sacred to God and man. It’s not your fault. Like so many, you’re just a puppet. But you symbolize the rot at the heart of the modern age, a disgusting disease that has been going on for some decades and has now reached epidemic proportions. It’s called ‘progress’… and it kills.

Look at how music used to be recorded (and still is in some enlightened quarters, like my kitchen) – analogue, none of this digital malarkey to ‘make things easier’. And guess what? 90% of digitally recorded music sounds like a dog turd in the ear compared to the lovely angelic golden masterpiece of heaven that is analogue sound. Maybe it’s just my luggers, but I can barely fathom how we could have mastered such a wondrous process only to desecrate it in the name of ‘progress’ – meaning convenience. Now you can replicate virtually any sound and ‘it sounds just like the real thing, yeah?’ Does it fuckola. The point is that there is SOUL in doing something, anything IN THE MOMENT, FROM SOURCE, and to condense these magical experiences into easily approximated mutations for the sake of convenience is to entirely miss the point, and DIE LIKE A SYPHILLIS-RIDDLED WEASEL IN A JELLY OF YOUR OWN PUS.

And so the ghouls and vampires of the advertising/marketing deathzone centre in on what they perceive as the ‘value point’ in anything, the soul or magic or wonder of a thing, and extract it and reduce it into a quantifiable and sellable product, usually these days in the form of an ‘experience’. Yet to do as such renders the true magic of the moment, the real experience, a lifeless facsimile of itself. Life is a living thing, and these murderous and vile roosters would sell their own babies’ quivering labias to the highest bidder, obliterating the life force from Life itself, reducing the gardens of Eden into parking lots for mummies as they drink the blood of virgin midgets and fellate camels in hospital waiting rooms.

Where was I? Oh yes – Levi Roots. These fidgety, cock-headed, whelk-pussied, juggle-nosed piss drinkers called publishers love fellers like Levi - instantly recognizable, ‘celebrity’ product. And the programmed masses lap it up like bukkake veterans. Of course there are novelists aplenty of merit on the shelves, yet a cursory glance at the bestseller list reveals a festering heap of clowns’ cocks, homogenized literary sick rice, a dizzying succession of ‘meaty’ novels about someone’s uncle in Ireland who fucked a tree and now the Pope’s got a hardon (just as a little aside, don’t you think the Pope looks the very ARCHETYPE OF A PAEDOPAPA?)

Phew, maybe I’ve got a little worked up under the collar about this, and maybe I’m actually adding to the overall malaise, but WHY CAN’T THEY JUST RECOGNISE A GENIUS WHEN THEY SEE ONE AND GIVE ME A BIG BAG OF MONEY?

bikes and rock climbers...

…new bike? By Judge DAmNation.

Oh, have you bought a new bike? Great, what make is it? That really well-known purveyor of bikes everyone who knows anything about bikes says us good? That’s cool. Do you have a photo of it, or lots of pictures from different angles? Brilliant… You’ve got Spizz-Monkey 10k Shock Absorbers? Wow, cool. Do you have a reflective badge shaped like the Honey Monster, or those stupid clacky beads that go on the spokes? They come free in Sugar Puffs…

Hang on, what year is this? It’s not 1992 – you mean I’m a grown up, not a child, and subsequently I don’t give two shrieking fucks about your bike? That’s alright then – to be honest, even if I was bud I still wouldn’t be interested – whereas if you happen to own a Red Venom Spaceship from Manta Force I ight still be impressed…

So you have a bike, do you? Well congratulations, you are now officially a “Fucking Menace” (registered Trademark.)

Yeah, it does look like a lot of fun freewheeling down that hill, feet motionless on the pedals- I’ll be it’s even more of a treat for the snaking queue of cars tailgating you down that hill, foot hovering desperately over the brake to prevent momentum from dragging you under their wheels, a precaution I fail to the point of frankly.

Isn’t it annoying though, having to wait at traffic lights along with the other – oh wait, you’ve just sailed on through without stopping. Oh I see, you’re above the laws of the road because you’re an eco-warrior, saving the planet one little bell-tinkle at a time? ….

You just ride on the pavement. No, fair enough….

Yeah I know trucks and Hum-V’s are bad for the environment – they also look fucking cool, don’t they? You’re unlikely to see Christian Bale in the next Batman film, careering out of the Batcave on a stupid long handled contraption, before folding it up into a suitcase and going into his council meeting about new dustbins, still wearing his highlighter-pen yellow trousers like a dick, now are you?

And at least I can count on a Hum-V to stay in the fucking road, regardless of how many lanes it may take up – I’m not going to suddenly see one wobbling down the pavement towards me, chopping down pensioners in its wake with your stupid helmet-wearing face in an expressions of imbecile obliviousness.

Oh you don’t wear a helmet. I’m sure you’re keen to do your bit for good old Mother Earth, and save a few pennies against petrol or bus fare while you’re about it, but to be honest I care a bit less about your Carbon Footprint than I do about your handlebar currently impaling my pancreas. How much have you saved by the way? Make sure to bring it with you to court on Monday…

…some rocks? By Judge DAmNation.

Who’s that mate of yours, what’s he looking so smug about? Oh he does climbing does he? I’d love to see a Facebook App saying where he’s been….

“Mike has just been climbing on Some Rock that’s near a Bridge.”

Wow, I wish I could have been there. I might download that App myself…

“Judge DAmNation has just been climbing out of a Monumental Trough of Boredom.”

Hey, this is fun! Yes, I know he likes climbing. Why doesn’t he do it without a rope then? Well, it’s kind of pointless otherwise, isn’t it? People go rambling or walking in the mountains, but they don’t stablisers to their fucking legs do they?

“Judge DAmNation walked from Rusty Cattle Grid across a field to poky looking turnstile Cowpaths trodden in : 1. Human Fatalities : 6.”

I’m beginning to understand that “buzz” or “rush” you were talking about now.

Remind me again how you delete friends? No, I mean in real life, lol.

Write your own title. Heart Alice Damages...

When asked to do 'something' for the next 'Supergeräusche' issue the singular 'Damages' mind quivered with a kind of excitement over the vast number of possible subjects to pick from. However, trying to fit 3 almost fully grown people onto one keyboard to write something readable by human eyes is harder than you might think, so we drew you a picture, it's possibly the diagram of the perfect being. I mean, SEE FOR YOURSELF.

Seeing as I'm doing so well at writing all by myself, maybe I'll extend what was to be a simple introduction of a joint effort into something more of a short story I've been wanting to write for a while. Here we go. You can write your own title on the dotted line, you can call it just about whatever you like.

Love From Alice.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

"There's this place I've been going, this point between a light and a shade. Just below the morning, underneath the settling of dew. I have to climb through that thick black air that covers the night, as it gently recedes it feels like it could be satin; and I'm there. Have you ever stepped into a complete hollow Elizabeth?" He questioned, while deciding between plain or chocolate coated digestive biscuits, an extremely difficult and crucial decision.

She crushed a beige crumb to dust on the perfectly flat and solid table the couple had come to see as a friend. "I don't believe i have." She paused, as if to reconsider her answer before continuing with a hasty "Go for a chocolate one."

"Your right, chocolate it is. How could someone hesitate over a choice like that. It's crazy."

"It really is Henry, are you sure everything is alright, this place you were telling me about..."

"It's slowly becoming more difficult to see where the chocolate digestive begins and the plain one ends, but it's not that that bothers me. If anything it's been making the real problem slightly easier to deal with. Every morning, i wash, i dress, i check my reflection to be certain I'm still here, i sit, opposite you, and upwards from the table, day in, day out stare two biscuits identical to the ones the day before and the day before that. Everyday my hand reaches towards the chocolate coated one without fail. So why everyday is there still a plain biscuit staring up at me?"

"I thought you might like something different for a change, I'm sorry if you find that life altering proposal intimidating Henry." Elizabeth rose, removing the constantly rejected biscuit from the table and placing it into a small brown paper bag, walked straight out of the front door, laying the package on the road, standing back and watching as the tyres of strangers cars smashed the poor morsel to dust.

Henry smiled to himself, at least it couldn't get to him now. "Today will be a good day."

Blackjack, the magic detective cat.

Blackjack, the magic detective cat.

Every now and then a little memo card comes in the post for Blackjack the cat. He's always up before his owners so they don't know he gets the mail, it’s only the Postie who thinks a person called Blackjack is a bit queer but it’s another piece of his job. On this morning Blackjack got on such memo card... "Dear Blackjack, I would be humbled by your assistance since my Grandfather Waffles has gone missing and we've been unable to contact him. Yours Faithfully, Shimla."

She seemed desperate. Blackjack who stood strong to his true moral heart decided his bowl of Whiskers could wait a few hours and headed out of the house to the address on the card.

On arriving at the house Blackjack gave that native cat meow greeting to call out Shimla, who pottered out looking rather lost and upset. She explained that her Grandfather Waffles had been kidnapped and she had a ransom note demanding 1000 litres of fish paste. No cat apart from the Kitten of Brunei could afford 100 litres of fish paste!

On looking at the note Blackjack deducted it was a male cat from the aggressive tone and claw writing style. He decided however based on the lack of information in the note, further investigation would be needed and Fred owner of Das Tot Maus Bar would be the ideal informant...

Blackjack told Shimla to stay home and he'd sort the whole thing out. Das Tot Maus Bar was on the other side of town, a rough neighbourhood full of multiple seedy characters. The interior of the bar was dated and unclean, Blackjack however had himself a double Cream on the Rocks. He drank it in one and began to speak with Fred.
"How's business Fred?", "Slow Mr. ...jack, no one really comes here now. I only ever see you when you want information?", "I'm sorry Fred about the business, some information would be appreciated and I could give you some extra income for your troubles?", "What you wanna know Mr ..jack?" Blackjack shows Fred the note and it turns out he knows about the matter...

He's a mean one, don't know his real name. Everyone calls him 'No Tail' on the account of a bad scrap once, he lost his tail but the other cat's dead. I heard this old guy Waffles had created a crazy invention that will change the world of cats. All I can give you is No Tail lives down by Dockyard, dock number 17. Blackjack handed over some Kitty Treats, thanked him and headed towards the dockyard.

The docks were another notoriously rough area, stalked by Sailor Cats. There was a large group of Sailor Cats on the end of dock 17, it appeared the SS Pussy was back and its crew were on shore leave. The crew seemed ready to unleash pent up sea anger with a good bout of fighting, this didn't worry Blackjack who was a high level belt in the ancient art of Catjitsu.

One of the crew, Baggins, shouted at Blackjack and demanded some action fresh from his battles against the sea. Before Blackjack could reply Baggins was swinging his huge fists about like the huge oaf he was, a quick cat kick and paw swipe to the neck rendered Baggins unconscious The rest of the crew parted like the Red Sea when they saw what Blackjack was capable of, he continued his journey to the end of dock 17....

At the end of the dock was a large ominous looking warehouse. Blackjack found a backway in that was unguarded. He heard voices behind the massive crates. "Only you know how to work the device, you must tell us how to use it." "NEVER! You want to use it for evil!" "Haha, you know my kind too well. If you don't I will eventually kill you with all this torture." "I'd rather die than unleash your twisted mind on the world!" "Very well..." Some horrid electric noise was made and there was an awful smell of burning fur. Blackjack looked from above the crates to see No Tail with his henchmen flicking a switch which sent electric currents through a wire coat hanger Waffles was strapped to. On a table was the device they were talking about, it looked like a walky talky in a collar.

Time to put this mistreatment to an end, thought Blackjack as he jumped into the centre of the action.
"WHO ARE YOU?" screamed No Tail.
"I'm here to rescue a friend and put an end to your shenanigans. Now! You either let the device and Waffles go or else!" replied Blackjack.

"Oh hahaha, you are going to stop me and my henchmen? I'm keeping both and you're going to be dog meat. Henchmen attack!!!"

Half a dozen henchmen flew at Blackjack who sprang in the air and used the surrounding crates to bounce off and unleash chops and kicks. Within minutes him and No Tail were the only ones standing. "Right, time to finish you properly!"

No Tail ran straight at Blackjack who with a swift kick launched No Tail out of a window into the sea. Through the sea howls you could remotely hear No Tail screaming as cats do when dropped into water.

"Time for you to see Shimla!" said Blackjack to Waffles who was slightly burnt but very thankful to be going home. Blackjack picked up the invention, they left and walked along the dock which was getting misty now with sea fog.

As they walked Blackjack's Great Uncle Jasper suddenly appeared in a fog. This was bizarre because he'd been dead the last 2 years however in Blackjack's line of work nothing surprised him anymore. Great Uncle Jasper said that kitty heaven was great but he'd foreseen a horrible future where Waffle's invention had been used for evil purposes and cats had enslaved the human race! Some humans are indeed evil to their pets however the majority are not and we should live in harmony. The invention needed to be destroyed! Waffle's agreed with Jasper, if one evil cat wanted it for bad uses imagine what the rest might do. And with that Waffle's took the invention from Blackjack and tossed it into the sea, the caustic seawater instantly blew up the invention’s circuitry.

Blackjack and Waffles walked to Shimla's house talking about the whole ordeal. When the pair got outside the house Waffle's asked how he could repay Blackjack, to which Blackjack replied "Its my job, as long as you're safe and sound that's my repayment." "There aren't many cats left like you", was the response as he went in the house. As Blackjack walked home he caught a glimpse of a happy Shimla hugging her Grandfather, which warmed his heart as did the thought that his bowl of Whiskers was waiting at home for him. Fini.

Von Rutter Ping Pong Delay

Ping Pong Delay is a digital delay that uses two short digi chips in conjunction to give a longer sound.
Although digi tends to = cheap Mr Rutter has tried to play to digitals advantages, get analog type sounds and attempted to deliver additional benefits/functionality not always offered by digital or analog delays. Its a complex little beast to get a grip of espically if you've only used a basic MIX/REPEATS type echo.

There are two on/offs a true bypass for tone clarity and effect on/off, both must be on for it to work however the effect switch off allows feedback trails to continue and fade off.

An Expression Pedal is offered to remote control the feedback level of one delay chip, allowing for self osc craziness.

The size is nice, about 2 MXR style boxes stuck together. Gives enough space to allow both foot switches to be depressed but allows it to be small enough to fit on a crowded pedal board.

Having the two chips allows for dual repeat times and adds a bit of complexity to the standard setup, they are both linked to the same feedback.

There's a few toggle switches to add features. A bright/dark switch (a low pass filter) to change the sound of the echoes, the dark effect gives something like a tape delay repeat. A type switch, selecting an echo type gives echo echo echo trails and a ping pong type sound with a single repeat.
Finally a switch to select whether to use the effects loop or not. The effects loop, like you would find in an amp, allows a series of pedals go before the delay circuitry (allows tone junkies to open up all kinds of possibilities and end with the delay as you'd expect). Its a shame the effects loop isn’t a stomp switch since being able to select the loop without bending over would have been handy, its a nice feature though.

With all these functions its a nice little delay that's different enough. Overall it does feel like its not totally sure what it is though, a digital delay like the Akai E2 provides a low pass filter, trailing echos with tap tempo or a MXR Carbon Copy provides similar length analog delays with dark delays. The Akai doesn't have true bypass, the MXR doesn't have trails so maybe a half way house like this is a gap.

Being from such a limited edition batch (this was among the first he produced) its not likely many of these will ever come up but its nice to have something documented on it somewhere.

Von Rutter produces all kinds of pedals now either singly in MXR style containers or dual ones like this in the bigger enclosures, he seems to have rectified some issues with this pedal on newer ones. He allows you to mix and match various circuits from what he's produced (e.g. a fuzz into a delay). You could do worse than to check out his current range ...

Burford Electronics 'Cybertron'

I recently came across this little beast on an ebay mission, described as ring modulator esq sounds with a filter sounded like a good addition to a skronkers pedal board.

Having now got it, the 'ring mod esq' is firmly in the 'esq'. The 'Cybertron' takes your guitar signal and modulates it with an internal oscillator, giving a synthetic quality to the original guitar signal.
"What are you talking about? Your ring mod article a few months ago described this concept as ring modulation." you say to yourself. True this is ring modulation; however there is some additional circuitry at work.
There appears to be some find of mild fuzz circuitry in the mix along with the VCF (voltage controlled filter). Unfortunately you cannot adjust the fuzz level, gain or colouration.
A gain control overall would have been a nice addition since there is a slight volume drop, but on the plus side there is a noise gate in there so no osc sounds leak out while you don’t play.
The VCF switch adds a sweeping sound based on the pitch you play at, it adds a bit of variety to the box and definitely helps make it a more skronky number. When the VCF is off its usable as a half way house between modulation and fuzz, plus it doesn't sound exactly like anything else you'd have got your teeth into before. It seems to work best picking individual notes or power chords, however it isn’t monophonic so you wont get confused circuitry sounds if you hit two strings at the same time.

To my mind the 'Cybertron' feels like the guitarists useable mxr blue box, its doesn’t do the octave down thing but you can make weird noise that still sounds like a guitar. Alan Exley at Burford Electronics has designed this specifically for guitar it feels, unlike similar effects (refering to the blue box, again) you can't use that many other instruments on it other than stringed numbers with a pickup or a keyboard (i tried an analogue casio number and it sounded sweet).

The 'Cybertron' is no longer made as 'Cybertron', probably due to the Transformers franchise connotations. Reading up on the Burford Electronics site at projectguitarparts.co.uk I think 'Techno lo – fi' is probably the closest match, it seems the VCF on/off is now an adjustable pot, which would be better, and you have some control over the fuzz colouration.

I think if you're after something a bit different there are plenty of options out there, however a gander at the Burford site might be a starting place, esp when Alan's boutique pedals are available at a reasonable price compared to the Z Vex

The Internet Hates You...

The Internet Hates You And Everything You Do. James Cole.
You used to be a little band, playing a few gigs locally, building up fans, working on your material. You were aiming for bigger gigs in bigger cities. You wanted to get noticed, first by journalists, then by the record labels. Maybe not the big ones, but you thought you had a fair shot at a credible indie label. You were a growing fish in a small pond and you had every intention of being in the right place at the right time to upgrade to a bigger pond, with gravel, and bitches. Then you posted your music on the internet.
It seemed like a good idea, didn’t it? The Arctic Monkeys did it and went straight to number one. Besides, it can’t hurt to let people hear what you do. Maybe a few more people will come check you out live. Perhaps even a journalist or label scout will come across you and accelerate your rise to that coveted third slot on the Rhombus Stage at Glastonbury. You never know your chances, right?
True. And it’s entirely possible that these things could happen. However, let’s have a closer look at those chances. Roughly 1.8 billion people have access to the internet at this moment in time. Even acknowledging that the bulk of those come from Westernised democratic countries (sorry Somalia, you can have broadband when the last man standing lets us know it’s calmed down a bit), it seems reasonable to assume that a screamingly small percentage of those 1,800,000,000 people are music journalists or record label minions. It’s much like real life in that respect, only in real life you’re still far more likely to be in the right place at the right time. Stepping up to the internet and hoping you’ll be noticed is like taking a piss in the Atlantic and hoping it gets to Boston. Two years ago Google announced that it had found and cached one trillion unique urls, and the indexable web as it stands has a minimum of 25 billion pages. It’s a big place.
At this point you might be thinking “Shit. I’m going to need to stand out in some way”. You would be right. In my personal opinion this boils down to one of two things, either:
a) A gimmick, which you create, send to your friends, post wherever you can and which, you hope, will go viral and get you noticed, or:
b) Being really fucking good.
Guess which one of these is most popular. Now guess which one works. Hint: it also works in real life, too.
Any number of bands have gone online with their music and their gimmick and had a crack at winning the hearts and minds of everyone who sees it. Well done them. Every time I get an email with the subject line “OMG you HAVE to see this band video!!” I know I’m about to have an encounter with a group of wannabe rock stars and the things they’ll do to their dignity in order to make it. It will be buried under a ton of After Effects ‘magic’, and it will probably feature some attempt at humourous self-deprecation, which I guess at least cuts out the middle man. Even the best gimmicks rarely work, the classic example being Ok Go. They’ve released two excellent YouTube videos, one featuring a treadmill dance, the other a Rube Goldberg device timed to the song’s beat. These guys are clearly bright and creative, but did it benefit their music? No. The first video helped Here It Goes Again to creep into the bottom of the top forty, the second is widely considered to have had a negligible effect on the sales of both the single itself and the album it came from.
At this point you might justifiably be thinking that some successful bands have gimmicks. To some extent I would agree with you. I would, however, point out that none of those gimmicks were created for, or based on, the internet. They also tend to belong to those who also fall under the category of being really fucking good. Kiss dress like tin foil wizards on stage. Is that their gimmick? No: their gimmick is looking like Hogwarts Vice and being really fucking good. David Bowie used five or six different personalities in the seventies. Was that his gimmick? No: his gimmick was a slightly cracked mind and being really fucking good. Gimmicks work if, and only if, they are part of the character of the band and backed up by genuine talent. Kiss are show-offs, and it works, because they’re very good at what they do. Bowie is a chameleon, and it works, because he took that side of his personality and used it as a channel for his musical gifts.
Back to the internet, then. What happens to the average gimmick? If you’re lucky, it does go viral. People pass it on, watch it, are entertained by it, and then forget about it. If you’re unlucky, well... Remember those 1.8 billion net users? A significant proportion of them will delight in your inadequacy. I know. I’m one of them. And either way, you lose, because the entertainment value is all right there in the gimmick itself. Whether it works or not I don’t need to click on your homepage and listen to your music, because the gimmick gave me all the amusement I needed and it didn’t cost me anything. Why should I pay for your product when I can just wait for the next viral video to entertain me instead? The internet has plenty of advice on how to create your own gimmick, so I can reasonably assume I won’t be waiting long.
I don’t understand where this desperate ‘look at me’ style of internet marketing has come from. I genuinely believe you are no more likely to be noticed on the internet than in real life, and significantly less likely to be noticed at all unless you fulfil the really fucking good clause. There are constant references to the Arctic Monkeys being the start of a period of internet discovery, but they weren’t. And they didn’t need a gimmick. They just put their songs online and enough people thought they were really fucking good. If they’d turned out to be a fifty-something man who liked the adoration of teenagers we might be telling a very different story, of course.
None of this means that I’m in any way against the use of the internet for musical purposes. I just don’t think it’s being used properly. By all means maintain a website and have your songs online to listen to, even to download if you want. A free song for your new fans isn’t going to hurt you at all. Just don’t go online expecting to get discovered, and definitely don’t go online with the intention of ramming your gimmick down people’s throats. I hate that, and by extension, so does everybody else. The internet has opened up a million useful possibilities for your new band: you can create band merchandise, get your records duplicated and packaged, get your recordings properly mastered, and get in touch with venues and promoters much more easily. The internet has given every band the advantages previously only available to the wealthy or to those on labels, and it has had the added bonus of increasing competition and thus lowering prices. This means you can get out there gigging, making real fans, and attempting to beat the real competition of other bands by doing the one thing you can do that makes you stand head and shoulders above the 1,799,999,999 other people online.
Being really fucking good.

5 things that happened at ATP.

1 Whilst being stoned off my face and mid-taking a shit, someone kicked the door open to see me vomiting into their toilet, with my jeans around my ankles. When I encountered her later we pretended nothing had happened. It was horrible.
(Even so, I would still rather have seen this debacle than the one gig of theirs I went to - especially if he drowned in his own chunks for an encore...)
2 Not a good thing - sleeping with my ex-girlfriend who I had split up with a month ago, then went out with again 3 weeks later, then split up with again one week before this happened. Then I tried to get back with her the next day. Kind of ruined the festival...
(No, not a good thing - still, tell anyone and everyone about it anyway, including the millions of readers of this fanzine. Cocksucker.)
3 Discovering my ex-boss was a bit of a wanker. He met two girls and they invited him to their chalet. He then returned, angrily mumbling that ‘the least he expected was a fucking blowjob’. I avoided speaking to him for the remainder of the weekend.
(Yeah, what a complete cunt - he sounds like the sort of heartless prick who would sleep with his ex-girlfriend who he had split up with a month ago, then go out with again 3 weeks later, then split up with again one week before this happened.)
4 Watching my friend Pierre get his haircut by his friend (Andrew from Youthmovies) who was stupidly drunk. He grabbed his fringe and cut it from about 1cm away from his head then made awful progress with the rest. We said it looked good and ‘a bit Eastern European’. It was shit. Basically just shit.
(Considering how stupid their chosen hairstyles currently look, one can only imagine what kind of turmoil Andrew from Youthmovies must have inflicted on their spotty bonces - unless that is the haircut they're talking about. You have to give them credit for not beating about the bush when it comes to name-dropping though - most people would have chosen a decent band, or someone who was still actually relevant.)
5 Wrestling with my friend Tom in various places. Like at the bowling alley, where we somehow evaded the clutches of the security guards by running and jumping over nearby slot machines. We also wrestled in the chalet and upon knocking my friend’s White Russian over, started the biggest argument over a drink I’ve experi- enced....We’re all friends now though.
(Discuss the homoerotic undertones in the above passage - two gawky teenagers grappling with each other, resulting in the spilling of a milky liquid over the carpet. Also, experienced isn't hyphenated.)
About the band:
Ice, Sea, Dead People are three students who occasionally play a recognisable riff amongst some white noise and screeching. Their hobbies include wanking into the free posters in NME, getting their mums to iron their jeans, and buying signed photographs of Tony from Hollyoaks on eBay. Despite this, they are still preferable to Shield Your Ears.

Craig Sharp. Additional Critic by Judge DamnAtioN.

Misogyny v Feminism, we thought having a look at the two polar opposites would be fun…

Bukowski’s Women.
This novel is Bukowski at his most misogynistic where he has had some success with his writing, no longer need do menial jobs to pay rent and mainly involves around several long relationships and multiple one night stands under Bukowski’s Henry Chinaski pseudo name.
There’s parties, there’s girls, there’s the horse track, there’s women but above all there is a lot of drink and not a lot of references to continued writing.
Some of the misogyny is fairly tame compared to authors such as Henry Miller, William Burroughs or even the authors own short stories however I picked it for this article since he occasionally flips position to a few of the ladies points of view where he is regarded as just a lecherous drunk or when visiting a lover upstate and fails to ‘get it up’ one even he is sent back home like a dog with his tail between his legs.
The famous Bukowski humour is in there as always for instance where his psychotic ex ‘Lydia’ find out where his new girl friends place is;
“I’ll go and buy more liquor. I’ll stay the night with Nicole, maybe a couple of nights.
I bent over picking up the glass when I heard a strange sound behind me.
I looked around. It was Lydia in the Thing. She had it up on the sidewalk and was driving it straight towards me at about 30mph. I leaped aside as the car went by, missing me by an inch.”.
When you begin to add up the number of girls who randomly turned up at his door you begin to wonder why considering he was relatively unattractive, liked to argue, a drunk however he was a mean street beat writer and told it how it was from his view point.
Despite Women being notorious and Post Office being his most acclaimed work I’d recommend Factotum, Ham on Rye and his short stories as Bukowski’s more essential and initial reading, but this is from someone who likes a good pop song and places ‘Women’ in high regard.

Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique.
Mystique is touted as one of the 1960s most prolific insights into feminism. The concept is that housewife Betty Friedan investigated what her college mates got up to post college via an open answer survey and interview questions.
Her conclusions were that although the suffragettes had won the women’s right in the 1920s the girls who grew up post world war two had taken many of them for granted.
She puts across many good arguments in favour of this with her primary source material and secondary sources from other anthropological, sociological and psychological studies. Regarding the parts of the psycho analytical material “Finally!”, I thought to myself, “This middle aged woman has managed to explain some Freud in layman’s terms!”
The section that is often quoted is goes along the lines of housework done by a housewife needs the intelligence of an 8 year old child, therefore additional productive tasks should be done by a woman to give strength and growth.
One piece of secondary source material she quoted I found intriguing was;
“Many girls will admit that they want to get married because they do not want to work any longer. They dream of being taken care of for the rest of their lives… it usually concerns a man who has the strength of an indestructible, reliable, powerful father, and the gentle , givingness, and self sacrificing love of a good mother. Young men give their reason for wanting to marry very often the desire to have a motherly woman in the house, and regular sex just for the asking without trouble and bother…”
I feel this is still true today if you were to interview the readership of The Sun.
Perhaps due to the age, started in 1957, of the book aspects such as Autism are not fully explained and she has a bizarre argument on homosexuality beginnings (but does not end the argument) by explaining it is due to over mothered sons. I found this latter debate particularly bizarre, especially considering there is no reference to female homosexuality.
The first half of the book starts well, giving a relatively unbiased approach (in that women are sometimes as much to blame as men) however it goes astray along the way but the last two chapters are excellent reading.
Overall this is a good introduction to feminism but should be read with a large healthy pinch of salt.

Gakken Analog Synthesizer. SX-150.

Gakken are an educational company based in Japan who among other things produces a magazine line where the reader gets a project each issue. Unlike the tat English equivalents where you build a boat over 100 issues these contain the full project and an encyclopedic style guide with Hello magazine style interviews with Japanese celebrities who demoed the project.

The issue I bought was the SX150, an analog synth gakken had built from scratch.
Its very easy to assemble (screw the wires onto the board and plug in batteries), the magazine had lovely pictures and histories of analog synths but I don’t read Japanese so its wasted on me, but the synth is what I wanted to demo.

The size is that of a Stylophone and control is similar, there are no specific notes (vague black arrows pointing towards low/mid/high) on a pitch based ribbon controller (a carbon strip you touch the pen on).

You can set the Low Frequency Oscillator (LFO) to Triangle (higher tones) or Sqaure (bassy tones) and the Rate it works at (the LFO section tends to be my personal favourite piece of any synth). The Attack and Decay effect how quickly the sounds start and end respectfully. Pitch Env controls how much the pitch is affected, low is minimal and high gives crazy lows to highs. Cutoff sets the sound filter as does the Resonance, which both effect the overall sound. There is a 3.5mm output jack and 3.5mm input jack to use the synth as a kind of filter type guitar pedal. Finally a power of low and high is also provided, low uses a lower current draw that gives less amplitude but saves on battery power.

Having owned analog synths (MS10 and CS10) and a stylophone I was very excited to find it is like having a crazy etchasketch style analog synth in the palm of your hand.

Admittedly the number of controls are limited but given the value and size of it is a lovely thing to have. Its not going to replace your analog synths and would be a toy in comparison but to someone who would like to get into analog this could be for you, a nice gateway into that world esp if you don’t plan to use it as a main instrument.

Dare I say it Moog enthusiasts this is more fun than the Theremin, gives a better range of sounds and probably better value for money.

In Section K we use the Gakken SX150 as an additional synth to the MicroKorg (boo hiss, digital!) both have their advantages and disadvantages, one is £200 more expensive, wooden paneling and can store sounds!

Having said that plug through a pedal chain and a looper box you could get some great tunes out of this beast. Well recommended.

On another note Gakken have several other musical projects including a pitch based
Theremin and 8 Bit Computer that you can use as a sequencer! Check them out.

Judge DAmNation’s Guide to World Cup Success

• Hire a coach who barely speaks the language of the team – communication is overrated, and football after all is an international language. Like Esperanto, but with kicking and gouging.

• The best players are like action figures, and should be played with before the tournament until they wear out or their legs fall off. Buy cheaper knock-off versions from a car boot sale and take these along instead.

• The most important aspect of a team is character, so be sure to include two love-rats to make the other players feel more honourable. Find that homeless guy outside Dixon’s who looks a bit like Craig David and ask him if he wants to be in goal.

• Don’t work the players too hard in the early matches – they’ll need their energy for the important games later on. Allow them to wander around, take their time and get used to standing on grass; as long as they draw it should be alright.

• If any players start doing well, or look like they might score, take them off immediately. You don’t want to damage Rooney’s confidence as he hasn’t scored a goal for a while, and his ickle knee is hurting. Substitute these players for shithouses like Heskey and Wright-Philips to make him feel better. Rooney should be left on the pitch until he turns green or starts sprouting tubers.

• Tackling is ungentlemanly, thuggish and not at all English - this is the only reason European teams are so good at football. Simply wait for the other team to accidentally pass to you, or ask them politely if it isn’t your turn to have the ball for a bit.

• Xenophobic tirades against any other country are, on the other hand, thoroughly English and should be encouraged among the fans. This includes Scotland and Wales.

• Rooney needs about an hour in a hot oven, or ten minutes on each side in the microwave. If he still feels a bit crunchy in the middle pop him in for a couple more minutes, then sprinkle with grated cheese.

• Only play with any skill at all against the one fucking team I get allotted in the World Cup sweepstake, thus robbing me of my thirty-two quid prize money.

• When you finally get knocked out on penalties to Montevideo or the Isle of Wight, consider hiring Ross Kemp as manager for the 2014 World Cup, and replacing the team with the cast of Football Factory. Then smash up the place.

Gay Vampire Pictures By Tom Mc

Annie from Hysterical Injury talks set-up’s.

We are a duo using bass guitar, drums and voice. For the bass to make up the foundation bass lines and double up as a guitar in the loud bits, at the moment I use various guitar and bass fx pedals, 1000watt Ampeg BR4 with two 2x12 Lombardi speaker cabinets, 65 valve watts Ampeg 1969 Gemini twin guitar amp which I am soon to have a twin dual cone speaker guitar cab for it as well. I use a DI box with high and low impedance outputs to split my bass signal then feed them via the pedals to the bass amp and guitar amp. This allows me more scope and flexibility with the sound as I can play with signal sounds individually.

From the bass guitar to the bass amp I currently take a high impedance signal to an Electroharmonix Micro POG through to an Electroharmonix Bass Big Muff to a Tech 21 Sans Amp Bass Overdrive then to the Ampeg BR4 with the Lombardi stack. I use the POG usually at full turns on both the octave up and down so I get a massive range across three octaves- the one I play, the one above and one below. It gets really low and the tracking of the note with this pedal is fantastic. Someone said to me once that my bass sounded like a harpsichord – it was this pedal that did it. The Big Muff is the bass equivalent to the infamous guitar Big Muff but deals with the higher bass signal better than the one made for guitar. It has gorgeous warm fuzz and doesn’t squeeze the bass signal like I have found other pedals to do. I use the Tech 21 Sans Amp Bass Over Drive to boost the signal in the bass frequencies to make the bass end sparkle.

From the bass to the guitar amp I currently run a low signal level through a Zvex Fuzz Factory and then an MXR Delay pedal. Both these are guitar pedals. The Fuzz Factory gets the wild and sparkly fuzz/noise tones that I like. It is a very controllable / wild pedal if that makes sense, you can get some incredible hot fuzz and control it with the gate and compressor on it with amazing accuracy but I like its raw wildness. The MXR delay is a new addition, which so far I have used to brighten and give space to the Zvex sounds. That’s what I use at the moment but things change as the songs demand more and different sounds.

Annie Gardiner



Note, the EHX Carbon Copy on the diagram should be MXR Carbon Copy.

Craig Sharp, Ice, Sea, Dead Peoples's Guitarist on Setup :

Fender Mustang re-issue; Very treble-y, I always knock the pickup selectors (which can mute the guitar entirely - not ideal) and bits of it are prone to falling off... but I love it!
Laney Pro-Tube 100 Watt head; 80s English valve head that I bought off eBay for £200, apparently it's a copy of a Marshall JCM 800 and I've also heard it be called "a poor man's Orange" head. I think it sounds great though so whatever, it was £200!
HH V.S. Musician 100 Watt transistor head; 70s transistor head built in Cambridge with military spec electronics - same contractors as the British Army... insane, right? It's super light and easy to carry on trains and on the tube, I got it for £100 on eBay. Tim from Part Chimp uses one so you know they're loud. Also geeky soundguys give you knowing winks and nods as they see you stride in with one under your arm.
Marshall 2x12 cab; As light as my Laney valve head but with two massive handles. This is a practical purchase more than anything but it definitely packs a punch. I borrowed Falco from Future of the Left's Marshall 4x12 cab recently and didn't really notice that much difference. I broke my own rules and bought this brand new -- generally buying stuff secondhand is a great rule to stick by because you can roughly sell it for the same price you bought it for if you're good at keeping your gear in check -- but this was only £160 and I couldn't find many on eBay that would deliver.

Quick rundown on guitar pedals:
Boss TU-2 Tuner > Zvex Distortron (Insanely loud) > MXR Smart Gate (To help cut any unwanted feedback from the Distortron ruining our stop-start-stop bits) >
Boss DM-2 Analogue Delay (Discontinued from the 70s. I feel like a bit of a pussy for using delay in a band like this but whatever, I'm using it in a few new songs and it's quite handy to get some sounds echo-ing in between songs so there's no dead air and I can drink/breathe a bit before the next song kicks off.)

Jamie's set up is a bit of a mess and it sounds different everytime we practice and play... Bass distortion is fucking impossible. Although Annie from The Hysterical Injury seems to have it sorted!

BBE Two Timer Analogue Delay Pedal.

An analogue delay, based upon Boss’ classic DM2 box, with switchable delay times at an affordable price. Is this too good to be true?

Having seen a few bands like with vintage analogue pedals in their rigs I decided to take the plunge and invest in the Two Timer.
From the information I read it seemed to the best fit my purposes, being flexible with two delays, having the typical warmth, true bypass, and could make the lovely analogue version of oscillator spaceship noise.

Having the box now it does indeed have all these things along with more benefits and some downfalls I had not seen before. I bought it ‘used’ from ebay for less than the RRP of £149.



The Two Timer is slightly larger than a standard Boss box but takes the standard 9V adaptor or a battery. It has On/Off switch, Delay 1/Delay 2 selector switch, Delay Time 1, Delay Time 2, Delay Repeats and Wet Dry Mix. The enclosure is just right for fitting all these controls and two bypass switches, even with my size ten feet I can hit the switches fine.

The delay times range from minimal at 6 o’clock (as one would expect), to doubling at 9 o’clock, to delayed at 12 o'clock, to longer delays from 2 o’clock onwards.

It must be noted that after 1 o’clock an audible whistle begins, this is due BBE not calibrating the delay chip properly. Unfortunately there isn’t a lot you can do about this, as per our previous article on analogue delays this is a common problem.
Luckily with the two delay settings I have found I can have a perfect delay on one and for longer delays which I typically use for noise anyway this would not be a problem.
A noise gate would silence the whistle when you don’t play however it would still be there upon playing.

The repeat ranges give a single repeat at 6 o’clock, cranking between 7 and 2 o’clock will bring gentle canyon style fading into the distance repeats to clear small cave echo. Repeats over 3 o’clock begin to trigger the self oscillation; 3 o’clock is gradual whereas 5 o’clock is in your face 50s sci-fi analogue madness.

The wet dry mix is good enough to give you a full wet, full dry or a nice mix. Mine was mainly left at 3 o’clock for the analogue character.

Switching between Delay times results in a few milliseconds of signal pause, and the way I see it you wouldn’t likely want to swap between delays mid song.
It is a useful function for people who want slap back or repeats and don’t want to mess with the pedal board mid set, aka the typical guitarist. For me it allows me to have a nice analogue delay and something I can make some noise with J
Since there is only one repeat all delay times go through this, I found between 11 and 1 o’clock worked best but it depends what sound you want.

There seems to be a brick wall filter on the go, as explained in our analogue delay section BBD chips typically use Low Pass Filtering, e.g. very high frequencies are filtered out. This only really seemed to be a problem when using a fuzz box set to a Jesus and Mary Chain style white noise setting which gave a single repeat rather than an echo. However I cannot imagine anyone wanting to add warmth to harsh fuzz J

In my opinion and the price I paid it is a nice pedal to have around; however for RRP £149 I wouldn’t suggest it.
For example a vintage Boss DM2/3 would be the same value and have fewer downfalls or you can get a Maxon AD9 re-issue for £99.
If you want warmth and short delays go for something like these suggestions.
If however you want warmth and longer delays check out the Freakshow Effects ‘Digilog’, a hybrid of analogue and digital chips to give a compromise.

Schaller Tremolo TR-68

Having recently bought on of these little analogue beasts I thought I’d better do a review.
There doesn’t seem to be too much information on the web about them despite plenty of excellent comments in pedal forums from owners there didn’t seem to be any detail.

According to the Schaller web site these have been in production since 1957 and still basically use the same design, which explains the premise for the delicious tremolo sounds.

There seems to have been a few alterations to the device over the past 50 years, the main point was some models have an LED on/off indicator.
Schaller are still making these little monsters now with the metal stomp switch, whereas the originals have a plastic switch.

I have assumed the model I tested was a late 1970s early 1980s device, since it made in West Germany.

There are four controls; on/off stomp switch, speed toggle switch, amplitude and frequency knobs. The on/off is self explanatory, however the other three are not so since they all affect the oscillator signal and all related.

The Speed sets the speed of the Freq and Amp to either Fast or Slow.
The Frequency is how fast the signal is modulated or tremolo-ed and Amplitude is how great the level of the frequency is. As you can see all three controls effect how much tremolo sound you will get.

The pedal is true bypass so your tone is clear when it is off, it must be noted that when you’re not using the pedal unplug you ¼ jacks else when you return the battery will be drained flat.

The oscillator is a sine wave based one so this is a very organic sounding tremolo. This is in contrast most modern tremolos, which favour triangle or square wave oscillators; that give a trebly or bass driven end result.

You can only hear oscillator bleed (the sound of the osc when you are not playing) when the speed is fastest, freq and amp are set to highest.
This sound is not unpleasant, and could probably be used to great effect with a synth pedal placed after it or to stop this bleed a noise gate would solve the problem.

On the sounds produced to quote Schaller; “the variation range of the Schaller pedal spans from barely audible to extreme.” Well, ‘extreme’ is probably a German mistranslation but it does definitely give good tremolo sounds at high settings.

The pedal seems to be as loud as the signal you put through, it would therefore be worth adjusting your levels to be inline with the TR68 or maybe have a booster/gain pedal after the TR68 if you have nothing gain related when using it.

There are a few aspects I thought that would niggle or benefit some buyers…

The device is 9 volt battery only, accessible via screwed bottom.
The case is a very hard plastic (so lightweight, won’t rust and unlikely to be broken by a stomp but I wouldn’t trust a drop from a great height).
The enclosure is about an inch longer and half an inch flatter than you standard Boss offering, it also won’t sound like your standard Boss.
No Wet/Dry level, so if you play fast during a slow tremolo setting you cannot hear the guitar as it fades out, e.g. the tremolo is set to 100% wet all the time.
Older models have a plastic stomp switch, however this seems stable.
Lack of On/Off LED indicator on some older models.

Despite all this it’s a great sounding little box, which will sound different from the usual ilk. The niggles may as I suggested actually be benefits for some people and could all probably be corrected by someone with half a head for electronics, especially if this simple looking circuit hasn’t changed since the 1950s.

It’s worth noting that Schaller also made the TR68 as an outsourced pedal for Hofner and Kent, both these models had metal enclosures.

Analogue Delay, in many forms!

To continue the debate with the tone freaks we’re going to look at analogue delay for all its glories and its failings.


Analogue delay is always admired for its warmth, depth and general tone. As with everything sound is subjective, it can provide all three of these. A clean sound can be given some good slice of colour with an analogue delay depending on what else is in the signal you put through the delay.

Analogue delays typically provide a range from doubling (makes two signals within milliseconds of each other to sound like two guitars playing the same part) to short echo repeat (an instrument in a bathroom) to weird spaceship noises (self oscillating repeats).

The reason the length and colour lie in the technology that is used, which is either tape (solid state or valve) or BBD chips.

In the tape method a set length of tape has the original sound recorded, spins round and is played back through multiple playback heads set at different volumes, this method is limited by the tape length. Since tape is a mechanical system it has many flaws. The tape itself wears out due to stretching and cannot be infinitely recorded onto. The motor spools need greasing, recording and playback heads need physically cleaning to keep it a clean moving and playing device.



Artists such as the Shadows and King Tubby are famed for tape delay and most people would agree for the sounds you can produce it’s worth it.


A note on Valves verses Solid State.Valves are a predecessor to modern day transistors. They are vacuumed glass tubes that provide warmth not found in modern day electronics. The flaws with valves is they get very hot and need to warm up before operating correctly, can draw a high current, are made of glass (therefore easily broken if dropped), they have low tolerance than transistors so more easily broken and old new stock originals would be hard to come by however several manufacturers make new copies. Basically valves are now for their warmth and colour, whereas Solid State Transistor technology will last longer is less likely to break but will be 'colder'.


Watkins Copicat, Echoplex and Roland’s Space Echo are prime examples of out of production tape echos.
Fulltone now produce a tape echo box, which is agreed to be one of the best new production tape echos however you will pay out the ear for it, for those with smaller wallets and not bothered with tape cutting an Akai E2 will provide you with a digital emulation of tape sounds.





In the BBD (bucket brigade device) Chips it is limited by the amount of signal the chip can store, typically 330 milliseconds.
With BBD’s there is also upper frequency cut off which causes a phenomena know as aliasing whether the processing upper frequencies get confused and mix giving strange sounds, so manufactures use a low band bypass to make sure aliasing doesn’t occur and ruin your well crafted sound. However unlike tape there are no moving parts apart from the obvious (level knobs and footswitch) so less to maintain and go wrong.

According to an article on the Analogman website the BBD chips a manufacturer chooses for a pedal and the end configuration are also important.
Many companies use a cheaper 3208 chip which supplies 330ms of delay however its upper limit for sound use is really 160ms, since above 160ms a high pitch noise becomes apparent. This can be limited by adjusting internal variable resistors to attempt to get the highest delay without a high pitch sound, however due to the speed of production lines verse end line testing this rarely gets done hence the rise of boutique delays, which are tailor made, lovingly tested but you pay for this too.
Analogman suggested the 3205 BBD chip can reduce whistling, which is no longer in production, but does feature in the Maxon AD9, Boss DM2/DM3 and Analogman version of the Daphon Delay. All command a high value, however the AD9 has come back into production and could be bought for about £100 new.





On a continued note the Philips corporation who produced the majority of the BBD chips for sound use stopped manufacture some years ago, in 2007 ‘Visual Sound’ has commissioned the re-manufacture of Philips patented 3102s and 3207s, which explains why more analogue delays are suddenly available at cheaper rates again.

Fini.

Tone freaks!

To summarise Billy Corgan put it simply at the start of his series of articles in a well known guitarist magazine during the early 1990s, as soon as you put your guitar signal into circuitry you have changed its tone.
This is still true now; no amount of digital wizardry, noise suppression, or kafuffle will change this fact.

In fact just by putting your guitar into an amp changes its tone, this is a good thing. No one wants an amp less electric, the jangle would put indie bands off indie. The only possible reason could be to either become the most jangle fest band in the world or to record the purest possible signal and put it through an amp and effects afterwards, trent reznor is known to do this.

Turning stomp boxes/pedals on and off.
There’s a lot of whohaa about true bypass, true bypass completely means your tone avoids any circuitry when the effect is off and therefore in theory if the effect has no power your pure signal will flow straight through since the circuitry doesn't need powering. Effectively you're putting the signal via another piece of cable.
The other method always puts your signal via the pedal circuitry in a passive mode, e.g. one where the pedal is not affecting your signal. the problem with this is since it is going through the circuitry it is effecting the signal, you can perhaps hear frequencies highs, mids, lows or a mix of all three going as well as the sound of the circuitry. Two examples of this latter point I can think of are; a ring modulator typically uses an oscillator to mix frequencies and some oscillator frequency could slip through leaving a hum, or the circuitry clock could slip through, e.g. a phaser/flanger/chorus mix two versions of your signal at a clock rate, if no signal is being clocked you can sometimes hear the rises and falls of the clock.

To combat going through the circuitry some effects use buffering and noise gates, buffering boasts the signal before it goes through the circuitry; noise gate cuts out the noise which you don't want (e.g. clock sound).
These can both be incorporated into true bypass pedals too, however would be part of the unbypassed circuitry.

There is sometimes another issue that can happen is the on/off switch POP! When turning effects on or off, this is a part of some switches that cannot be avoided. Leaving the effect on an using a loop switch as mentioned in the tips at the bottom would be the easiest way to get round this.

Let’s go back to the original principle "as soon as you put your guitar signal into circuitry you have changed its tone". A single pedal that changes your tone when off could in be fine, the effect is more of a cumulative one much like people eating too many steaks or McDonald Burgers from BSE infected beef. The more pedals you add into a chain the more you change the tone.
I have always found cheaper pedals are worst for adding to the sound, the worst culprits being cheap multi effects pedals. That said expensive kit doesn't mean it won't affect the tone.

In Section K we use a Zoom 1010, which isn’t the cheapest thing you could get but adds a load of other things to the original signal for example you can hear the flanger clock when not playing or noise when it is in tuner bypass mode, sometimes this is a good thing with noise though and it is capable of programming in some great effects.
By the way 1990s zoom multi effects are a nice tip for you noise makers on a tight budget :)

Regarding tone snobbery, often in a live gigging situation tone isn’t so important, being able to hear the instrument is paramount in these situations! I would say it’s more important in a studio situation, its good to sound nice but being too much of a tone freak is bad.

Three tips to retain as much tone when you're not using the effects:

1/ Put only the effects you're actually going to use in your rig, when run signal through something you’re not using?

2/ Try true bypass loop pedals, these let you put effects into various loops (e.g. Loop A, distortions, Loop C, modulations) and you get true bypass when you’re not using the effects.

3/ Try EQs and Noise Gates, e.g. if a pedal take out the highs have an EQ after to replace that frequency or if you can hear a flanger clock use the gate to remove the clock sound.

Caring about how you sound is good. Being an anal tone freak is a bad, you should be playing not fiddling with your tone. Hopefully these tips will stop the latter, now go and write some good tunes!