Gasalcoholics anonymous? whoever said this was a help group?

[Heraclitus Akimbo]

Kinda wanted a kaossilator ever since getting my mini kaoss pad ages ago. Saw one on sale cheap and local and grabbed it. Lotsa crap techno sounds, but there's stuff here I can work with, and I love the form factor, especially for live stuff, where it's a bit more performative than regular knob twisting.

[Blood_mountain]

I finally caved and ended my year without gear and have an OBNE screen violence incoming.
First pedal purchased in 9 months.

[dubkitty]

i decided to go all-in and order stuff that i felt like would complete the boards and let me do a proof-of-concept looper board. incoming:

EHX Canyon delay to replace the Flashback
Catalinbread Soft Focus reverb
Saturnworks 3-into-1 powered output summing box for looping board
Boss LM-2 limiter for the looper board output--end annoying output boost from overdubs forever with brick-wall limiting!
replacement footswitch for the old Distortion+--it had a good run at ~44 years

the only other stuff i can speculate needing now is a expression pedal for the Randy's Revenge, a power supply for the looping board with a 12V AC output for the LM-2, a EXH 1440 looper so i can store pre-recorded sequences, and a volume pedal to fade it in/out (i use a Ernie Ball pan pedal to fade between the two main looper outputs). for proof-of-concept purposes i can get away with a daisy chain and a 12V wall wart for the looper board for now. i don't think the Snazzy FX stuff will get a board because they require too much adjustment to be practical as anything other than tabletop devices.

the Catalinbread Fuzzrite is problematic from a noise standpoint. i need to try running it as a solo pedal to see if there's some kind of "i want to be first in the signal chain because i'm a primitive 60s fuzz" kind of thing going on. i really don't want to have to hunt for another buzzsaw fuzz. perhaps i'll try running it on a 9V battery.

but the good news is that the big board/front-end board power supplies are sorted. i need to nice up the power cable runs on the big board so it's not an ugly mess, though...i just wanted to get it working to start.

i suppose at some point i'll want to get a bass amp because my guitar amps suck for bass. probably a solid-state head with a 1x15" Hartke cab with the aluminum speaker cone. but i have guitar amps that need fixed first, including a Kalamazoo Bass 30 2x10" that would likely work for bass. i guess i could try running the cab out of one of the guitar amps.

[Pepe]

Boss LM-2 limiter for the looper board output--end annoying output boost from overdubs forever with brick-wall limiting!

One of the best BOSS sleeper pedals. A very useful and almost noise-free tool.

If you use a daisy-chain cable for the LM-2 and another buffered pedal, regulated 9V is sufficient.

[dubkitty]

i'm going to get an isolated supply, but i have a spare 12V wall wart because it turns out you can connect two MXR ISO Bricks by running one 12V output into the other's 12V input.

[dubkitty]

i deleted this because some of my impressions changed after doing a extended side-to-side comparison of the Canyon and Flashback last night. repost to follow.

[SPACERITUAL]

It appears I just got the last THROAT LOCUST ever. Niceeeee.

[dubkitty]

revised/extended remarks:

the EXH Canyon arrived Monday and i took a couple of hours to mess with settings and then another couple of hours last night doing A/B comparisons of the sounds and features. the stock Canyon sounds are OK, but the magic is in the secondary knob functions.

Flashback good points: overall "prettier" sounds, infinite feedback on all settings, longer delay time, easy subdivision switch
Flashback bad points: no parameter adjustments (i.e. no fine tuning), sounds are more conventional

Canyon good points: tweakable, self-oscillates in some modes, soft switch.
Canyon bad points: no infinite feedback for pseudo-loops in Tape/DMM modes without self-oscillating, 3-second maximum delay time vs. 7 seconds for Flashback, sounds are overall more lo-fi than Flashback, harder to select subdivisions with single pushbutton.

specific comparisons--note that i tweaked the Canyon settings when possible in order to fine-tune them to my preferences, while all the Flashback sounds are stock:

digital delay: the Flashback 2290 setting kills the Canyon's standard Echo setting, which is OK but is sonically flat in comparison. there's some kind of subtle harmonic processing happening in the 2290 setting, while the Canyon Echo is totally flat. no adjustments possible to Canyon Echo, which does not self-oscillate.

analog delays: the Canyon's Deluxe Memory Man emulation (hereafter, "DMM" as labeled on the case) is very colored and lops off increasing amounts of high end with each repeat until it decays to irregular blips; after about 8 repeats it's all low-end signal. the TC analog delay modes are both less extreme; the Analog setting loses less highs per repeat and never decays to unintelligibility, while the Lo-Fi mode is closer to the DMM mode but retains note shape/length at extreme levels of decay. DMM mode self-oscillates past 3 o'clock on Feedback knob.

tape delay: the TC Tape mode is cleaner and more wobbly (i.e. more pitch variation) than the Canyon Tape setting, which starts out more distorted but has less pitch modulation. the least distorted setting available via the Canyon's secondary knob function is dirtier than the Flashback's sound. the TC also quits deteriorating after a certain point and just repeats, while the EHX breaks all the way down into barely intelligible bloops and sheets of noise not unlike the Snazzy FX Wow and Flutter. Canyon self-oscillates past 3 o'clock on Feedback knob.

modulated delay: the two settings are similar, but the Canyon Mod mode is warmer and the modulation somehow more apparent. Canyon Mod mode does not self-oscillate.

other settings:

• the reverse on the Canyon is nominally better, but you still end up with a mess when the reversed part gets repeated. reverse delay does not work for me; give me an Attack Delay or something a bit more tweakable that does A/D without repeats instead.
  
  the stunt delay modes on the Canyon (echo w/added reverb on repeats only, stepped octave extensions, shimmer) are fairly useless though the shimmer surprisingly isn't horrible because it doesn't do the stepped Rainbow Machine shit, but just makes clouds.
  
  the Canyon Sample/Hold feature works but i don't see much use for it other than setting it so the sample ramps up from quiet to unity gain because that's an unusual thing; secondary knob function allows you to vary from ramping up from silence through consistent repeats at 12 o'clock on the Delay knob to fading out. limit of 12 steps at maximum Delay setting.
  
  i have never used the TC Slapback or Ping Pong modes--i don't do rockabilly or run a stereo rig--and the Dynamic setting is useless.
  
  loopers not tested. it's too hard to access the switches when they're on the middle/top tiers of a board. i wish that instead of redundant no-features loopers both companies would have included another useful delay sound instead; i'd particularly like an Echorec or Space Echo option.

physical features:

• the TC is much easier to set subdivisions via a 3-way toggle switch; the Canyon requires activating tap tempo and then repeatedly pressing a single button to cycle between the 3 options.
  
  the Canyon has a soft switch, while the Flashback has a click switch albeit one that's easier to operate than a typical switch requiring less force and shorter travel.
  
  the Flashback's knobs and labeling are much easier to read...the mode knob labels on the Canyon are almost impossible to read from more than 2 feet away, and you'll have to memorize them if it's on your board. i also prefer the more subdued design scheme of the Flashback.

summary:

so really there are only four useful types of delay on both units, which they share: digital delay, analog delay (Flashback has 2 modes), modulated delay, and tape echo.

standard digital delay: Flashback
modulated delay: Canyon
tape echo: either is useful
analog delays: all useful, Canyon most limited
stunt modes: generally all useless other than Canyon shimmer
fake loops w/max feedback settings: Flashback works in all settings, Canyon only in Echo and Mod modes
oscillating delay: Canyon DMM and Tape modes only
aesthetics and legibility: Flashback
switch: Canyon
loopers: not tested

i guess i'll have to run both. i suppose it would be more sensible to get a Eventide or Strymon uber-delay, but i refuse to menu-dive on stuff that sits on the floor or try to fit those fucking shoeboxes on my board. same deal with reverb...assuming the Soft Focus fits the bill, i'll run it into the Ghost Echo which is my artificial space rather than programming complicated shit to try and sound like stuff i can already do with dedicated boxes that do one thing well. i'd say that if you want to do more standard stuff the TC is better because its normie modes are prettier, but if you're going more for weird noise then the Canyon might be for you.

reposted as a separate thread in General Gear.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Very thorough! Shootouts can be annoying when you end up with... they're both kinda good but at least you have more things you like!

I played a Rusty Box for the first time at the weekend and now I really want one of those or a Moose Cosmic Trigger... Seems like an ideal bass preamp for me, even when not going for that tone it does a great sound.

[dubkitty]

i'm not complaining about having more wacky delay options.

[Warpsmasher]

Hey yall, I'm not dead, just really busy.

Vintage King has the Joe Gore on clearance, so I snagged a Filth. Also got a Nine of Swords Tyrant and Koma Kommander from CL last week.

[Gone Fission]

Hey yall, I'm not dead, just really busy.

Vintage King has the Joe Gore on clearance, so I snagged a Filth.

Happy about the first part. As to the second part,

Oh fuck. Hell of a time in to not know whether I’ll be paid before the next Congress (if then).

[coldbrightsunlight]

Snagged a lil something Because I need more overdrives/preamps obviously

[Warpsmasher]

Behringer DJ mixer was a bust, the digital clock was bad on arrival so all the time based effects just made static noise. Replaced by sweetwater, and encountered the same problem in the replacement, so got a refund. That's Behringer, win some lose some. This left me still without a proper stereo recording interface, so today ordered a Motu M2. For fun stuff I am also now awaiting an OBNE eyeball slider thing, EHX Crash Pad & Super Space Drum.

[gila_crisis]

I didn't post anything here im a while not because I didn't buy anything, but because.... I was very busy doing noises with these new toys

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