Chunk's Octavius Squeezer: "Sound Clips & Settings Thread"

[gastric]

Thanks for the support guys. You can thank me even more by sharing your custom patches so I can bounce them out for the rest of the internet to munch on.

This is one of the few pedals I cannot see myself getting rid of anytime soon. There's so many fun sounds to be heard. I'm currently playing in a punk-ish original rock band so this guy isn't even on my board right now. But I hope to someday be able to share it's awesomeness with a crowd.

I was demoing it for a friend last week and was showing off some recent VCO synth patches and was shocked at how well it performed. I was running my jazz bass with both pickups on full which actually cut the VCF sensitivity heavily compared to my P bass, but the VCO was spot on. I've never tried an input volume cut to the box, nor a pre-EQ but I'm curious if that's what helped the VCO track better, if my playing was just better, or what. But the VCO surprises me fairly often with it's awesomeness.

Not sure if any of you have tried out the LOFI patch I put on the site months ago but that thing seems like some sort of tip-of-the-iceburg patch. It mostly sucks on my E string, but the rest genuinely sounds like some analog lo-fi scratchy processor. I haven't had time to tweak with it any further but if I could get fatter sounding but retain the lo-fi quality it'd be a winner.

[DeltaPhoenix]

I am getting the one that has the beta version 12 firmware with the Paul Turner patches. It may take me a few weeks (I have a Finance midterm coming up,then a break) before I can send them Gastric, but I will share them.

[gastric]

If you can please save off a copy of the Paul turner patches and email them to me? I already modified mine without a backup. They're pretty good patches.

[DeltaPhoenix]

No problem. The pedal should be shipping to me today so over the weekend or early next week.

[gastric]

Will be a good first lesson in moving patches for you, too. Should we start taking bets on if he can't save 6 patches without smashing the pedal with a hammer first?

[DeltaPhoenix]

I am sure I will need some help.

[JehuJava]

Originally Posted by DeltaPhoenix

No problem. The pedal should be shipping to me today so over the weekend or early next week.

Should be fun for you, gastric.

I found starting by building simple patches (env filter, etc) an easy way to understand how the settings work. I haven't had much time to really mess with the os since I just moved. Waiting for my bass gear to arrive now...

[gastric]

I was reviewing the Paul Turner patches and noticed that some of them are using a LIN curve on the VCF. When I first got the pedal and tried LIN curves I couldn't get the filter to move at all, it seemed to be setting a static-like filter. However, it seems if you set a huge sweep and sweep range it actually does work.

Any of you create any successful patches that use LIN instead of EXP?

[gastric]

Originally Posted by DeltaPhoenix

I am getting the one that has the beta version 12 firmware with the Paul Turner patches. It may take me a few weeks (I have a Finance midterm coming up,then a break) before I can send them Gastric, but I will share them.

I see you are selling or have sold your Squeezer already. Any stories to share?

I just joined a new band recently and they're interested in some synthy bass sounds so I'll potentially be putting mine back on the board to see what new sounds I can squeak out of it. Found a usable downswept envelope filter tone that is very responsive to retriggering and sounds pretty 80's synth-like. I'll try to be a good boy and share the patches AND sound clips in the near future.

[DeltaPhoenix]

It had to go to fund a Peavey MidiBase plus all of the relevant stuff to make it work, a rack synth, an Antares Studio Merge, a M Audio Venom synth, which are all going to be connected together as well as a laptop running Maschine, and possibly Ableton Live Suite 8.
I think until technology does something different, I am done with synth pedals. I got really lucky finding a working MidiBase (upgraded to Cyber Bass software) at a GREAT price.

I was considering a Roland VB-99 as the runner-up, if I couldn't score the MidiBase.

[gastric]

Send me your thoughts on that setup once you've got it up and running. Generally speaking the whole bass-to-synth stuff is a big pill to swallow. So many pros-n-cons.

[DeltaPhoenix]

Yeah, with my research, this is about as good as it gets, virtually no latency since no notes are being analyzed. The Midibase was engineered by the guy the builds the Industrial Radio Midi Bass now.
I will gladly let you know what I think when I get it all up and running. It will really be a week or two before I have everything hooked up.

[moles]

Originally Posted by gastric

I was reviewing the Paul Turner patches and noticed that some of them are using a LIN curve on the VCF. When I first got th pedal and tried LIN curves I couldn't get the filter to move at all, it seemed to be setting a static-like filter. However, it seems if you set a huge sweep and sweep range it actually does work.

Any of you create any successful patches that use LIN instead of EXP?

I haven't had any trouble getting the LIN filter to open up. It does sound different, so that may cause one to instinctively hit the string softer, or set up the pre-mix into the filter differently...but so far it's worked fine on my unit. No patches yet, however, as I haven't found a use/need for that particular sound yet. I should work something up though, as it's a nice departure from all that fat....like having a really nice salad after eating drive-in burgers all week

I should take this opportunity to point out a couple of other things I've figured out over past little while... There have been a couple of referrals to the Trap and Triangle waveforms not sounding right for some people - Well they didn't for me either (very quiet and noisy sounding) but, I've stumbled on the fact that they sound great when fed into the fuzz (set the Fuzz source to SYN, and IIRC turn the VCO->VCF to OFF) The Square and Saw waveforms, in contrast, sound bad (noisy mostly) going into the fuzz, so I avoid that.

The other item relates to the fuzz circuit, and setting up a patch purely as a dirt effect. I'd been experimenting with different ways to blend in some dry signal, to achieve some different, lower gain sounds. (Don't get me wrong, the fuzz itself sounds nearly perfect as is, with no tone sculpting...but I also like the sound of it in a low-gain setup, and in that case it needs a little something or it looses punch in some situations...)

Anyhooo... what I'd noticed unfortunately, was that the dry signal and the fuzz don't seem to be completely in phase with each other, and so there is some low end loss when blending the two (one would be sent to the Post Mix, and the other routed thru the filter section.)

Taking it for what it is, I'd just been working with it - got a few patches with the dry signal going through a band pass filter, set low, for some extra low end - and some with the fuzz (on a low drive setting) going through the filter accenting the midrange to high end..(blended with the dry signal in the Post Mix). You can get some neat sounds like this - the comb filtering will either hurt or help the sound, depending on the room etc...

But my new discovery is that, if you need to tweak the sound of the fuzz, it can be sent both through the filter (pre-mix source: FUZZ) AND through the post mix, without any apparent phasing issues. You can then sculpt the filtered fuzz signal to add in any frequencies you need (ie midrange,) should you need to cut through the mix more than the flat fuzz sound will.

Gonna try this on the next gig to be sure - I spent the last weeks' worth of gigs giving my new Germanium Muff a run through, and so only used the Squeezer's fuzz on a couple of songs...

[gastric]

Originally Posted by moles

I haven't had any trouble getting the LIN filter to open up. It does sound different, so that may cause one to instinctively hit the string softer, or set up the pre-mix into the filter differently...but so far it's worked fine on my unit. No patches yet, however, as I haven't found a use/need for that particular sound yet. I should work something up though, as it's a nice departure from all that fat....like having a really nice salad after eating drive-in burgers all week

First, thanks for contributing. WOO!

I noticed some of the Paul Turner patches use LIN filter settings. It apparently just requires some different filter settings to be effective.

Originally Posted by moles

I should take this opportunity to point out a couple of other things I've figured out over past little while... There have been a couple of referrals to the Trap and Triangle waveforms not sounding right for some people - Well they didn't for me either (very quiet and noisy sounding) but, I've stumbled on the fact that they sound great when fed into the fuzz (set the Fuzz source to SYN, and IIRC turn the VCO->VCF to OFF) The Square and Saw waveforms, in contrast, sound bad (noisy mostly) going into the fuzz, so I avoid that.

On some of my patches I'll feed the VCO into a low gain fuzz and blend it in slightly via POST to add another depth to the voicing. Not as effective as a sub-oscillator on a real synth, but does add some additional texture to the tone.

Originally Posted by moles

Anyhooo... what I'd noticed unfortunately, was that the dry signal and the fuzz don't seem to be completely in phase with each other, and so there is some low end loss when blending the two (one would be sent to the Post Mix, and the other routed thru the filter section.)

There's a lot of routing available. Maybe send the fuzz into the PRE and into a static wide-open filter. Then the clean through the POST to blend in? I've never noticed phasing issues, though I'm not expert. But I have noticed it's often hard to hear the blend as if the mixer between PRE/POST is fighting each other for overall output. So maybe that is phasing?

Originally Posted by moles

But my new discovery is that, if you need to tweak the sound of the fuzz, it can be sent both through the filter (pre-mix source: FUZZ) AND through the post mix, without any apparent phasing issues. You can then sculpt the filtered fuzz signal to add in any frequencies you need (ie midrange,) should you need to cut through the mix more than the flat fuzz sound will.

Good idea. Rather than route the fuzz solo into a static filter for tone shaping route the fuzz through both the PRE and POST. Sounds like a great idea.

So many possible options for this box. I've only just started to look into the BEAT and LFO stuff. I mostly turn it off on all of the patches since there's not a ton of easy controls for those features (easy tap tempo, bpm, expression for changing the rate on the fly, etc.)

[JehuJava]

Man you guys are talking great stuff. My OS is still in transit from my move (along with everything else we own). 30 more days...ugh. You're getting me stoked to fool around with it.

[xtrparts]

Been a while since i have heard about anything new pertaining to the OS... has anyone heard about or heard anything from Richard, will there ever be any updates to the OS or is the Promised product development over for this pedal?

[xtrparts]

...was hoping someone has some info about any updates or improvements to the OS.

[gastric]

Originally Posted by xtrparts

...was hoping someone has some info about any updates or improvements to the OS.

There are none, and I wouldn't expect any.

I did just figure out you can use the box as a volume toggle for a clean boost or cut. Good for affecting downstream FX with a single footswitch click.

[xtrparts]

Originally Posted by gastric

There are none, and I wouldn't expect any.

I did just figure out you can use the box as a volume toggle for a clean boost or cut. Good for affecting downstream FX with a single footswitch click.

Thanks for the notes. Curious, why was there a beta release of an updated Operating System if there isn't any plan to continue development if you know? Has Richard made any official declarations about the pedal development continuing or has he gone dark?

[gastric]

Originally Posted by xtrparts

Thanks for the notes. Curious, why was there a beta release of an updated Operating System if there isn't any plan to continue development if you know? Has Richard made any official declarations about the pedal development continuing or has he gone dark?

I haven't contacted Chunk for an update, but based on the fact nobody has heard anything I'm assuming it's not happening anytime soon, if at all.

Feel free to contact Chunk for a direct response. Last I heard a year ago (or so) he was planning a total re-write in Assembly in order to jam more code onto the [apparently tiny] EPROM.