Ongoing Review: The Goose by Take Flight Pedals

[TheWoodShed]

I got my rig hooked up finally (for the most part...need to order a cable to kick in the sub). I am shaking the dust off these old neuorpathic fingers, as I haven't payed for a year or two.

I am starting this thread as a "scratch sheet". Here I will field questions as this pedal is relatively new and I will log my ongoing impressions. Hopefully, I will eventually (next week maybe?) get sound clips going, or perhaps lend it to our in house fuzz God for his review.

Here we go:

Take Flight Pedals (TFP) initial offering in the world of pedals is called The Goose. This is a fuzz pedal with quite a few twists. I have not encountered a pedal quite like this fuzz before...kind of like a Brassmaster meets a noisemaker meets.....well, you get the idea.

Description
MSRP: $199.00
The box is 4.67"w x 3.68" h x 1.18" d. It is painted a very classy looking creme/off white with hand painted "flying goose" graphics. Indicator light is violet. These are handmade start to finish and have true bypass switching.
Draw: 4.2 mA (min) and 7.5 mA (max)

Controls are as follows (taken from website):
vol: overall volume level
X O: crossover distortion level
sanity/blend: clean blend (mix in your dry signal with fuzz)
honk: octave up level
mood: 6 pt. rotary switch, changes your fuzz characteristic
feed: *side knob) go into oscillation (highly interactive with pick up impedance and other knob settings)
internal trim pot: change the input impedance

This one is serial number 2

The Test Medium
Bass: Acacia Custom 4 with Active EMGs 35P4 and 35J pick ups and EMG preamp, wenge neck, Honduras mahogany body core
Amp: Demeter HBP-1 in dBX 160X into QSC PLX 2402 into Bag End D10BX-D 2x10 cabinet (once I get the proper cabling, I will hook up the ELF crosover and 18" sub)

First Impressions (Before I even got to plug it in)
I have been in conversations with one of the builders of this pedal, David Son, as I anticipated this pedal. I note this because he was very helpful with answering question and customer service is a big plus in my book. They even autographed the inside back of the pedal for me. (Yeah, I'm a geek like that).

I had this a week before I got to twiddle the knobs (a process I just began tonight), and had 5 comments to Dave as my first impressions. They were this:

Hi David and John,

I have not yet got to hook up the pedal (I spent today reinstalling Protools so I can record sound clips), however from initial inspection may I make these recommendations? May I emphasize , please do not take these as complaints. I would like to see you succeed in this endeavor, and hopefully some of this feedback will help.

1) As I understand it you complete these in batches. Going forward I would change the position serial number . Mine was on the back in the lower left hand corner. The particular issue is that an adhesive foot was placed over it, so I am afraid if I remove the foot for velcro to place on my pedal board, I will remove the serial number. For me and for most others, this isn't a big deal. However in the stomp box community, some folks may take this as a small issue. May I suggest placing it on the inside of the back plate?

A simple solution is that I believe this is a standard sized Hammond box, so I will get another back to out the velcro on for placement in my pedal board. What was the number of this Hammond box so I know what to order?

2) Battery operation...you can't. I see that you are a bit cramped for room, but still some folks may not like this. Again, not a big deal for me, because I run off power supply, but for others this may be an issue.

3) The manual. I would work on refining it some, including more detail, especially about the distortions (like you provided me in the e-mail) and what precisely the XO circuit does. I am not sure if the function is the same, but ZVEX has a similar fuction on their "Machine" pedal. People are assuming that this is what yours does as well.

4) The paint. I love the graphic design, and it is very classy looking. But the off white paint seemed to have some flaws in it's application. I can see where it seem to have run on the sides some as it dried, and knurled on the top around two of the corners. My take is that it adds to the charm of owning unique, hand made boutique pedals like yours, but other may be that if they pay $200.00 for a boutique pedal, this kind of detail counts.

5) One issue brought up by others is lack of EQ. I was quick to point out that with everything that is packed in this pedal, that may be nearly impossible to do. I also pointed out that if I was going to cascade another distortion with this pedal, I would make sure that pedal as some EQ, which would help resolve the problem. I could even place an EQ in the loop with it, so I don't see the need.

These are small details that most folks may not even care about, really. I am just trying to give you a set of fresh eyes. Again, I only want to be helpful here, so I hope you understand.

They were more than open to suggestion, and Dave answered as such:

hey ted,

you're absolutely right!

1) serial numbers.. #1-5 are like yours.. #6-30 got moved to the center of the back. the hammond box is model 1590 (1590BB).

2) because we do not supply a 9v dc adapter, our next batch will definitely be battery operable. i can't believe i overlooked this on the first batch =/

3) we're constantly working on the manual. (note: this is true, as I have seen it evolve already on the website)

4) the cosmetic flaws on the creme paint is due to the fact that we hand painted the box, starting from a bare metal box which we sanded smooth and primed/painted/coated.. although this is a nice-to-know fact.. we're going to have them professionally powder coated next time.. to save us time, and probably end up with a cleaner pedal.
Although our handpainted ones do age freaking beautifully over time..

5) the lack of eq is something we agreed to swallow and accept for several reasons.

thanks ted for your support and enthusiasm! we appreciate your input! we almost burst out laughing because you so accurately pointed out the very things we had been talking about changing for our next run! =)

-dave

So in my opinion, they get a good 9/10 in customer service based on the responses I have getting.

From the initial issues I had though, the most annoying is lack of battery operation, as now I either need to hook it iup to my pedal board or get a 9v adapter. This makes testing a bit tedious, as my only option is my pedal board.

Since they are new builders and this is a new pedal, I do expect and tolerate some faux pas. I have no issues with that.

Now I need your input...was this TMI? Does this format seem okay and informative?

[gnasher1993]

Very informative, for me anyway. I'm looking forward to hearing/reading more, I'm very interested in this pedal.

[TheWoodShed]

All, today is my birthday, and also this is Saturday which means my beloved Buckeyes are playing, so I will be watching that (game time at 3:30).

Plus I joined the cult...my wife got me an Ohio State Snuggie for my birthday! It has the effect of sucking out your willpower to get up out of the recliner.

Twiddling the Knobs a Bit
I did some twiddling with the pedal and will say this: it is Muse in a box. It nails the "Hysteria" sound better than any other single pedal I have owned or heard, even better than the Prunes and Custard which IMO did a respectable if not perfect job. I was running Hysteria on my computer on some AKG headphones I used to use in the studio to A/B the sound and was able to dial it in pretty easily.

Also, I was able to get an identical sound to my 1st version Black Cat Bass Octave Fuzz, which is one of the first boutique copies of the Brassmaster sold by Analogman, made before Malekko did theirs . This fuzz can get pretty gnarly and rambunctious.

More to come...

[TheWoodShed]

So in my previous post, I mentioned that with this pedal you can nail the Muse Hysteria sound pretty easily. It is “Muse in a Box” in my opinion, and that alone will justify for some the $200.00 MSRP.

But I discovered that this box can be a lot more.

I decided I wanted to find out what the fuzzes by themselves were about. So, in a series of tests I put the volume at 12:00 (50%) turned the XO distortion fully CCW, the sanity (wet/dry mix) full CW one the “Honk” fully CCW and the Oscillation fully CCW. This should get me the sound of the fuzzes only as I start with the first fuzz (rotary switch turned fully CCW) as I move CW through each of the six modes.

Each of these positions was described by the builder as the following:

The first 3 modes are set gain levels, increasing in gain as you increase in modes. The mids also get slightly boosted as you increase in modes.
Mode 4 is a gated mode; no noise, no oscillations, just straight thick fuzz.
Mode 5 and 6 are completely different. they add in another clipping stage into the circuit that produces the synth-like tone, it's almost like a different pedal.. it even oscillates differently.

The Straight Fuzz
So as I tested the first three modes, I notice a boost not in the mid range, but in the highs. It occurs to me that this boost while considered midrange for guitar is probably considered high end or presence for the bass.

I didn’t let the high end boost ruin my fun. By experimenting by rolling off the highs on my bass or just using the neck pick up , tones became usable for me.

The first mode added a touch of hair around the notes, and even with the wet tone dialed to full the clean tone of the bass still came through and was sitting within the fuzz and not on top of it. It was akin to a slight growl, and increased a bit as I dug in. The frequency boost was practically nonexistent.

The second mode the frequency boost was more noticeable, but it seemed the characteristics of the growl changed little..

The third mode was all about the growl. There seemed to be yet another frequency boost. Harmonic overtones sang in this mode.

The forth mode, the gated fuzz, is my favorite. This is simply the nice thick gated fuzz, I would assume good enough to drive those synthy tones so many of the funksters on this board with dedicated synth loops like to use.

The fifth and six modes are by themselves, neat. I was coaxing square wave tones out of the pedal comparable to the Korg G5 s I used to own.

Tweaking for the Neophyte Tweaker
(aka “What about these other knobs????)

The “honk”, which is the octave up feature, is also dependent upon the “sanity” knob. If you have a 50/50 wet dry mix, then your octave up will not be as noticeable. From listening, the octave up is always distorted by the gain, so you will not get a “clean” octave up (at least in the traditional sense- if you know how analog octave up is produced you realize that there is some distortion anyways) . This little knob is a large factor to achieving that “Hysteria” tone, if that is hat you want to do with it. It is never over pronounced or dominate.

Next, is the XO distortion.. It was described as this by the builder:

The X/O is a secondary (red LED) clipping stage which we mix into the Goose's gain stage to create crossover distortion. Normally crossover distortion is something people try to avoid but we found that in this case it often adds nice upper harmonics to the fuzz. The X/O will react differently depending on "mood" settings because it is a mix of the LED clipping and the "mood" settings. In some cases, you can get into zvex machine territory. In other cases, it'll do it's own unique thing

This little feature makes the pedal IMO for a bassist. Using the same methodology that I tested the “fuzz only” tones with, in modes 1 to 3, it took the standard fuzz and added a nice bit of hair, making the amount of useful tones achieved increase exponentially. The effect on the gated fuzz was negligible to my ears, but still sounded very good. In modes 5 and six though, the synthy tones because a bit more granular, but not in a way that made the tones unusable in order to get some very nice synth tones.

Lastly is the oscillation knob on the side. This just isn’t my cup of tea, and I will have to admit I must leave comment on experimentation to some of the experts on this board. I got all kinds of squeaks, squalls and gibberish that undoubtedly would be appealing to someone of a more open minded and experimental nature than I am. I messed with it and always felt like fore some reason I was playing “Tune in Tokyo” when I was a kid…twiddling knobs but not understanding why.

The Bottom Line
For me, the bottom line is that this is a fuzz pedal of the like I have not yet experienced, but of the kind I will proudly add to my pedal board. For some, building a pedal by pedal synth chain is a great thing, but I like this approach because it is less hassle, is less time consuming because of the constant swapping in and A/B’ing of pedal involved and less complicated. as a neophyte like me can dial in a ton of useful tones without effort.

[nad]

Subscribed for future listening/reading pleasures.

[gnasher1993]

This is good stuff. Keep up the updates, I'm enjoying the read. It's great to read reviews that are so in depth.

[TheWoodShed]

Originally Posted by gnasher1993

This is good stuff. Keep up the updates, I'm enjoying the read. It's great to read reviews that are so in depth.

Thanks.

Well, I think I will try to post some detailed pictures if I can do so. I need to charge batteries on my ancient 2.1 mp camera before I do though.

This is a silicon based fuzz, and it can get pretty nasty (with active basses, I think I perfer silicon over germanium). With the octave up, it can also achieve the Bass Brassmaster tone so my v1 gray box Black Cat Bass Octave Fuzz may be hitting the road.

But we'll see. I need to do some A/B comparisons between this and my Sovtek before any decisions are made.

Are there any questions until I post pic (probably tomorrow)?

[gnasher1993]

Originally Posted by TheWoodShed

Are there any questions until I post pic (probably tomorrow)?

How close can it get to a synthy square wave type of dirt (I hope that makes sense )?

Also, what other dirt pedals have you used/owned in the past (sorry if this one's already been answered)? There's no particular motive behind that question, just curious about what each mode could be compared to...

[TheWoodShed]

Originally Posted by gnasher1993

How close can it get to a synthy square wave type of dirt (I hope that makes sense )?

Yes, it does.

You can get a great square wave distortion from this, reminds me of my G5 but less nasal/vowel sounds.

Perhaps closer to a Prunes and Custard on steroids.

Originally Posted by gnasher1993

Also, what other dirt pedals have you used/owned in the past (sorry if this one's already been answered)? There's no particular motive behind that question, just curious about what each mode could be compared to...

Okay, I hate to compare tones unless I have the pedals in front of me to A/B because I am old and my memory is like swiss cheese.

The fuzzes don't remind me of any other pedal really but more of a slightly over driven amp (increasing in gain as the mode increases), and I think that may be due to the high end boost. It isn't brittle or shrill sounding, but I see a lot of bassists not liking those first three modes.

Boxes I have owned include Korg, more Muffs than should be allowed by law, Prunes and Custard, Rat, Boss, Black Cat BoF, Brassmaster, Bosses, Sansamp BDDI and GT-2 and a few others I am sure I am missing.

[Gashaponcito]

Amazing review, do you play in a band? if so I would like to know how it sounds in a mixed setting =D

[TheWoodShed]

Originally Posted by Gashaponcito

Amazing review, do you play in a band? if so I would like to know how it sounds in a mixed setting =D

No unfortunately I do not.

I was diagnosed with diabetes and have peripheral neuropathy in my hands and feet. My playing is not what it used to be and I can no longer stand for a 45 minute set although I was able to relearn some of my standbys like Hysteria (imagine that, considering the pedal) and Anestassia. because of that and a really bad band experience, I just now in the last couple of weeks resolved that I was keeping my rig and realigning it to accommodate being a living room warrior.

Sorry bro. I understand that band settings are completely different than tweaking a pedal in front of the PC. I wish I could help you.

If I had to take a guess, I would think it will sound fine. A wet/dry mix pedal usually does, as it helps recover low end lost by the pedal.

[nad]

So I've gone on an oscillating fuzz kick as of late, and was able to score one of the v1 Goose pedals recently. It is very nice. I quite like it. I think I'll keep it. Further thoughts:

-There is a ton of low end. I don't think the clean blend is even necessary, but in case it is, it is nice to have.

-There is no dedicated gain knob. I always LOL at fuzz pedals without a gain knob, but hey, if it works, it works. And here? It works.

-The oscillation side is great to control, very intuitive and not in any "ruh-oh I blew my speaker/eardrum/IRA" sort of way.

-The Mood knob is excellent. So excellent, in fact, that I feel the great need to repeat myself. That being said, the Mood knob is excellent.

-I believe the v2 Goose is a bit cheaper even, no longer handpainted but hey, what the hey, are we looking or is we listening?

-I'm getting a little hungry, going to fix dinner soon. I've got fowl on the brain, but odds are a Masala Burger is in my future.

[Jaydin Nathan]

Thanks for the great reviews guys! I'm looking at buying this pedal now, but there's no clips on their site/Youtube with bass. Would it be possible to get a couple of clips up?

[behndy]

ZOMBIE THREAD RESUSCITATION!!!

Jaydeen - hey there. i just picked up a Goose on a whim and freaking LOVE it. i have a few other pedals i've been meaning to get some clips done of, so in the next few days i'm gonna try to get some examples of this awesome, versatile little flying beast up.

[wdinc01]

Originally Posted by behndy

ZOMBIE THREAD RESUSCITATION!!!

Jaydeen - hey there. i just picked up a Goose on a whim and freaking LOVE it. i have a few other pedals i've been meaning to get some clips done of, so in the next few days i'm gonna try to get some examples of this awesome, versatile little flying beast up.

Looking forward to clips! I've been interested in this pedal and thought about getting one, even though I can't justify another fuzz pedal*






* - of course, more fuzz is always a good reason.

[behndy]

Originally Posted by wdinc01

Looking forward to clips! I've been interested in this pedal and thought about getting one, even though I can't justify another fuzz pedal*






* - of course, more fuzz is always a good reason.

lol. yeah, that's where i thought i was. i have a PPB that's been on my main board forever, and an IE Oxide and an Ugly Face on there right now. and a TAFM that i like a LOT, but is on my Play Around board right now, plus a FuzzHuggers thing and a Devi Ever OK. so i thought i was more than covered in the Fuzzy Wuzzy department.

i actually picked this up from the (super crazy awesome) music store i love just 'cause it's so durn pretty. they have a wonderful return policy so i thought i'd try it out. never heard of it, and wasn't actually sure what it was.

DAYUM glad i did. it's crazy versatile and crazy good.

[nad]

Everyone should buy this pedal.

[behndy]

it is pretty beautiful.

i don't like Soundclick, so here's some quick clips on Soundcloud....

http://soundcloud.com/nosebleed-acad...goose-clips-01

i just played the same thing with the knobs at....

XO - 10
Blend - 11
Honk - 02

.... then flipped through the Mood. so first clean, then Mood 01 then Mood 02 and so on.

there's a file with fingers, with glitchy drums and without, a file with chords, with and without, and a file with tapping, with drums and without. yay run-on sentence! feel it's power!! it runs on and ON!!!

i'm tired, so it's a little sloppy, and this isn't the greatest way to demo the pedal, because the knobs have a HUGE effect on how it sounds with different mood settings. when i get my vid camera set up i'll try to do some better stuffs.

[One Bad Monkey]

I made a video of the Goose on bass for David at Take Flight in September; here's the vid.

Overall, I liked it a lot. Many versatile tones, and the blend knob (for me) sets it ahead of a lot of other fuzzes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sFP1GISeTQ

[behndy]

nice one, Mssr Bad Primate! very cool playing. what type of mic are you using?

i'm not setup with a mic right now to record stuff, so mine were just run into a usb audio interface on my laptop into Cubase.

i forgot to say the setup for recording was a Dingwall AB I 6 -> Goose -> VT Deluxe -> Computer.