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Catalinbread Semaphore Tremolo Review(Up now)

Sep 13, 2006
5,351
24
NY
So after Tayste made me not buy the Valcoder and suggested the Semaphore, I did my finances and gave myself the OK to go ahead. I gave Brad at Tonefactor a call to make sure it was the vertical one and it got here in three days. :D

So after playing with it on 9v at work, it seemed a little dim like the EHX Pulsar I had a while back. That kind of bummed me out but after i plugged it in with 18V, it was so much better sounding! Lots more lowend and clarity in the effect.

It has a ton of features and I can get any kind of Tremolo sound. Sure, it doesn't have tap-tempo like some people like but it has a pulsating LED that you can count. No bigge.


Sound:
At first with 9v, it lost a little lowend but with 18V, this pedal sounds fantastic. I like the sound of the hard CHOP it has and the smooth swells it can produce. It can also produce that ring mod sound.

Construction:

I wasn't too impressed on the power jack input. No circle to hold the power jack makes me a sad panda. I'll post pictures of that tomorrow. The enclosure isn't the best feeling metal I've touched either. On a scale to 10, I would give the construction 6/10. I haven't opened it up yet to see how it looks inside but I got to hand it to them to put all this stuff in a small enclosure!

Ease of use:
If you know what you're doing and know what pictures mean, it's not bad. No instructions with it though but I guess the Catalinbread crowd are mostly boutique nerds who know their stuff already :D

It's a really versatile pedal, and i like having that in a pedal so it's most likely going to be a keeper for me.


So here's the soundclip. I will post more when i get my 18V cable next week.

CCST1:
In this clip, I'm playing with the Shape knob and Rate knob in Saw-tooth form and then in Square wave. Also playing with the Fast/slow switch. NOTE: Using 9V power.
[The end is the best part ;)]

Link Removed


DSCN1703.jpg
 
Haha awesome.

Okay update: Playing with the semaphore at work cause it's getting slow. There's a NOTICABLE difference running the pedal at 18V with bass. It seems to go faster and have better headroom than the 9V power. This was to be expected but I'm glad I ordered a 18V cable for my Voodoo Lab power pad!
 
yeah lol

and theres also many a way to do it yourself with almost no parts :D

as for the review, its not really that versatile when you look at a lot of the other trem's out there, for cheaper then the semaphore as well. But it's certainly not bad, its got the best speed range i've ever seen. but for 200 bucks.......

i also like how catalinbread put "competition" in speech brackets :P not bashing them or anything but that seems a little pretentious

good sound clip.