That’s how I use mine, and I love it for that. Whether the Barbershop is good/close enough for you, I can’t answer.
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Fairfield Circuitry - THE CLUB
- Thread starter liveburning274
- Start date
Revolt Bass is a valve Pre amp, with a di that has a basic analogue speaker sim (8x10) , for f/h , ect. It's OK, not as good as the 2notes cab m+
I have it second to last in my pedal chain (with only a keeley limiter last to tame spikes from my envelope filter and phaser pedals).
I used to have the Drive knob barely turned up until I could just notice it (about 7-8 o’clock on the dial) then set the volume knob to reach unity (about 1-2 o’clock). I never use the sag function.
I recently started running the pedal at 18v which gives it more headroom but less drive on tap. To get a similar sound I now set the volume and gain knobs about halfway up, or close to around noon on the dials.
Good luck, OD pedals are such a personal preference thing!
Each
Thanks again for replying, it gives me a better idear where to start from.(especially 18v).
New Fairfield utilities collection is here: Utilities
Some useful stuff here, especially the envelope generator/follower and the CV controlled voltage sag.
Some useful stuff here, especially the envelope generator/follower and the CV controlled voltage sag.
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4 new things...I'd like to see a video on conflict of interest as that's the only one I am intrigued by at all...
Not that exciting, this round of news , to me.
That's ok. I might still get Roger that or 900 ish...just can't decide which of the two( no moneys for both)
Not that exciting, this round of news , to me.
That's ok. I might still get Roger that or 900 ish...just can't decide which of the two( no moneys for both)
Respect!
I'm still on my first
....and still don't think I know it as well as I will .
Respect!
I'm still on my first
....and still don't think I know it as well as I will .
It's still one of the most musical pedals I've ever played through. I like to max the mix and then play with speed and depth. I don't care for the chorusing it does at with the mix in the middle.
I really like this too, it especially adds a lot of magic to synth sounds, which is what I increasingly focus it on.
Sure, I'll try to lay out some concepts in a hopefully orderly fashion!
Initial
The Board Member is a voltage sag. What it does is take a 9v power source and output power with a variable amount of reduction, so you could dial in down all the way to just above 0v or whatever in between. This is useful because lots of analog pedals will do interesting weird things when they're underpowered, and some digital ones as well. The idea initially came from the idea that people liked the sound of some pedals when the batteries were dying - a starve lets you do this in a controllable way, and thus you can basically get extra tonal variation out of any pedal you already own.
The Conflict of Interest is a envelope generator/follower/LFO, but really, under the hood it's actually something called a function generator, or slew limiter. These are really common in modular synthesis but pretty uncommon in pedalboards, where CV inputs aren't as common. Fairfield has four pedals that accept CV inputs to modulate their parameters, so it makes sense that they'd also create some method of creating these voltages.
Trying to explain what a function generator/slew limiter can do is actually fairly complex because they can turn into a lot of things, but fundamentally what a slew limiter does is limit the rate of change of a voltage. Lets say for example that you had a square wave oscillating from 0-5v. If no slew is applied, the output voltage will rise and fall at exactly the same rate as the input. If slew is applied to the rising edge ONLY, that means the signal will take longer to rise from 0v than the original signal did but it will fall back down at the original rate. If slew is applied to the falling portion of the signal, it will take longer to go back to 0v than the original signal did. If you do both and have sufficient rise/fall slewing, you are getting into the range of creating an envelope follower.
A function generator takes this further and allows you the ability to cycle and offset/attenuate the output signal. What that means is you've now created an LFO whose cycle frequency and shape are determined by the rise/fall settings. So, you can create various shapes of triangle/sawtooth LFO signals to then send to other places.
So, what the Conflict of interest is doing is slew limiting. It creates an envelope follower by slewing the rise/fall of your input signal, and outputting that voltage as a CV which will mirror the amplitude of your signal. You can determine how that functions via the controls (shape the rise/fall, overall sensitivity/amplitude of the effect, and the offset (i.e. how much it differs from a certain baseline of voltage). But you can also cycle it once (as a one-shot envelope) or cycle it indefinitely to act as an LFO.
How would we use it?
If you look at the Long Life, it's a filter pedal that has CV inputs for frequency and resonance. If you plugged a CV input into the frequency control and then feed it a voltage source that increases from say, 0v to 1v, its the exact same thing as turning the knob clockwise. We can use the Conflict of Interest to modulate the frequency control and voila, we have an envelope filter.
Going back to the Board Member, it has the ability to accept CV to modulate the sag knob. So we can rhythmically or velocity control the sag and the weirdness it induces in whatever pedal we're feeding its voltage too. Pretty cool!
Thoughts
It's kind of an interesting chicken vs egg problem that Fairfield has with this. I can't think of all that many pedals which have CV control (Fairfield's own offerings and the Analog Music Company SHSL spring to mind), but the concept is fundamental to modular synthesis. I think they're probably looking at the growing amount of people that use pedals with synths and leaning into that integration. Personally I think it's awesome and would love to have more pedals start accepting CV.
It's also an intriguing form factor for quickly and painlessly integrating an instrument into a modular synth environment. In my modular, I have all the building blocks necessary to create everything this pedal is doing, but I would have to patch it up, spend time tweaking the sweet spots, have format jumblers, etc. With this, I can just use the one pedal to do all the envelope duties, it's cheaper than a lot of function generators, and it's not taking up space in my rack.
Regarding the other four utilities, they're cool but not as unique. The Less and Less is cool because attenuation is always handy with CV, but IMO the others are slightly too expensive for what they are.
So the conflict of Interest doesn’t create sound on its own, what would happen if I just plugged it into an amplifier and messed with the knobs? Absolutely nothing correct ? And also would I have to input it into a pedal that uses CV? IE could I input it into my TC Electronics Stereo Chorus ?
I think they mean it doesn’t make any sound on it’s own unless it’s manipulating another pedal.
Correct(ish). The pedals function is to generate a CV signal from either
- your input sources amplitude
- a cycling lfo with variable amplitude, rate and shape determined by the controls
- A combination of both of those
If you’re interested in how function generators work, I’d highly recommend reading up on the Make Noise Maths and its grandparent the Serge DUSG! They are amazing multifunctional modules and you’ll be able to understand how the Conflict of Interest is a version of that.
