Nothing new here, just switched knobs on the Oxide and SubT.. The SubT is such a great pedal, I love it's quirks. Proper funky..
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Iron Ether Appreciation Society
- Thread starter Jared Lash
- Start date
Nothing new here, just switched knobs on the Oxide and SubT.. The SubT is such a great pedal, I love it's quirks. Proper funky..
Thanks. The Quasar is great. I really like it. There's the option of 4, 6 and 8 stage phasing. You can change the frequency, depth, mix and voice. 12 different wave forms to choose from and it gets into ring mod territory when speeded up. Tap tempo available too. So it's versatile. Sounds best at 18v but works @ 9v too.
Nice-one! My octave options might seem like overkill but they all get used. There's a lpf+hpf under the board that tames the madness before it hits the Tone Hammer and a Moog expression pedal for the Xerograph. It's a pretty simple setup really.
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I'm cross posting here from the Broughton Thread, but this may be equally suited for Polytope users in here.
Wondering if anyone has issues with the Polytope clipping any preamp/tube/low-gain pedals after it?
I threw my Polytope into my chain last night and had the Broughton Super Stack on after it - it's a Fender tone stack EQ with a tube-boost, but it's not really a grit/drive pedal. Anyway, I'm hearing some really noticeable distortion/sputtering when I play lower notes with the Polytope & Super Stack on. It's almost like I lose a bunch of lows and they are replaced with clipping - it sounds similar to when you send too much bass through a horn/tweeter and it kind of crackles.
I originally assumed I was just clipping the Super Stack with too hot of a signal, but I tried a load of different settings on the Polytope. Rolled back the effected and dry volume knobs (to even less than unity gain), rolled up the HPF for the chorus, and even tried a second polytope - I had a v1 and recently snagged a v2 to compare.
It's not clipping at the input of my amp, and it's not the cables or power source since I tried several of each. It's like the low notes distort and lose tons of bottom end, even if I play fairly light. I then tried a bunch of other drive pedals after with relatively clean settings to try and replicate - I used a fifth gear, Darkglass X7, MBD-1, and Broughton SVPre. The Polytope sounded fine through all of them, and then did the same distortion/sputtering thing as the Super Stack when I put the SVPre after the Polytope.
I know it's not the Polytope being faulty or distorting, because it doesn't do it by itself and I tried two different polytope pedals. It also doesn't act this way hitting other pedals in my setup. It also doesn't appear to be the abundance of low end from that chorusing/detuning effect itself, because I can crank my EQD Phaser into the Super Stack and there's no issue.
Is it possible that the polytope and these two Broughton pedals have some weird electronic chemistry and can't be used together? If anyone else has both or has experienced a similar thing, I'd love to get some insight...
Wondering if anyone has issues with the Polytope clipping any preamp/tube/low-gain pedals after it?
I threw my Polytope into my chain last night and had the Broughton Super Stack on after it - it's a Fender tone stack EQ with a tube-boost, but it's not really a grit/drive pedal. Anyway, I'm hearing some really noticeable distortion/sputtering when I play lower notes with the Polytope & Super Stack on. It's almost like I lose a bunch of lows and they are replaced with clipping - it sounds similar to when you send too much bass through a horn/tweeter and it kind of crackles.
I originally assumed I was just clipping the Super Stack with too hot of a signal, but I tried a load of different settings on the Polytope. Rolled back the effected and dry volume knobs (to even less than unity gain), rolled up the HPF for the chorus, and even tried a second polytope - I had a v1 and recently snagged a v2 to compare.
It's not clipping at the input of my amp, and it's not the cables or power source since I tried several of each. It's like the low notes distort and lose tons of bottom end, even if I play fairly light. I then tried a bunch of other drive pedals after with relatively clean settings to try and replicate - I used a fifth gear, Darkglass X7, MBD-1, and Broughton SVPre. The Polytope sounded fine through all of them, and then did the same distortion/sputtering thing as the Super Stack when I put the SVPre after the Polytope.
I know it's not the Polytope being faulty or distorting, because it doesn't do it by itself and I tried two different polytope pedals. It also doesn't act this way hitting other pedals in my setup. It also doesn't appear to be the abundance of low end from that chorusing/detuning effect itself, because I can crank my EQD Phaser into the Super Stack and there's no issue.
Is it possible that the polytope and these two Broughton pedals have some weird electronic chemistry and can't be used together? If anyone else has both or has experienced a similar thing, I'd love to get some insight...
BurningSkies
CRAZY BALDHEAD
- Feb 20, 2005
- 27,956
- 20,348
- Disclosures
- Endorsing artist: Dingwall Guitars
Interesting. I don't have any experience putting it before a preamp (I don't have any board mount preamps) but haven't had any similar gain staging problems with it in any other combinations. I don't have any suggestions beyond what you've already done with the levels and the bass adjustment on it...those would have been my go-to. Is that happening using it as a straight chorus or in LFO mode? Hve you played around with those settings?
@Taylor Livingston might have some suggestions.
Yeah, I played with both modes, multiple settings, and it happens either way. It seems like I don't get any of the clipping if I isolate the clean volume on the polytope - I can even push that well above unity gain without problems from what I remember while I was messing with it last night. Then, if I isolate the effected volume or use a blend of wet/clean on the polytope, the clipping sound starts.
It's just weird, because the Polytope sounds great on it's own as does this Super Stack pre (same with the SVPre pedal). And I can hit the SVPre and Superstack with much hotter, bassier signals without this problem. Likewise, the Polytope sounds fat and full on it's own, and it doesn't distort other pedals that follow it the same way. Obviously you can dig in and get the polytope to distort a little bit by really slamming the input, but I'm not doing that here. And the distortion I'm getting from the two pre-amps I've run after it is not the typical grit they produce by placing a really hot signal or boost before them. This is more sputtery and neutered sounding.
I can clean it up a bit by running the HPF on the Polytope really high, but this kind of undercuts the quality/lushness of the chorus sound. And I am basically cutting everything to well below unity gain when I do this, so it's not practical. I think running the HPF around 9-10:00 sounds excellent in all other circumstances, but doing so with the broughton preamps after causes this weird sound.
BurningSkies
CRAZY BALDHEAD
- Feb 20, 2005
- 27,956
- 20,348
- Disclosures
- Endorsing artist: Dingwall Guitars
Yeah the filter...a little goes a long way or you gut your lows. I'm wondering if the problem is tied to impedance that the input of the Broughton is expecting v. what the Polytope is showing it. Have you tried anything in between the two buffered bypass or not?
Hadn't thought of that. I don't believe so. I'm 99% sure everything in my chain is TBP, with the exception of the Microtron III - I'll check that when I get home, and then see if I have anything buffered to test in between the Polytope & Super Stack. I have a Wonderlove that can switch between True/Buffered Bypass, so I'll throw that in the mix and see what happens tonight.
Taylor Livingston
Commercial User
I can't really think of why that might be happening - sounds like you've tried all the troubleshooting ideas I would've had. This is a little out of left field, but, does your power supply have any kind of "sag" or "starve" function that might be active? A couple times I've helped people track the source of "mushy" clipping down to that feature being on accidentally.
It doesn’t - I’m using a OneSpot CS6. I’ll keep digging in this weekend and see if I can narrow it down some more.
I also tried different power supplies for each pedal just to rule the CS6 out.
Finally got my hands on a Subterranea and it is too good!!!
Also put in an order for a custom Xerograph Deluxe. The Moog MF-101 is my precious, but I don't always want to gig out with it.
Also put in an order for a custom Xerograph Deluxe. The Moog MF-101 is my precious, but I don't always want to gig out with it.
Any chance you tried the Polytope > Super Stack to see if it distorts yet?
Not yet, but I can grab them from my rehearsal space tomorrow and test it then.
I know it's been said before but the IE pedals really work well together. The Subterranea and XeroDlx are made for each other. The problem with that is you'll want everything Taylor builds. Nothing wrong with that of course except the modest financial outlay.. Totally worth it by the way..
I can't seem to replicate the issue that you're having the pedals. Sorry.
Have you tried the buffered pedal idea yet? You could try a different tube in the Super Stack also. A 5751 or 12au7 perhaps? The Tung Sol should be excellent but you never know. Maybe ask the Broughton people first?
Did the Broughton thread have any suggestions? I tried trawling through it. Got a bit lost in there.
My Polytope makes a slow, feint siren noise until I flip the range switch back and forth. Any ideas? @Taylor Livingston
Long answer coming your way. So I've got a brand new Polytope V2 and a V1 right now - long story, but I wanted to try both and am just deciding if I want/need the V2 features before I flip one. Needless to say, having two of them gives me the benefit of comparing and knowing that it's not an issue with the Polytope itself. They both behave the same with the Broughton Super Stack.
I think the issue is that I was riding the HPF on the Polytope(s) a little too low, and when I dig in on E & A I'm causing the pedal to distort a wee bit. I thought my filter setting was reasonable based on what I remembered from the first time I had this pedal, but I'm clearly wrong. I was setting it around 9:00, and I play with EMG-JVXs in my jazz. I know @Proton Lenny was using a 9-10:00 setting in his video with success, but he seems to have a very light, controlled touch and was playing a lot of higher chordal stuff. In comparison, I started looking at pictures of people's board on TB who have polytopes, and most have the HPF set closer to noon (or higher). This makes a significant difference - I'm not getting any distortion unless I play unreasonably hard with my right hand, and again this is primarily on lower notes on the E&A strings.
As far as the combo with the Super Stack goes, I like a lot of sizzle with my tube dirt. It seems like the treble knob/boost on the Super Stack just happens to be accentuating the frequency of the distortion that I was getting by setting the Polytope filter too low and digging in a bit too much. This makes sense with me hearing the same sort of 'accentuated' distortion when i sent the Polytope through my Broughton SVPre, because I also set that like I would for tube gain...with a pretty significant treble boost.
TLDR: I needed to set the filter higher on the Polytope and play a bit lighter. Plus, the Broughton preamps were emphasizing the distortion I was hearing because of the boosted harmonics/treble.
