Iron Ether Appreciation Society

[BurningSkies]

I've honestly also never been able to get the Xerograph Deluxe to function like a 'straight envelope' when you've got the expression pedal running. It always acts more like a sweepable synth for me.

 

[vivaknoxvegas]

Thanks @BurningSkies

That will be the start up procedure.

 

[chaak]

Hello All, Iron Ether pedals have been like my holy grail for a while now. And I finally and recently bought a used in mint condition SubT . Its so versatile and instantly retired by MXR BOD along with a couple of pedals I use to get synthy sounds. but the pedal is noisy even on octave full and all else dialled off. I am using an isolated power source 9v from a pedal power 2 Plus and I run it first in the chain and i tried it with three different basses and 4 different amps and a DI. is this normal? thank you.

 

[Grahams Groove]

I've honestly also never been able to get the Xerograph Deluxe to function like a 'straight envelope' when you've got the expression pedal running. It always acts more like a sweepable synth for me.

I had that at first, but I have the pedal set to be a good envelope first and a synth second. So I ride the Freq ~9:00 and then have the Exp set to ~3:00. It's a wide enough for some killer manual sweeps with my EP-3, and then I typically just drop it to the heal so the envelope filter is low but meaty.

 

[Grahams Groove]

Hello All, Iron Ether pedals have been like my holy grail for a while now. And I finally and recently bought a used in mint condition SubT . Its so versatile and instantly retired by MXR BOD along with a couple of pedals I use to get synthy sounds. but the pedal is noisy even on octave full and all else dialled off. I am using an isolated power source 9v from a pedal power 2 Plus and I run it first in the chain and i tried it with three different basses and 4 different amps and a DI. is this normal? thank you.

Yeah, that’s normal from everything I’ve read. I have one, and the UNI and OCTO seem to bleed into the clean octave when I solo it. Seems to be par for the course

 

[BurningSkies]

I had that at first, but I have the pedal set to be a good envelope first and a synth second. So I ride the Freq ~9:00 and then have the Exp set to ~3:00. It's a wide enough for some killer manual sweeps with my EP-3, and then I typically just drop it to the heal so the envelope filter is low but meaty.

I have the frequency and expression ceiling set properly, it's just that with an expression pedal I've never had it trigger an open/close envelope like a traditional envelope filter. I'd sort of assumed that it would be possible to trigger that envelope and just sweep the range but I haven't found that it'll do that in practice. It does work like a sweepable wide q pass filter that sounds like a synth.

In the end, I chose rather than wrestle with what amounts to two divergent settings and tones to just use the XD as my chosen sweepy synth sound and use another envelope filter for the classic funkier envelope sound.

 

[Taylor Livingston]

ETA: Just visited the I.E. website. Are they just out of stock or did they stop making them

I'm still making the Polytope, it's just out of stock right now. The commercial user policy doesn't allow for me to post promotional stuff here about when pedals will be back in stock, but you can always email me at info at ironether dot com for an ETA.

I have the frequency and expression ceiling set properly, it's just that with an expression pedal I've never had it trigger an open/close envelope like a traditional envelope filter. I'd sort of assumed that it would be possible to trigger that envelope and just sweep the range but I haven't found that it'll do that in practice. It does work like a sweepable wide q pass filter that sounds like a synth.

In the end, I chose rather than wrestle with what amounts to two divergent settings and tones to just use the XD as my chosen sweepy synth sound and use another envelope filter for the classic funkier envelope sound.

The very first batch of the current (two-footswitch) version of the XD had less range on the sensitivity knob. This was tweaked on all subsequent ones. So anybody who purchased the Xerograph Deluxe in late 2016, if you feel like you're maxing the Sensitivity knob and it's still not sweeping much based on your dynamics, I can mod it to the current spec for you - no charge. Please send me an email to set that up.

To be clear, this only affected a very small number of pedals made at the end of 2016.

 

[BurningSkies]

I'm still making the Polytope, it's just out of stock right now. The commercial user policy doesn't allow for me to post promotional stuff here about when pedals will be back in stock, but you can always email me at info at ironether dot com for an ETA.



The very first batch of the current (two-footswitch) version of the XD had less range on the sensitivity knob. This was tweaked on all subsequent ones. So anybody who purchased the Xerograph Deluxe in late 2016, if you feel like you're maxing the Sensitivity knob and it's still not sweeping much based on your dynamics, I can mod it to the current spec for you - no charge. Please send me an email to set that up.

To be clear, this only affected a very small number of pedals made at the end of 2016.

Mine was ordered Nov. 2016, so I guess that makes it one of the ones mentioned? I'd take you up on it, but right now the pedal is used several times in every set, and I've got multiple shows per week for the foreseeable future, making it impossible to remove from my board currently.

 

[bassgeek]

Having a lot of fun with these pedals in various combinations. Can control 3 of the IE pedals at once with the Source Audio Reflex expression pedal.

 

[thumbslapper]

Having a lot of fun with these pedals in various combinations. Can control 3 of the IE pedals at once with the Source Audio Reflex expression pedal. View attachment 3444730

Its one of the reasons I really like IE pedals - plugging an expression pedal into them makes them so much more musical (I was gonna say "..makes them more expressive" but that would be redundant) - setting the Reflex to output a sine wave and then putting MIDI tempo into the reflex makes them pulse along with the beat, or if you set the reflex to audio taper really lets you dictate what the sound will be.

I have 1 output to XD (bestest pedal evar), 1 to QF2 (thats in the divaricator loop to preserve low end), and I have the MIDI --> future impact (I used to have the FMeron and had it plugged into that, but the FI is more versatile). I dont know why there aren't more pedals like the reflex, its pretty amazing.

(I also have a mosquito control one with an expression pedal plugged in, and in the loop I have my synthy/divaricator-qf2/IE, and that way its easy for me to blend in an affected signal to a clean signal - for long notes I'll start clean and slowly blend in crazy synth signal -it keeps even boring parts interesting...)

-carl

 

[DeltaPhoenix]

Having a lot of fun with these pedals in various combinations. Can control 3 of the IE pedals at once with the Source Audio Reflex expression pedal. View attachment 3444730

Nice mostly IE board! I have been building back up my bass gear after kind of losing interest in bass and selling most of my bass gear for modular synths/drum machines/synths - etc. A few pedals hung around like my Eventide/Strymon pedals. One of my IE pedals lasted through this several year period - my QF2. I liked running monosynths through it.

My current IE selection is the QF2, Oxide, new Xero DLX and I have a FMeron on the way. I would like a SubT (sorry for being a loud complainer about the noise when they first came out Taylor) but I don't have to have it as my next IE pedal. I am thinking a Polytope and then maybe a Franta. I am ont the fence about the Nimbus because I have a Big Sky and the Poly/Franta will get usage with other gear besides my bass. On the other hand, I total IE board would look (and obviously sound) so good!

I bought a new house, moved relatively recently and still don't have my music space really put together. In a few months when every thing settles a bit, I will be doing some shoot outs and probably sell a few pedals inorder to get the Poly and Franta.

One question that I have is about the SA Reflex - that looks amazing and probably fairly easy to program. BassGeek, you can have different LFO shapes or Expression pedal settings for each output, right? If so, I might just sell my Moog MP-201.

 

[bassgeek]

Nice mostly IE board! I have been building back up my bass gear after kind of losing interest in bass and selling most of my bass gear for modular synths/drum machines/synths - etc. A few pedals hung around like my Eventide/Strymon pedals. One of my IE pedals lasted through this several year period - my QF2. I liked running monosynths through it.

My current IE selection is the QF2, Oxide, new Xero DLX and I have a FMeron on the way. I would like a SubT (sorry for being a loud complainer about the noise when they first came out Taylor) but I don't have to have it as my next IE pedal. I am thinking a Polytope and then maybe a Franta. I am ont the fence about the Nimbus because I have a Big Sky and the Poly/Franta will get usage with other gear besides my bass. On the other hand, I total IE board would look (and obviously sound) so good!

I bought a new house, moved relatively recently and still don't have my music space really put together. In a few months when every thing settles a bit, I will be doing some shoot outs and probably sell a few pedals inorder to get the Poly and Franta.

One question that I have is about the SA Reflex - that looks amazing and probably fairly easy to program. BassGeek, you can have different LFO shapes or Expression pedal settings for each output, right? If so, I might just sell my Moog MP-201.

DeltaPhoenix....I'm just getting into it using it in the most basic way possible...just straight expression control. But, I'm fairly certain what you're asking is possible to do with the Reflex. You can also have presets where the outputs behave differently (reverse, different tapers, etc.) They seem to be going fairly quickly on Reverb. There were 14 or so a couple weeks ago and there are only 4 on there now. It's a discontinued product, so jump on it!

 

[aguacateojos]

Realizing that I initially bought my Sub-T in September of 2013... hard to believe I've had it for almost six years! I think the only aspect of it that I don't like is the lack of a volume control. Makes setting unity gain on my board basically impossible. Anybody know if Taylor ever added this or is it not possible?

 

[Grahams Groove]

Realizing that I initially bought my Sub-T in September of 2013... hard to believe I've had it for almost six years! I think the only aspect of it that I don't like is the lack of a volume control. Makes setting unity gain on my board basically impossible. Anybody know if Taylor ever added this or is it not possible?

I think it's kind of superfluous to have a master on the pedal since each parameter has it's own volume knob. My method is to start with the clean around 11-12:00. Then I roll in whatever sub/synth stuff i need to balance those two - i.e. proportion of octo-synth & octave levels based on what I want to hear more of. Then I check those levels relative to my bypassed/dry signal. Finally, I roll up the clean knob to make sure the fundamental on the SubT matches my bypassed dry signal's fundamental. I see synth/octave stuff similar to overdrive. What may seem like a volume boost soloed actually sounds like unity gain in a mix, because you're dealing with subs/harmonics. So the clean knob is key for unity gain.

 

[aguacateojos]

I'll try that out, my main reason for asking is that gig after gig I use the SubT in a few passages and 9/10 times I'm suddenly thunderous in the mix vs. fitting in. A wandering clean knob might be the culprit here...

 

[Grahams Groove]

I'll try that out, my main reason for asking is that gig after gig I use the SubT in a few passages and 9/10 times I'm suddenly thunderous in the mix vs. fitting in. A wandering clean knob might be the culprit here...

I suppose a big part of it is how you use the SubT, too. I think 2 of the 3 octo-synth settings can add some punch/booty, which may be causing a sizeable boost in mids/low-mids. I also keep the octave filter on the higher end of the dial for more grit, but I keep the level down fairly low. So I'm not pushing lots of sub sounds with this - just a touch for character. Finally, I think the uni-synth is more grit/upper harmonics in terms of what it adds. I wouldn't see that adding too much fundamental/thunder...

 

[oZZma]

Today I tried to set the Oxide as an "always on" pedal on my bass signal. Wow. It adds a lot of punch to a bass I bought that sounded too "hollow" on the lows to my taste, and improves also the sound on the higher frets that sounded too thin when played clean. What a GREAT pedal!

 

[spufman]

While I love my uniquely kick@ss Oxide, I can't imagine it as always-on! How is yours set?

 

[oZZma]

While I love my uniquely kick@ss Oxide, I can't imagine it as always-on! How is yours set?

It's just an experiment, not sure if I'll keep it this way.

I have the dirt always on with the other amp so the sound I use have always been fuzzy in any case. With the strangle ON it doesn't affect much the lows (as a matter of fact I have the impression it adds some punch and clarity) so IMO it could work for me. I am in a period I'm trying different solutions, I'll have to check how does It sound with the drums too!

 

[Chris Y]

I've just got an Oxide, not arrived yet but keen to see if I can tame it, sounds like a beast in most clips I've seen.