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My Dirt Bender - Another Jounal
- Thread starter el murdoque
- Start date
So. I never heard of Haggtronix. Someone reached out to me, proposing a trade, and when I saw they were offering a glow-in-the-dark fuzz sporting both a name and graphic that would make it problematic to use on a worship pedalboard, I realized I had written back an affirmative message before even thinking about it.
When it arrived, I saw the Haggtronix logo on the box and on the pouch inside the box.
My conclusion from this alone was that 1. The people of Haggtronix care about quality and a good unboxing event of a pedal,
and 2. This thing will probably melt faces.
At first glance, it's a simple affair. The knobs are named Volume, Tone and Distortion, the two switches Boost/Cut/Flat and Tone Bypass. The LED is purple, which works very well with the artwork of the pedal - the gem of the sorcerer's staff will glow in that hue when you activate it. The sorcerer himself is painted on in glow-in-the-dark-paint, so the effect is even more spooky on a dark stage. The foot switch is soft touch. All in all, it's a very well made boutique pedal.
It is a lot bigger than I would have thought, but I'm terrible at guessing sizes through the internet.
The Tone knob is not a mere treble blend. It's a fair bit more complicated than that:
The blue line (tone off) is with the EQ bypassed via the switch. The three others are with the EQ active, and the mids switch set to flat.
Would you call that a tilt EQ?
When it arrived, I saw the Haggtronix logo on the box and on the pouch inside the box.
My conclusion from this alone was that 1. The people of Haggtronix care about quality and a good unboxing event of a pedal,
and 2. This thing will probably melt faces.
At first glance, it's a simple affair. The knobs are named Volume, Tone and Distortion, the two switches Boost/Cut/Flat and Tone Bypass. The LED is purple, which works very well with the artwork of the pedal - the gem of the sorcerer's staff will glow in that hue when you activate it. The sorcerer himself is painted on in glow-in-the-dark-paint, so the effect is even more spooky on a dark stage. The foot switch is soft touch. All in all, it's a very well made boutique pedal.
It is a lot bigger than I would have thought, but I'm terrible at guessing sizes through the internet.
The Tone knob is not a mere treble blend. It's a fair bit more complicated than that:
The blue line (tone off) is with the EQ bypassed via the switch. The three others are with the EQ active, and the mids switch set to flat.
Would you call that a tilt EQ?
Without any research, I was pretty sure this will be a fuzz, and to be more specific, I assumed it's gonna be a Muff variant.
My ears confirmed first, then I asked google and google said it's based on the Green Russian (probably my favorite 'original' Muff).
Starting off carefully, I waited for my neighbors to leave, shooed all the pets out of the house, and set the levels low.
Which was a good call. I had distortion at 9 o'clock and volume at 9 o'clock, plucked a note, and my compressor started pumping already - even this setting is above unity.
However. What I did encounter here is best addressed as a well mannered and educated ferocious feral beast.
Let me give you a little insight into my brain when it comes to fuzz pedals.
I think of them a little bit like the product of a micro brewery that does craft beers.
Germans are quite strict and very particular about their beers. We have the "Reinheitsgebot". An iron law, dating back to 1516, which states that beer may only contain water, hops and malt (yeast was unknown back then and later added). You can be a convicted tax criminal and still have a career in Germany. You can assault people, rob, loot and still manage to be re-integrated into society. But when you mess with the Reinheitsgebot, a mob will gather - torches, pitchforks and all - and drive you out of the country. You'll never be allowed to return, even if you lived to be 500 years old. The Germans do not forget these things.
For that reason, most German beers taste very similar. Sure, you get the outliers, but the mean German usually likes his "Pils", and all the big breweries do "Pils" and they all are very similar. (Note: All of this is very true for most parts of Germany, but the Bavarians play by their own rules. None of this applies in Bavaria).
Enter the small craft beer breweries. These people might try to do a standard beer, but usually, they do that crafty stuff.
I sometimes think that these makers are either driven by the need to explore what is beyond regular beer and others might have given up and went completely bonkers. Beverages with names like "Purple Monkey Dishwasher" do not really speak of a beer with a five century tradition behind it.
Fuzzes, for me, are the craft beers of dirt pedals. If I were to categorize them, I'd say there are the synthy ones, the wooly ones and the angry ones.
The synthy ones are led by the Doom2, of course, and many fuzz circuits can get there - usually, you just have to push the gain high enough and at some point it stops sounding wooly or angry and starts sounding artificial, but some fuzzes get there easier and have their sweet spots there.
The angry ones are often Muff types, but I also think the Tone Bender or Superfuzz get there easily, and for the wooly tones, the Wooly Mammoth would be the first address.
This here pedal, the Rotten Sorcerer has a variety of all three to offer. With the tone bypassed, it's a Muff, and it sounds angry until you turn distortion up too far and end up in synth land. With the tone active, you can get a variety of wooly tones from it with the tone knob below noon, and some of them really feel useful. I don't have my full equipment at hand right now, but I already detected a huge difference in sound, just swapping between my 6 string with Aguilar pickups and my Fakenbacker. On the Fakenbacker, switching the pickups has a huge impact, and for some weird reason, the fuzz really likes the neck pickup. On every other pedal I ever tried, I get a LOT more dirt from the bridge pickup - I even used that effect by setting up the signal chain to have a solid grind with the bridge pickup soloed, a hint of drive with both pickups on and a clean sound on the neck pickup. Well, the Rotten Sorcerer thinks otherwise and drops a heap of dirt on the neck pickup. Other than that curiosity, I can report that the pedal really likes a Ric style bass, they play well together.
My ears confirmed first, then I asked google and google said it's based on the Green Russian (probably my favorite 'original' Muff).
Starting off carefully, I waited for my neighbors to leave, shooed all the pets out of the house, and set the levels low.
Which was a good call. I had distortion at 9 o'clock and volume at 9 o'clock, plucked a note, and my compressor started pumping already - even this setting is above unity.
However. What I did encounter here is best addressed as a well mannered and educated ferocious feral beast.
Let me give you a little insight into my brain when it comes to fuzz pedals.
I think of them a little bit like the product of a micro brewery that does craft beers.
Germans are quite strict and very particular about their beers. We have the "Reinheitsgebot". An iron law, dating back to 1516, which states that beer may only contain water, hops and malt (yeast was unknown back then and later added). You can be a convicted tax criminal and still have a career in Germany. You can assault people, rob, loot and still manage to be re-integrated into society. But when you mess with the Reinheitsgebot, a mob will gather - torches, pitchforks and all - and drive you out of the country. You'll never be allowed to return, even if you lived to be 500 years old. The Germans do not forget these things.
For that reason, most German beers taste very similar. Sure, you get the outliers, but the mean German usually likes his "Pils", and all the big breweries do "Pils" and they all are very similar. (Note: All of this is very true for most parts of Germany, but the Bavarians play by their own rules. None of this applies in Bavaria).
Enter the small craft beer breweries. These people might try to do a standard beer, but usually, they do that crafty stuff.
I sometimes think that these makers are either driven by the need to explore what is beyond regular beer and others might have given up and went completely bonkers. Beverages with names like "Purple Monkey Dishwasher" do not really speak of a beer with a five century tradition behind it.
Fuzzes, for me, are the craft beers of dirt pedals. If I were to categorize them, I'd say there are the synthy ones, the wooly ones and the angry ones.
The synthy ones are led by the Doom2, of course, and many fuzz circuits can get there - usually, you just have to push the gain high enough and at some point it stops sounding wooly or angry and starts sounding artificial, but some fuzzes get there easier and have their sweet spots there.
The angry ones are often Muff types, but I also think the Tone Bender or Superfuzz get there easily, and for the wooly tones, the Wooly Mammoth would be the first address.
This here pedal, the Rotten Sorcerer has a variety of all three to offer. With the tone bypassed, it's a Muff, and it sounds angry until you turn distortion up too far and end up in synth land. With the tone active, you can get a variety of wooly tones from it with the tone knob below noon, and some of them really feel useful. I don't have my full equipment at hand right now, but I already detected a huge difference in sound, just swapping between my 6 string with Aguilar pickups and my Fakenbacker. On the Fakenbacker, switching the pickups has a huge impact, and for some weird reason, the fuzz really likes the neck pickup. On every other pedal I ever tried, I get a LOT more dirt from the bridge pickup - I even used that effect by setting up the signal chain to have a solid grind with the bridge pickup soloed, a hint of drive with both pickups on and a clean sound on the neck pickup. Well, the Rotten Sorcerer thinks otherwise and drops a heap of dirt on the neck pickup. Other than that curiosity, I can report that the pedal really likes a Ric style bass, they play well together.
Here's a small snippet of the Rotten Sorcerer in a more wooly setting. I have the impression that the tone knob set below noon will pass through some lowpassed clean signal, but that could also be just me imagining things.
We managed to share at table with a friendly group of Germans when visiting the Christmas Markets in Cologne back in December. The beer was very good and served often. It did sort of all taste the same but it was good.
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Nice! FWIW, Cologne has its own kind of beer called "Kölsch" (of course also brewn according to the Reinheitsgebot), and it has to be served in those tiny "Stangen" (0.2 l) which Bavarians usually would not accept as beer glasses...
I forgot about Cologne. Exclude Cologne from the German Beer Map, this is a crazy place.
The stuff they drink is called "Kölsch" and this is the only place where that stuff is served.
Edit: @OldShark beat me to it.
Here in San Francisco California we have a local brewery named Fort Point and they make a beer called KSA. Kolsch style ale. It's probably my favorite beer I've tried and I've been all over Europe.
I cannot fathom it.
I am entertaining a thread full of Kölsch-Lovers.
I am entertaining a thread full of Kölsch-Lovers.
I’m a simple guy when it comes to beer so german rules don’t bother me. I want my beer to taste like beer and not fruity fragrant soapy craft beer. 
Little side project:
My Roland TD-12 drum module is not the youngest model out there, but still does me a great service. I recently found out that it's running firmware 1.0 and there is 1.11 out (since 2011 or so). One of the most significant upgrades is that the Hi-Hats VH-11 and VH-12 are vastly improved, and I happen to use a VH-11, so I'm gonna perform that update. I'm using a windows 10 laptop and my Morningstar MC-8 to make it talk to the drum module, because the update is injected through the MIDI port.
My Roland TD-12 drum module is not the youngest model out there, but still does me a great service. I recently found out that it's running firmware 1.0 and there is 1.11 out (since 2011 or so). One of the most significant upgrades is that the Hi-Hats VH-11 and VH-12 are vastly improved, and I happen to use a VH-11, so I'm gonna perform that update. I'm using a windows 10 laptop and my Morningstar MC-8 to make it talk to the drum module, because the update is injected through the MIDI port.
I’m a simple guy when it comes to beer so german rules don’t bother me. I want my beer to taste like beer and not fruity fragrant soapy craft beer.
That's the point I was working towards.
When traveling around the UK, I quickly found that for a set of German taste buds, the local pubs have little to offer in terms of what I'd call proper beer. The British, who conquered a third of the world to get access to all kinds of exotic spices, only to decide that they don't like any of them.
It seems a natural extension of that trait to decide that beer does not need to be overly carbonated and that it's okay when it tastes like a sip of water after it's way through a horse. You can sometimes buy bottled German beer, at about thrice the price you're used to. It was a rather depressing journey in terms of what you can do with water, hops and malt - that is, until I changed my mind set and forgot about drinking a beer, but started experimenting with what I call "Fun adult beverages distantly related to beer". The stuff that you make when you toss out all conventions about beer and how it's supposed to be made and decide that you'll have a little fun instead. I made that decision in a pub in Edinburgh, and promptly ordered a pint of something that had "Unicorn" and "Rainbow" in its rather long name - and while it was only distantly related to beer, it was fun to drink, now that I approached it with a new mindset.
The Rotten Sorcerer is a lot of fun to play with, even though it deviates from the trodden path of high class tone magic low gain pedals.
I hope I'm not into Fuzz pedals now, but this is entirely too much fun.
It has not.
The Bell and Howell 385 Filmosound projector has been a secret weapon among guitarists that actually stayed a secret (to me) until this very moment.
The original film projector has an 18 watt tube amp with 2 6v6's, 2 12ax7's, a 5y3 & a 5879 inside.
The samples I found playing bass through it, it sounded decent. I'm intrigued!
