bongomania
Commercial User
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New Pigtronix compressor
- Thread starter OriginalCrash
- Start date
Gotta bump this one now. I just watched the PGS demo of this, and I was absolutely amazed by it. Holy infinite sustain batman! Has anyone else tried this yet? Bongo, did you ever hear back from Pigtronix about getting ahold of one? Crap, the neverending GAS...
bongomania
Commercial User
bongomania
Commercial User
Just spoke to Dave on the phone today, which was a pleasure--he's been super nice to talk with both times I've spoken with him. I should be receiving the pedal in a few days. He says the compression circuit is not exactly the same as what's in the ADSR pedal, but rather a further development of the same idea. He got tons of forum posts and emails about what people liked and didn't like about the ADSR as a sustainer, and modified/improved it to meet those requests.
bongomania
Commercial User
OK, so I've been using the Philosopher's Tone for about three days now, and I feel like posting some initial thoughts. This is one of those pedals that requires a lot of experimentation with different settings and basses etc. to understand it well, so this is not a "proper" review and I will not be posting a proper review for at least a few more days. These are just my initial impressions:
It's essentially a clean optical limiter with an extremely high ratio. When you raise the threshold it acts more transparently, when you lower the threshold it becomes an ultra-squasher. The envelope is the most unusual or hard-to explain aspect of the effect. When your signal crosses the threshold, it gets dropped below unity, and then the signal swells back up above unity, raising the volume of your note as it trails off, effectively increasing sustain. The more sustain you demand, the higher the noise floor, and the more bizarrely squashed your notes will sound for the first half-second. So it is capable of extreme sustain as advertised, but the penalties to your sound may not be worth it, depending on your tastes. At more "natural" sounding settings there is a small increase in sustain; but even at the more natural (high threshold) settings the attack of the envelope of the effect is kind of weird. Rubbery and squooshy. Sometimes I think I love it, sometimes I think I hate it. There is no loss of highs or lows, and the overall tone quality is quite nice. The noise level is fairly low, unless you set it for a lot of sustain. There is a blend knob for combining the compressed and uncompressed signal; this helps fix the weird attack shape to a certain extent. There is a "grit" knob which adds a layer of distortion to the signal. I mostly don't like the buzzy sound it makes, except for the lowest settings, where it is a passable low-gain overdrive. If you use the grit and the blend at the same time, phase cancellation occurs, which totally robs the low end and the guts of the tone. So IMO really the grit is only useful at its lowest setting and unblended. There is a treble rolloff knob, and it doesn't do a whole lot in the bass guitar frequency realm. It's not "bad", it's just not very useful. The pedal runs on 12-18V DC, and comes with a 15V wall wart.
As a peak limiter it is excellent, as long as you don't mind the odd attack shape; also bearing in mind that if you let a loud/strong note ring freely, the sustained portion may raise up higher than the initial note level, not being limited.
All in all this is an excellent and very versatile pedal. It was sent to me as a loaner to review, but I am probably going to buy it to keep. It's easy to abuse the settings and get very bad results, and finding the good settings is not super easy, so this pedal won't be for everyone. Also the attack shape may put some people off. But if you like the attack, and you work with it enough to find the right settings, this pedal has a lot to offer. I didn't like it at first, but now I really dig it a lot.
Again, this was just a first shot of my thoughts after only three days of use. I will almost certainly change my mind about some aspects of it, perhaps several times over some days, before I think it's ready to be a real review.
It's essentially a clean optical limiter with an extremely high ratio. When you raise the threshold it acts more transparently, when you lower the threshold it becomes an ultra-squasher. The envelope is the most unusual or hard-to explain aspect of the effect. When your signal crosses the threshold, it gets dropped below unity, and then the signal swells back up above unity, raising the volume of your note as it trails off, effectively increasing sustain. The more sustain you demand, the higher the noise floor, and the more bizarrely squashed your notes will sound for the first half-second. So it is capable of extreme sustain as advertised, but the penalties to your sound may not be worth it, depending on your tastes. At more "natural" sounding settings there is a small increase in sustain; but even at the more natural (high threshold) settings the attack of the envelope of the effect is kind of weird. Rubbery and squooshy. Sometimes I think I love it, sometimes I think I hate it. There is no loss of highs or lows, and the overall tone quality is quite nice. The noise level is fairly low, unless you set it for a lot of sustain. There is a blend knob for combining the compressed and uncompressed signal; this helps fix the weird attack shape to a certain extent. There is a "grit" knob which adds a layer of distortion to the signal. I mostly don't like the buzzy sound it makes, except for the lowest settings, where it is a passable low-gain overdrive. If you use the grit and the blend at the same time, phase cancellation occurs, which totally robs the low end and the guts of the tone. So IMO really the grit is only useful at its lowest setting and unblended. There is a treble rolloff knob, and it doesn't do a whole lot in the bass guitar frequency realm. It's not "bad", it's just not very useful. The pedal runs on 12-18V DC, and comes with a 15V wall wart.
As a peak limiter it is excellent, as long as you don't mind the odd attack shape; also bearing in mind that if you let a loud/strong note ring freely, the sustained portion may raise up higher than the initial note level, not being limited.
All in all this is an excellent and very versatile pedal. It was sent to me as a loaner to review, but I am probably going to buy it to keep. It's easy to abuse the settings and get very bad results, and finding the good settings is not super easy, so this pedal won't be for everyone. Also the attack shape may put some people off. But if you like the attack, and you work with it enough to find the right settings, this pedal has a lot to offer. I didn't like it at first, but now I really dig it a lot.
Again, this was just a first shot of my thoughts after only three days of use. I will almost certainly change my mind about some aspects of it, perhaps several times over some days, before I think it's ready to be a real review.
bongomania
Commercial User
Full review posted: http://www.ovnilab.com/reviews/philosopher.shtml
As usual I will probably make some edits over the next few days, but the basic stuff is solid.
As usual I will probably make some edits over the next few days, but the basic stuff is solid.
Hmm, interesting. This could be great in a synth chain, but I worry about the potential noise levels that would be inherent for the level of compression necessary to achieve what I have in mind. Maybe placed after a smooth octave, but definitely before my 'foogers, could do the trick.
Bongo- Your reviews are always intelligent and to the point, and written in such a way that I usually learn something that applies to pedals or electronics in general. Thanks for sharing, your contributions are very much appreciated. I'll have to keep an eye out for one of these in the classifieds.
Bongo- Your reviews are always intelligent and to the point, and written in such a way that I usually learn something that applies to pedals or electronics in general. Thanks for sharing, your contributions are very much appreciated. I'll have to keep an eye out for one of these in the classifieds.
Bumping this thread to add in a couple cents. I got the Philosopher's Tone in yesterday, and just sat down with it for over an hour getting to know it. Bongo's review is very thorough and useful, as always.
In short, I think I have found my compressor. I have three main uses, and this really does meet all three. First, I need a strong peak limiter on some songs, especially songs that feature distortion with a really resonant filter or modulation effect. Second, I want serious sustain, which was the big point Pigtronix has used to sell this pedal. Third, I want some of that fatness that some compressors add, although this is definitely less important than the first two.
I found that when I had sustain set to around noon and blend all the way up (i.e. 100% wet), it works as a great peak limiter. To get the crazy sustain, I cranked the sustain knob all the way up. But then I noticed that strange enveloping that Bongo mentioned. I found that turning the blend knob down to about 2:00 fixed this envelope weirdness, but still allows me to keep that huge sustain. And I also found that in this setting, I get significant fatness added to my tone, in the same ballpark as the Jacques Fat Burner, which was the last compressor I tried. It even beefed up my crappy hondo p clone, which usually sounds pathetically weak, and I only keep it around as an emergency.
I found that I am not all that crazy about the grit, unless you keep it below 9:00. It's just too fizzy for me. But that's fine, my board has plenty of dirt. And the treble roll-off knob is a nice addition; 3:00 is my favorite setting.
All in all, I am extremely satisfied with my purchase. Greatly recommended.
In short, I think I have found my compressor. I have three main uses, and this really does meet all three. First, I need a strong peak limiter on some songs, especially songs that feature distortion with a really resonant filter or modulation effect. Second, I want serious sustain, which was the big point Pigtronix has used to sell this pedal. Third, I want some of that fatness that some compressors add, although this is definitely less important than the first two.
I found that when I had sustain set to around noon and blend all the way up (i.e. 100% wet), it works as a great peak limiter. To get the crazy sustain, I cranked the sustain knob all the way up. But then I noticed that strange enveloping that Bongo mentioned. I found that turning the blend knob down to about 2:00 fixed this envelope weirdness, but still allows me to keep that huge sustain. And I also found that in this setting, I get significant fatness added to my tone, in the same ballpark as the Jacques Fat Burner, which was the last compressor I tried. It even beefed up my crappy hondo p clone, which usually sounds pathetically weak, and I only keep it around as an emergency.
I found that I am not all that crazy about the grit, unless you keep it below 9:00. It's just too fizzy for me. But that's fine, my board has plenty of dirt. And the treble roll-off knob is a nice addition; 3:00 is my favorite setting.
All in all, I am extremely satisfied with my purchase. Greatly recommended.
Congrats! Since my last post in this thread I've acquired Bongo's PT and am loving it. I've also had basically the same experience as you-- Works as an excellent peak limiter, though i'm using it first in my chain to drive tracking effects like the Octaves and Freqbox's, and it is a perfect match to an Ebow, because it allows you to brute force it a bit more without blowing the OC-2 away or getting big volume spikes in general. I also am not a big fan of the dirt, and had luck balancing the envelope swell with some blend, basically trying to set it so the Swell crosses paths with the drop off in dry sustain at the right point, and this is pretty effective in maintaining and even volume and attack.
This compressor is definitely not for everyone, but for certain applications it makes an excellent tool-- mine's not going anywhere!
This compressor is definitely not for everyone, but for certain applications it makes an excellent tool-- mine's not going anywhere!
