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Someone cracked the Animato

#321
Did my first gig with the Animato. Unfortunately, it was mostly doo wop and I spent most of the night on upright ;) But it wasn't all doo wop and I did manage to shoehorn it in with the Precision on a couple Hollywood endings and in spots during the more uptempo rock and soul stuff we did. Had it pretty rippin' at one point. Tried a few different things with it, and one thing I'm really digging is turning the tone knob on the Precision down just enough to take the buzz out of it. Reminded me of Mel Schacher back in the old days with that bong-ripping tone of his cranked West amps.

I let a little treble loose on it occasionally, too, and the fuzziness stays pretty well defined and doesn't seem to fall out in dense mixes. One thing that was really cool that was just too intense for tonight was to run the Greedtone OD clone that John made for me a couple years ago into the Animato. I will definitely find a use for that tone on some of our other gigs. But the best thing of all is that even when cranked a little too hard, it was musical enough to where the 70-year-old women didn't yell at me for being obnoxious. I've had it happen before with a new distortion pedal, and it ain't pretty.

So in the interest of seeing someone else besides me participate in this thread, let me ask you all something...I've read a few reviews and threads on other sites about the Animato, and there are a lot of comparisons to the Rat, and I just don't hear it. I've owned two primo Rats, both Rat 2's, one vintage, one tricked out by Robert Keeley (both got stolen...bastards!), and I don't get it. Do you?
 
#322
JimmyM said:
Did my first gig with the Animato. Unfortunately, it was mostly doo wop and I spent most of the night on upright ;) But it wasn't all doo wop and I did manage to shoehorn it in with the Precision on a couple Hollywood endings and in spots during the more uptempo rock and soul stuff we did. Had it pretty rippin' at one point. Tried a few different things with it, and one thing I'm really digging is turning the tone knob on the Precision down just enough to take the buzz out of it. Reminded me of Mel Schacher back in the old days with that bong-ripping tone of his cranked West amps.

I let a little treble loose on it occasionally, too, and the fuzziness stays pretty well defined and doesn't seem to fall out in dense mixes. One thing that was really cool that was just too intense for tonight was to run the Greedtone OD clone that John made for me a couple years ago into the Animato. I will definitely find a use for that tone on some of our other gigs. But the best thing of all is that even when cranked a little too hard, it was musical enough to where the 70-year-old women didn't yell at me for being obnoxious. I've had it happen before with a new distortion pedal, and it ain't pretty.

So in the interest of seeing someone else besides me participate in this thread, let me ask you all something...I've read a few reviews and threads on other sites about the Animato, and there are a lot of comparisons to the Rat, and I just don't hear it. I've owned two primo Rats, both Rat 2's, one vintage, one tricked out by Robert Keeley (both got stolen...bastards!), and I don't get it. Do you?
Click to expand...

I agree with you 100% that it is not really RAT-like, but I think those comparisons always come in the context of Muse. So, it makes sense because he mixes it with a gated fuzz in his setup. You can get kind of close to that sound with a RAT-like pedal when mixed. It's not perfect, but it gets close. Also, most people who came up with the RAT comparison were going off of what they were hearing, I don't think many of those people ever had access to an actual Animato.

Muse is cool and everything, and the Animato sounds really cool when I mix it with my IE Oxide morphed toward the gated wooly mammoth side, but it also works well in a non-Muse context as well.

I am experimenting with it a lot because I have i in my WoundedPaw Blender v4's C loop which is Barbershop>Blueberry>Animato right now. This allows me to blend it with a clean signal with eq (loop A), an OD signal (loop B), or my Fuzz+Distortion+Envelope+Modulation loop (loop D). But, Loops C and D can also be serialized C > D or D > C and then still blended with A or B.

So, I have been getting really cool Synth sounds or balls out distortion sounds. It's really cool.
 
#324
nshuman said:
I agree with you 100% that it is not really RAT-like, but I think those comparisons always come in the context of Muse. So, it makes sense because he mixes it with a gated fuzz in his setup. You can get kind of close to that sound with a RAT-like pedal when mixed. It's not perfect, but it gets close. Also, most people who came up with the RAT comparison were going off of what they were hearing, I don't think many of those people ever had access to an actual Animato.

Muse is cool and everything, and the Animato sounds really cool when I mix it with my IE Oxide morphed toward the gated wooly mammoth side, but it also works well in a non-Muse context as well.

I am experimenting with it a lot because I have i in my WoundedPaw Blender v4's C loop which is Barbershop>Blueberry>Animato right now. This allows me to blend it with a clean signal with eq (loop A), an OD signal (loop B), or my Fuzz+Distortion+Envelope+Modulation loop (loop D). But, Loops C and D can also be serialized C > D or D > C and then still blended with A or B.

So, I have been getting really cool Synth sounds or balls out distortion sounds. It's really cool.
Click to expand...
Boy, that sounds wild! Way more wild than I would ever do, but sounds great. And no, I have no plans on doing Muse stuff either ;)

I do have plans on getting another Rat, though, or at least I think it's a Rat...new MXR Bass Distortion designed with Ryan from Fuzzrocious. Man, do I love that pedal on bass...when it's a good one.
 
#325
JimmyM said:
Boy, that sounds wild! Way more wild than I would ever do, but sounds great. And no, I have no plans on doing Muse stuff either ;)

I do have plans on getting another Rat, though, or at least I think it's a Rat...new MXR Bass Distortion designed with Ryan from Fuzzrocious. Man, do I love that pedal on bass...when it's a good one.
Click to expand...

You might want to look into the Big Ears NYC Woodcutter as well. Juan loves it.
 
#326
Looks quite interesting. Seems that one of the big things in pedal world is building Rats that actually sound like Rats since ProCo's seen fit to drop the ball. I'm down with that...when you get a good one, there's nothing like it.
 
#327
JimmyM said:
Looks quite interesting. Seems that one of the big things in pedal world is building Rats that actually sound like Rats since ProCo's seen fit to drop the ball. I'm down with that...when you get a good one, there's nothing like it.
Click to expand...

I am having Max @ SFX build me a custom RAT inspired bass distortion pedal. I can't wait to try it out when it is done. I may get the Big Ears NYC pedal when I drop out of the MMM Breeders contest.

@dunwichamps also makes a RAT based pedal that looks amazing, the Volt Thrower. Waiting for that one to be available. You might want to look at that as well.
 
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#328
Well I've already got my heart set on the MXR since I think it'll be cheaper ;) but Dunwich is an awesome dude with a heavy-duty brain for this kind of stuff, so yeah, I'll bet that Volt Thrower would kill.
 
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#329
Glad you've got some really good use out of it Jimmy, although just mentioning an upright makes me miss mine :(

Long post coming, bleh...

I've got the next batch coming since a few people have requested it. Going to do a run of 50. I know that lot won't run out too quickly but it means I can churn out quite a batch and send a few to some local stores to see what they think.

PCB wise, I made a swap to dual layer PCB's, which make my life so much easier and will save a lot of wiring (even if I spent >12 hours looking for the dual gang pot!!!). I will have at least one external change by swapping two of the control positions around *gasp!* but hopefully will save me so much time wiring and provide a bit more stability for the board. Also got rid of the whole pair thing and use an MPSA13 instead. It'll have a tiny bit less gain to the original but it brings a tiny bit more low end into it which helps the sound overall. Hopefully the real production ones will also have white solder mask with black silkscreen to match the pedals more, the order is going in tomorrow when I wake up so I can check the board one last time for any mistakes which a fresh, sober, more coffee driven mind.

The enclosures may change. This all depends on if I can get the UV printing done locally. I've had quite good fortune in securing a supplier for the painted enclosures but not labelled. The white is slightly less brilliant but the paint quality is actually better and after the issues I had with the drilling on some enclosures, it might seem better to do it myself.

45XLSX2.jpg


Reason I mention this is that I have had a few requests for PCB's. Since I'm going to do a mass build again, I might as well also sell the PCB's for maybe a fiver plus shipping (which will probably be more than that), because I've had a lot of requests for the PCB's. :)

Also, I am so honoured people like the packaging even though it was a 100% home brew job. I have contact with a friend who is going to be producing the next boxes and manuals for me. Have to do the whole media thing with the site. I don't care that I know how to make proper websites, I just can't summon energy to make it. Give me an hour and I'll be making it. :p

After all this, the Bitmap one, the naming competition or whatever for it, as well as my other fuzz are just on the back burner for a touch while this is organised. The second prototype ended up working but I didn't ever box it up. I'll design a third one, get that printed and hopefully they'll also fit in the same size box. I didn't want to go with the tilt idea but after quickly bread boarding one, I think it is just what it needs.

Bleh. Now to work on the secondary board for the switches to help the wiring more.
 
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#334
Crowella said:
Glad you've got some really good use out of it Jimmy, although just mentioning an upright makes me miss mine :(

Long post coming, bleh...

I've got the next batch coming since a few people have requested it. Going to do a run of 50. I know that lot won't run out too quickly but it means I can churn out quite a batch and send a few to some local stores to see what they think.

PCB wise, I made a swap to dual layer PCB's, which make my life so much easier and will save a lot of wiring (even if I spent >12 hours looking for the dual gang pot!!!). I will have at least one external change by swapping two of the control positions around *gasp!* but hopefully will save me so much time wiring and provide a bit more stability for the board. Also got rid of the whole pair thing and use an MPSA13 instead. It'll have a tiny bit less gain to the original but it brings a tiny bit more low end into it which helps the sound overall. Hopefully the real production ones will also have white solder mask with black silkscreen to match the pedals more, the order is going in tomorrow when I wake up so I can check the board one last time for any mistakes which a fresh, sober, more coffee driven mind.

The enclosures may change. This all depends on if I can get the UV printing done locally. I've had quite good fortune in securing a supplier for the painted enclosures but not labelled. The white is slightly less brilliant but the paint quality is actually better and after the issues I had with the drilling on some enclosures, it might seem better to do it myself.

45XLSX2.jpg


Reason I mention this is that I have had a few requests for PCB's. Since I'm going to do a mass build again, I might as well also sell the PCB's for maybe a fiver plus shipping (which will probably be more than that), because I've had a lot of requests for the PCB's. :)

Also, I am so honoured people like the packaging even though it was a 100% home brew job. I have contact with a friend who is going to be producing the next boxes and manuals for me. Have to do the whole media thing with the site. I don't care that I know how to make proper websites, I just can't summon energy to make it. Give me an hour and I'll be making it. :p

After all this, the Bitmap one, the naming competition or whatever for it, as well as my other fuzz are just on the back burner for a touch while this is organised. The second prototype ended up working but I didn't ever box it up. I'll design a third one, get that printed and hopefully they'll also fit in the same size box. I didn't want to go with the tilt idea but after quickly bread boarding one, I think it is just what it needs.

Bleh. Now to work on the secondary board for the switches to help the wiring more.
Click to expand...

Very cool progress.
 
#335
So the current version of the Bitmap, sorry for not following along here...is it clean blend PLUS tilting EQ? What other options does it have beyond the regular Animated?
 
#339
I figured the PCB's would be popular. I pulled the trigger on 100 of them so I guess there will be 50 to grab. Fine by me. :)


I'll just note two things
- The first is that the pots can be mounted on the bottom side. They are alpha 16mm pots with right angle mounts. The dual gang one, much to my dismay, was only available from Small Bear Electronics. As I mentioned, I searched for 12 hours or so to find them and that was the only place.
- Secondly, the capacitors I use (aside electrolytic polar) are monolithic ceramics. Where this may become difficult to source is for the 1u capacitor, which is NOT polar. I had to use MKT's at last moment on the previous board because I couldn't secure any. Just be mindful of this as the box types take up far more room and was actually an issue I had on the first run :(

I'll of course supply some supplementary data with the boards too. I'm more than happy to see people build them and if I can make it as easy as possible, that'll be good. :)
 

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