Designed to give players a wide array of trem, reverb and chorus tones from classic Fender-style to new and wacky options, all easily dialed in on the Tremolo 8 pedal! Catalinbread created this pedal for the modern player, offering a large array of tonal flavors to choose from. The compact design makes Tremolo 8 a pedalboard-friendly powerhouse!
In a past life, this project started as a pedal for my personal enjoyment; a digitized model of the Fender Showman’s "harmonic vibrato". The experiment was a resounding success, so I started experimenting with more LFOs and more tremolo styles. I really like the sound of tremolo splashing against a reverb like Magnatones or Vibro Champs and my previous work on the Topanga Burnside reflects this. At the same time, I'm a sucker for bigger ethereal reverbs so I decided to add some trem-specific reverb algorithms and a subtle tone control.
After researching and implementing them to exhaustion, we discovered that not all LFOs are created equal and some are much more equal than others. A sawtooth LFO leads to wild reverse-esque sonic manipulation and a fluttery compressed sound when set low. A square wave with a duty cycle control (“on'' time) leads to a thumping, stuttering reverb sound, so why not turbocharge the square wave to a few kilohertz and churn out some wacky sum and difference frequencies? In a completely different program, trem modulation with chorus floating on top sounded too good to leave out. When working on the Many Worlds I had so much fun with the envelope-controlled phase angle that I wanted something like that in here, so I crafted an envelope-controlled trem rate with adjustable sensitivity and attack/decay, leading to head-spinning effects when letting chords ring out or when cranking some touch-sensitive solos.
Programs (do we need names or is numbers fine) and controls and nerdy stats (I will make a matrix with exact LFO rates, and explanations and starter settings for the manual next, once we finalize code)