Flanger

A Flanger pedal acts very similar to a chorus effects by creating a copy of the original signal and delaying it. Unlike chorus effects, flangers add an LFO (Low Frequency Oscillation) to the signal, which is a slight and continuous varying of the delay time to create modulation. Flanging is often referred to as comb filtering due to the way the signal appears on an audio frequency graph.

Sonicake 5th Dimension on RigShare
Sonicake
Sonicake

5th Dimension

Picture this: during one particular gig, you need a phaser for covering Pink Floyd's Breathe; then a chorus for playing the riff of The Police's Message In A Bottle; finally a flanger for rocking out the opening intro of RATM's Killing In The Name. Normally you would need 3 separate modulation pedals for all those 3 songs. But what if I let you know that there is an easier way to get the job done, with only 1 pedal, would you be interested? It is our latest efforts towards the digital modulation world--5th Dimension. SONICAKE 5th Dimension is an assembly of 11 most commonly requested digital modulation effects, adding multiple sonic dimensions to your tone, providing more possibilities for your tonal palate. It is more than straightforward to use, with a MIX knob controlling effects level; a DEPTH knob adjusting the effects depth; a RATE knob tweaking effects speed; a MODE selector choosing from those 11 effects. Those 11 effects all sound like serious deals to my ears. The tones will speak for themselves. The 11 effects are: 1) Phase 101, a crystal clear and bright phasing tone; 2) Jet Fln Br., a massive, jet-like flanger tone with plenty of feedback; 3) Jet Flane, a classic-sounding flanger effect; 4) Big Sky, vintage chorus sound inspired by the legendary solid state Jazz amplifier; 5) Stereo Chorus, a classic and lush chorus sound modulated by a triangle wave; 6) Liquid Trem, a bias tremolo sound inspired by the circuitry from a vintage tube amp; 7) Opto Trem, classic optical tremolo tone; 8) Roto 60, a vintage 4-stage phasing/rotary vibe effect; 9) Blue Vib, a natural and warm vibrato sound; 10) Cryin' Bot, a dynamic auto-wah envelope filter (DEPTH knob controlling filter frequency range); 11) Lofi, sample reducing effect (DEPTH knob controlling the downsampling rate, RATE knobs controlling the overall brightness).

Clark

2 Rigs

Chase Bliss Spectre Blue Knob Mod on RigShare
Chase Bliss
Chase Bliss

Spectre Blue Knob Mod

It all started with an email. Well no, plural. Emails. Customers seemed to be loving Spectre except for the inherent background noise that it had. The emails were particularly compelling because it was clear that this was an effect that people wanted, they just could not handle the noise. As for me, my intention with Spectre was primarily with high gain applications (i.e. copious amounts of fuzz in front of it to accentuate the “through-zero” effect) the noise didn’t bother me in that context. What was sad, however, is that you could hear the potential of the pedal as a clean chorus or flange but the background hiss was a turnoff for many. I dug back in. Armed with more noise mitigation know-how due to the Tonal Recall design process, I was better equipped to wrestle it this time around. The biggest issue I had with my initial Spectre noise reduction experiments was that it always affected the “whale-like” regeneration in a way that was a deal-breaker for me. This leads me to the other big change in the “Blue Knob Mod” – the regeneration control. It was crazy. It was temperamental. Well it still sort of is, just better. It also had the propensity to have huge, deafening dynamic swings in the whale sounds or (perhaps more maddeningly) the whale would sometimes disappear. I wanted to fix that. I wanted the whale to be more consistent and reliable and less prone to mega loud, unpredictable shrieks. So, with some hard work, a little luck, (an excellent suggestion from my employee Zack in regards to regeneration path signal flow), I think this is a much better pedal than when it came out a year ago. We are not trying to make money off of the mod, and are offering to do it for existing Spectre users for our manufacturing cost ($25) as well as shipping. Lastly (and most importantly) I have to thank YOU (yes, you) for your excellent feedback and suggestions as I try to make the best products possible.

Thomas Rees

1 Rig

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