New Pedals for Fall 2024 from Universal Audio, Walrus, and Warm Audio
MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2024
TABLE OF CONTENTS
00:00 - Intro
00:05 - Welcome all!
00:25 - Lots of releases to catch up on!
02:21 - Let's check out the latest releases from Walrus Audio
03:06 - What are our thoughts so far on the new ACS1?
08:50 - The three vintage and high gain modes
11:42 - More ACS1 details
15:24 - Let check out the other releases , D1 Delay
17:20 - Is Walrus flirting with Chase Bliss?
18:37 - Brian's thoughts on the New Delay & Reverb Pedals
20:56 - Adjusting Presets
22:44 - Looking at the Modulation Machine
26:27 - R1 Reverb
26:57 - Walrus Audio Releases
30:48 - Warm Audio Releases
31:48 - Warm Audio WA C1
35:22 - Warm Audio Pedal 76
39:50 - Warm Audio's Product Selection
43:08 - Universal Audio Enigmatic ’82 Overdrive Special Amp
47:02 - Initial thoughts on the Enigmatic OD
49:36 - More details on the Enigmatic OD
54:56 - Surprised there is no in depth promo video
56:48 - Brian on the Enigmatic
1:00:34 - Its not identifiable as a Dumble
1:03:32 - Grant on the Marketing
1:04:27 - What if you bought another Dumble inspired pedal?
1:04:54 - Does the general population even know what the Dumble sound is?
1:06:00 - Thanks for Watching!
TRANSCRIPT
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): Gentlemen and good people in the world of Tone, we are happy to be here on this beautiful day as we make our way a little closer to the dream of Destination Tone Town, a place where everything sounds good. There are no wrong notes. Every note is the right note. And we have some kind of cool releases that have been happening here.
I feel like this This month has been just, or I shouldn't say this month, the last 30 days have been very full of remarkable pedal releases many of which we're going to talk about today and probably there's some that we don't even we don't even talk about that have occurred as well, but We've got some big releases from walrus remaking their Mako series.
ACS one, the, was it M1 is the delay, is that right? M1 is modulation, mod Modulation. D one, and then D one is the delay. And then is it R one is the reverb?
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): Yeah. And then a CS one.
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): And then ACS one. So full suite of new products from them that are replacing the, the, the version ones. These have, uh, a digital display, more options for, uh, cabinets, IRs, amplifiers.
It looked like they partner with ToneFactor. Is that, is that David Hislop's, uh, Yeah, so David Hislop from, from, um, And York as well on this one. Okay, and York as well?
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): Yeah, for the ACS1.
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): I don't know if, is David still with Bethel? I think he maybe moved to Nashville and he's not Bethel still touring. I still see him post about tours now and again.
But, but is one of, I think, one of the guys that has these amps that's doing a lot of profiling all the time very, as far as quality of, of sound, you know, among the best out there. Um, And then there's also, in addition to that, some cool stuff from, from warm audio, which, which we'll get into, uh, they've remade the boss CE one chorus.
They've also done an 1176. That's pretty cool looking, I have to say. And then also the people over at UA have done a dumbbell style pedal, which we'll also get into, but let's, uh, let's start first. With the, the walrus stuff. So we've got, we've got the ACS one. Um, this is the mark two version. We got the M one, we got the D one.
We got the R one. Uh, these are due to ship mid October. Um, So, presumably any day now, you're going to be seeing them if they're not already shipping. Uh, thoughts, ideas, concerns? Where do we stand on these? I know that we've all seen them, we've all used the version 1s. Probably effectively, I think that they were all fairly regarded as Good examples of what they did for compact versions.
But, uh, just what are you guys thinking so far of the, uh, the new and improved units are coming in at three. 99 each, I believe. And then 4 99 for, and then,
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): uh, ACS 1 0 4 49. 4 49. 4 41. Oh, sorry guys.
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): Yeah, 4 49.
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): I missed a digit there. My bad. Hey,
Brian Omilion (Omilion Audio): just think, just think about it though. If you would've said 4 49, 4 99 and someone went to go buy it, they would've been getting a 50 50 discount.
Yeah, exactly. You're
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): welcome.
Brian Omilion (Omilion Audio): So I mean, looking at the photos, I got the, you know, the enclosure and everything is the same. The screen, that was a really cool upgrade to see. Cause there's a lot of people that visually like to know which, you know, cabinet or which amp or whatever they were running for, let's just say the ACS one.
Cause I'm on that one right now. And I was looking at the other photos and a cool thing that I think a lot of companies started doing as they started going to the MIDI and out With an eighth inch which is really handy to have because it's less bulky. I mean a five pin midi den Even a right angle is so bulky.
So They moved to the eighth inch looking at the photos. They moved to the eighth inch for midi and midi out on the backside As well as the USB C jack to do firmware updates. I don't exactly know if you can use that as like, uh, like a DAW, kind of like a Tone X or like the, um, the Neuro or anything from If they don't
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): state it, then probably.
Yeah.
Brian Omilion (Omilion Audio): I can't, I'll have to keep reading through it to see, but they added that USB C to the back and they had added the headphones to the back, which is really handy. Cause a lot of times you'll see this on like, you know, top left corners of boards or at the top row. So having those jacks on the back are a lot more accessible, you know, obviously the, the.
They, they could have went one more step and put the, the DC power jack maybe on the back or something and just made it a whole, a whole thing with the, with the back. But like the move, a lot of that stuff to the back is going to be really handy and really awesome for like routing purposes, as well as, you know, moving.
You know, obviously the quarter inch in and out have stayed the same. There's no XLR. There's nothing like that. I know a lot of people be like, Oh, what? It's just not possible in that, you know, in that size of an enclosure, but like looking at the upgrades, I think it's really, I think it's really cool. It's exciting to see.
They upgraded, um, amp tones too. So, I mean, that's just on the one, everything. I mean, the other ones, obviously they've upgraded stuff, but it's really exciting and they're great pedals.
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): Yeah. I, I like them as well. I think, especially when you think of what you mentioned, the form factor and what you get in that form factor, it's one of the.
I would say as far as hardware features to size, it's probably one of the best on the market. I'm trying to think of something else that has individual stereo in out, MIDI in out, headphone jack, all in a box that's roughly the size of a Boss TU 3, like a standard Boss pedal. It's pretty impressive. Um, and then to also fit that screen in, which I am, I have to say, I'm a sucker for a screen and one of my biggest and this applies to the whole new line from walrus But one of my biggest pet peeves and i'm speaking to myself as someone that develops products here as well is having to remember sub menus.
So on a Strymon Flint or a Mercury 7 or like any pedal where one knob or one foot switch does multiple things depending on, you know, hold this on power up and now you're in a sub menu or. Uh, hit these two buttons and turn this knob. That's a submenu. That stuff is so hard to remember when you have three or four of those pedals that have submenus on your board and you need to remember all the different actions to access them.
So even though the screen is small and people might say like it's not a full color screen or it's not this screen, it's not that screen. It's a screen that shows you your readout and gives you the submenu access without having to second guess or question that you're doing it the right way. And I love that.
Uh, so that's a big perk for me and well worth the extra 50 bucks, in my opinion, just for the screen. If nothing else changed and they said you can have it with a screen, for 4. 49 or without a screen for 3. 99, I'm going on the screen all day long. How much were they before? 3. 99, I think. I'm pretty sure it was 3.
99 for ACS1. I'm not doing great on quoting prices today though, so let's take that with a grain of salt.
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): Okay, sorry, I interrupted your flow.
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): No, no, and the only other thing I was going to mention is the note about Brian's power jack. I would agree if the power jack was on its own side with nothing else on it, but since the power jack is now on a side with also has output jacks on it, you aren't going to save any space anyways because you have to plug in those jacks.
So that I, on the, uh, what one is it? Is it the, is it the canvas tuner? The tuner, yeah. I think the power jack. Yeah, yeah. So like, oh guys, like why? And that one kind of drove me a little nuts. Uh, but this one, I don't have any issues with it just because you aren't going
Brian Omilion (Omilion Audio): to save much space anyways. It's, it's, I, I just Googled the ACS on the first version and it says it was 2.
99.
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): That's the Sweetwater's 100 off. So Sweetwater, this is a side note to everyone else. The version one or the whole line of Walrus, by the time you hear this, they might all be sold out. They're a hundred bucks off. And on Reverb, people are just selling them for the absolute steal. Um, yeah, so it was 3. 99.
So yeah, 50 more for the screen and the updates. And are you still on this
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): one able to separate left and right, I wonder, from each other? Yeah, you can do
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): all the same stuff as the V1, I'm pretty sure.
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): Well, one thing that I saw here that's pretty cool, and I'm going to scroll down here on the screen. So you got three different vintage styles.
So you got the Fullerton, which is a deluxe reverb. You got the London, which is a 62 Blues Breaker, and then a Dartford, which is a 60s AC30. Now, I'm wondering why they chose the Blues Breaker as opposed to just a straight ahead like JTM45 Plexi. Presumably you're getting roughly the same sound. Then they have three high gains.
They have the 5150, which is the red. The citrus is the orange rocker verb, and then the tread is the, uh, mesa boogie dual rectifier. Now I don't know if they knew this, maybe they did, but the 5150 and the dual rectifier are basically like the same amp. They're both like kind of Soldano SLO copies. Um, So I don't know if they're that, how different they're going to be.
So
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): what would your picks have been, Mason, if you could pick high gain amps?
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): Yeah. I would have chosen the Soldano because that's what these basically are. Um, but I can understand if there'd be like a licensing issue and, and, uh, I don't know. I mean, presumably they didn't go to Mesa Boogie and say like, hey, we're going to make a model of the dual rectifier.
But basically the dual rectifier is like an SLO as is the 5150. So they're kind of the same amp. I'm trying to think of like what else I would say, well, I mean, if they were really going like high gain, they could, they could do, you know, some of the modded, you know, um, what would have been cool? Like if it were me doing it, if I, if they were asking my opinion, they're not, but if they were, I would say like, let's do like a hose, let's get like a Jose modded Marshall, man.
Let's get a Jose modded Marshall. It's like a classic Van Halen, cool, you know, or Dawkin or, you know, type of, uh, rock sounds. You got that. I think it's fine if you're using 5150 or dual rectifier. I just don't think you need both because they're essentially like what they do in high gain is very similar.
Um, so I might just say, let's go to the source. Let's go to the SLO, you know, Sultana SLO. Um, and then another real high gain one. You see, I, I picked Jose, I picked a Saldano, uh, man, I don't know, like you could go as to this kind of more like a modern classic, like a Cameron modded Marshall or a Fortin, uh, or something like that.
Um, you know, the metal guys would be a mark two C plus, that would be a cool different high gain thing. Um,
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): this is not my world. High gain. I'm just like, I don't have anything to contribute into the high gain realm,
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): but I don't know. Maybe they are doing their own market research about their, their customers and this is what they're into.
I don't know, but they just, this is, I wonder if they realize the overlap in those circuits of the 5150 and the dual rectifier. It's kind of like the same. Um, and then, um, let's see. They've got, uh, a bunch of cabinet IRs from David Hislop. Um, they got some room sounds, triple middle bass, they got a noise gate, amp EQ.
You can bypass the IRs or the amps. I like that feature
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): very much.
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): I think it could actually be cool for like, You know, one of the things that I think is cool about the quad cortex, like if you want to do that, that true eighties clean sound where a lot of it's DI and you can just bypass the amp completely and then just get like a DI sound, but add all your processing on top of it.
And that could sometimes sound cool as like a clean sound. So,
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): and I think it's easy for people to like read past bypass IRs or IRs or amps. But like even, uh, when we were talking to Simon from Kingsley, You could take one of his analog tube preamps and bypass the front end of the ACS 1, the amp section, and run into an IR if you wanted to.
Or, I don't know if you can bypass the pre on the ACS the modded power, like the power section, in air quotes. Um, but either way, you can split up the ACS 1 and use analog sections wherever you deem it most necessary for your use case. It's a very handy feature to have, uh, especially for tweaking and messing around with different sounds.
Yeah, I'm
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): with it. I'm with it.
Brian Omilion (Omilion Audio): I mean, also with the screen too is being able to like, I've, I've always, it's always been a pet peeve of mine is like, I understand how all pedals can do it, but like when you have to take like the hologram microcosm. Or any of these other pedals, any of these pedals that don't have a screen, like in order to set the MIDI channel, you know, you have to hold down two switches, wait for the light to blink three times, and you have to turn the activity knob or you have to turn the master knob or something to enter certain parameters.
I mean, all the smaller Strymons are the same way, like the Flint and El Cap. But like that was one of the things with this one, too, is like setting like MIDI channels, setting MIDI through, setting all these other parameter global settings. If there's not an editor, seeing it on the screen makes it significantly more.
user friendly because I kid you not, I had a couple dozen people and I'm, I'm probably undervaluing how many people actually asked for a simple video on how to set like the Jackson audio bloom MIDI channel or something really basic. And I was like, just read the manual. Oh man, I read the manual, you know, a hundred times and I can't figure it out.
So like I went, Transcript. I've seen it a couple of times. Well, it took me a couple of times to figure it out and I was like, okay, those, there's just a process to it. So it was the same thing with the ACS one, like half the time I would go to the manual and see what MIDI channel they come stock with and I would just leave it as that stock channel.
But having the screen to be able to easily navigate is significantly. Yeah. Better because you know, it's one of those one less thing that I don't want to have to look at a manual just to figure out how to change the MIDI channel. Like I want to be able to hold two switches, see the screen, go into the parameters, set it and be done.
So that I think that's another advantage. And I don't know if you can bypass the preamp section. I know like on the Strymon Iridium you can, but I don't know about this one. I mean, I can't seem to find it. Yeah, they just use the word amps
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): in the, in the wording on the product page, but I assume not. But I mean, even just putting in a tube preamp into an IR is gonna sound great in this kind of setting.
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): You do like a page or something like that. Yeah. It could be cool. Yeah, and let's, let's, uh, let's also take a look at, at some of the other ones that are on there. I mean, I know that sort of form factor wise, they're in essence, the same thing. What, what are your guys experiences with the D1, which is the delay version?
Um, Presumably these are, these are upgrades from, from the previous one, but just looking at the screen here, it looks like they have a digital delay, modulation delay, vintage, dual, reverse, and grain
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): granular, which I think is new to this one. I was watching the Sweetwater video and it sounded pretty cool.
Uh, I think they also, and, and correct me if I'm wrong guys, but I think they also, um, either added or maybe just. Put a bit more time into developing like the dual delay side where you can run the dotted on the left and the quarter on the right and
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): yeah, like
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): having that's one of my favorite things about which I know I've said before, you're sick of hearing it from me, the time factor, but even tied.
Is every algorithm you can set what you want on the left and what you want on the right if you want a dual setting. And so it seems like that's more what you can do with this, um, and having that control I absolutely love. Yeah, it says
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): it employs two delays, one in each channel and both with different repeat subdivisions.
The user has complete control over these subdivisions. Yeah, for both left and right channel. You can choose to run their channel feedback in parallel, ping pong, or series. Uh, this effect can leave some jaw dropping trails, especially in stereo. Yeah, my jaw was on the
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): floor. I had to pick it up again after watching that.
I would agree with that.
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): And then, yeah, so there's the dual delay, there's the reverse delay, the vintage delay is, uh, allows for analog, tape delay inspired tones, um, the modulation, uh, His, uh, unique modulation LFO is applied to random repeats. Then the digital is, you know, the crystal clear. They're flirting
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): with the, uh, they're, they're flirting with, I won't say they're, they've gone there entirely, but they are flirting with Chase Bliss.
Some of the random sounds you can get out of this is getting Chase Bliss esque, which I, I, uh, love Chase Bliss. I'll say that first. But I find it hard. I don't feel like I am creative enough to use chase plus well. And I would love to get Joel on the podcast one day, but man, what am I supposed to do here?
Teach me. Um, but I like the idea of the D1 because you can still get into that realm, but it's not like the pedal has locked you into that, uh, glitchy different take. You can flirt with that and still come back to a standard dotted eighth delay on the next preset. And I really like that.
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you gotta do the dip switch life, man.
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): I know. I gotta just, Joel die.
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): Joel's got dip switches on everything or die. Yeah, yeah. Got dip switches on microwave. He's got dip switches. Exactly. Man.
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): Dip switches to drive his car. It's dip switches everywhere. Yeah, no, I hear you. Switches on switches. Yeah. Yeah. .
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): Yeah. Well, let's, let's also just take a quick look too, Brian, if you have another, uh, finishing thought on the delay.
I was just also gonna just take a look at quickly at the reverb and in delay or reverb and modulation stuff. But you have thoughts on that,
Brian Omilion (Omilion Audio): the, the reverb, I mean, not the reverb, the delay. Yeah. It's, I, I've had it before and it's a very common delay I see in a lot of boards from people, especially like when the, the, the upgraded version came out.
I guess they did some kind of chip in. Now this is the newest version. I, I, I, I do think it's a great simple delay. But with a lot of those really great options, seeing the readout, seeing the BPM, it just allows for a little bit more, like I said, and it really much is a user friendly, friendlier experience as far as like the, the modulation and reverb and stuff that we're going to talk about.
Like I always loved the modulation. And the revert from them to, um, I don't have them right now, but when I got them on a board, I had one guy who was like a beta tester for them. So he had a bunch of their pedals and, um, their modulation was really good. I know that they updated some of their sounds. And I was talking to Jason from Walrus.
Um, just, I just sent him like a congrats. Text like, Hey, congrats on the new release. And he was really excited about the R1, which is funny because looking at the R1, they have a new setting called the BFR, which is stands for big. I'm going to say, he said frigging frigging on the video.
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): I assume that's what he meant.
Well, it's an F
Brian Omilion (Omilion Audio): with a dash, so you can leave that to your imagination.
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): Sweetwater video. He should have just got them to, to censor it. It would have been hilarious.
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): Funky reverb.
Brian Omilion (Omilion Audio): Exactly. Flavored reverb, whatever. So, I mean, like they're, you know, they're, they're having fun with it. The air, like all these different options for reviews and stuff, you know, they're trying to get their, you know, they're trying to compete with other companies like Strymon who have the cloud reverb and those ones.
So, and they've always had really good reverbs. Um, so I'm excited to see, um, Like get one in person to see what the difference is, but it's the same thing. It's the same thing. It was like, not the same thing. It's the same concept of like what we talked about with the ACS one is that it's just, it's a lot more, I sound so redundant saying user friendly, but it really is.
I mean, just adding that kind of stuff allows you to see. See, because I'm such a visual person seeing the settings or the programs that when you're playing, you can't see where that knob dial is to know which preset you're on or which knob setting you're on. So this is really exciting. They did
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): something I thought was brilliant.
Uh, and I was, I was, I was soldering, uh, I was building a pedal while I was watching the video. So I was kind of listening more than watching. So, from what they said, uh, when you're tweaking a preset that's been saved, there is a dot that comes on screen for where the preset is currently saved at, so you have a reference point from where you're turning the knob in relation to that preview.
You know what I mean? You don't have to remember was mix at nine o'clock or was it at 12 o'clock? The dot will show you where it's currently saved so you can tweak with that in mind. I was like, Oh, that is awesome. That is such a cool idea.
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): Um, and the gory for like chorus and vibrato and so there's a chorus.
It says. Um, Type 1 is a traditional chorus, great for tight, smooth choruses. I'm assuming that that's probably like a CE 1 or a CE 2. Type 2 is a tri chorus, so running three chorus units in parallel for a lush, multi dimensional chorus. And Type 3 is into a sweeping vintage style flanger. So maybe ADA, maybe MXR, I'm not sure.
Phaser's a classic 70s we all know and love, so I'm assuming that that's the, the Phase 90. Um, Similar to the Lillian, uh, type one is a two stage phaser type two is a four stage model that produces four notches for stronger effect and type three. is a phaser modeled after the unique tuning of an LFO shape found in the Univibe.
Tremolo Type 1 is a traditional sound similar to optical and bias tremolos. Type 2 is a warm and cozy harmonic tremolo. Uh, Type 3 is like several pre defined patterns for rhythmic sequence pulsing tremolo. Vibrato, um, this harkens back to the 60s, Type 1 is traditional, focused on standard vibrato sounds, old record players, inspired this type, uh, for, for the, the Type 2 vinyl.
So maybe that's kind of more of like the Chase Bliss thing, potentially. Type 3 is a tape, vibrato, wow, and flutter, it also has a rotary, um, also has a filter sound, lo fi controls, um. I'm curious what the reverb, um, what, what they are going for on the reverb side. I don't know if I've ever, like, looked at the breakdown.
Brian Omilion (Omilion Audio): That second one, that second modulation that you said, is that the tri chorus? Is that kind of modeled off of like a dimension C, would you say? No,
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): I think it's probably more like a tri stereo chorus or their interpretation of it. Well, they're probably talking about the rack unit, like the dyno, my piano, or the song.
The other thing, um,
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): the thing I really like about the M1 and correct me if I'm wrong, if the Mobius is capable, I don't think it is. is on the M1, which is not typical for modulation, you have a wet dry control. So, if you wanted to run it in parallel with certain sounds, it's much easier to do without doubling up your dry, uh, coming in through the M1.
You can set it to 100 percent wet if you want to. Uh, which, uh, I was a big fan when they mentioned that. I think that can be really helpful on a few rigs, uh, to have that option for modulation as well.
Brian Omilion (Omilion Audio): Yeah, I'm not sure about the Mobius. The Mobius
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): you can set the knob to 100 percent wet, but from memory it doesn't have any kill dry setting whatsoever.
Wow. Typically with that
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): stuff in racks, they wouldn't put the modulation 100 percent wet anyway. Like usually that would be the last stereo feed before the mixer. And then go.
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): Yeah. There's been times where I've had rigs though where it just makes the most sense to put the modulation in stereo, but if the pedal doesn't offer that.
Dry be
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): stereo though. It'd be stereo. Sorry. In parallel would my mistake.
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): Yeah. So in parallel, I've, I've needed that a few times and not every time, but a few times. Like if only it had the kill dry option, like an H nine or like, uh, you know, some of these other effects. Yeah. And so I like that it's there as an option to have it as, uh, a hundred percent wet quite easily.
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): Right. Yeah. Well, and it looks like it's the classic stuff you'd expect. Spring reverb hall reverb plate, the, the BFRA no hold barred big. F reverb, uh, the refract, um, the air reverb is like a reverb with shimmer and the refract is, uh, is like a glitchy textures, um, hovering over a controllable amount of diffusion.
So yeah, some, some really cool stuff here that, uh, that, that Walrus is doing and, and, you know, obviously they're all the same form factor. I think. I don't think it's arguable that based on the, the amount of presets and features for the size, these have to be number one in class on that. I think if they're anything like their previous versions and they're just offering these additional features, that's certainly something to contend with for anybody who's considering The Strifecta, aka the Strymon Thrupple.
This would certainly be something that would consolidate space if you're going delay modulation reverb. You've got MIDI. Um, and uh, certainly I feel like the ACS 1 now with this update, far supersedes what was happening with the Iridium. You know, I feel like, They were maybe closer competitors in the previous incarnation.
Some could argue that the ACS was already more advanced than it, and that you could separate the amps for the left and right and have different sounds. Um, but I think this is now really getting in competition with really anything that's out there in the, in the app modeling space. Um, but iridium
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): is how old now like iridium 10 years.
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): Yeah. Something like that. It's close to that long. It's gotta be close. I don't know if it's 10 years, but it's gotta be close. Yeah. Creeping up on that. Okay.
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): So it's almost an unfair comparison now because it's just so old, like striving to come out with their V2.
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): I'm sure that they're on that because I have to think that things have developed a lot more since they had originally come out with that.
And I'm sure that's in the back of their minds. Absolutely. Part of me. I think we should break for a moment before transitioning on to, uh, The warm audio products and talk about one of the sponsors that makes this podcast possible Maybe even we'll have these available at their establishment. I shall turn it over to you all for that.
Brian Omilion (Omilion Audio): Yeah, absolutely So the first of our two first sponsors are gonna be the guys over at the guitar sanctuary Who have all sorts of guitars a lot of the stuff that we're gonna be talking about today. They're gonna they're gonna have At the store, especially when they're released mid October, like the baller stuff, um, or the nano cortex from neuro DSP.
So go check them out at guitar sanctuary. com. Um, tell them that the chairman sent you, give him a call, shoot him a text, shoot him an email, or visit them in the store in McKinney, Texas. Um, won't be disappointed. They got guitars, amps, pedals, power supplies, pedal boards, acoustics, basses, they got it. They got it all.
So go check them out. Next are going to be the guys over at Neural DSP who are also, or they have their products at the Guitar Sanctuary. So like the Nano Cortex, the Quad Cortex, any of these types of quad neural products that you need. The Guitar Sanctuary will also have. Neuro does have a discount code that is Chairman, C H A I R M E N, um, for 30 percent off of their plugins on their website.
This is for plugins that are over 90 days old. So if you're gonna go, you know, buy some plugins that are gonna go on your Quad Cortex, make sure they're past the 90 days. Make sure that they are ready to be loadable onto the Quad Cortex. Um, just, just so you don't have any confusion, there are a couple that have been, uh, Already approved and they are going to be loading some new ones in the next core OS.
I think it's 3. 01 update that they have coming out with some new features as well as their Cortex control. And then if you bought a Nano, you also have the Bluetooth app that you can connect to through the Cortex cloud iOS app and get connected and you can do all your settings. So go check them out.
NeuralDSP. com. I'll throw it back to you, Mason.
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): Cool. So, Again, big release, uh, and big releases in the last 30 days. I think the next one that I think is, is cool and remarkable is, is warm audio. And if you're unfamiliar with warm audio, I think that I wouldn't be out of bounds to characterize them as a company that looks to recreate with.
as close as a fidelity as possible in, in our current day to some of the most iconic vintage products and the microphone and pro audio space. In addition to pedals. And so they've released a Klon style pedal that has the same rough shape as the enclosure of a Klon. They've released, you know, some, some cool mic pres and microphones that, that resemble some of the classic German microphones that everybody knows and loves.
But, uh, this one that they've released, uh, here is, is, uh, the first that we're gonna talk about is the. Uh, Warm Audio, and I, and let's see what the model is, the WAC 1. And man, this is really cool. It looks, according to the dimensions that I saw, slightly smaller than what the original CE 1 is. The original CE 1 is quite large.
Takes up quite a bit of space. This looks like it's a little bit more pedal board friendly comparatively. It's still mono and in stereo as the original CE one was. But one thing I was noticing about it, um, is that there's typically an issue with the original one and that it wasn't designed specifically for a guitar.
And so there are some challenges with input impedances on it. They tend to be quite noisy. I'm not exactly sure how they decided to deal with it on this one But a lot of guys back in the day would send theirs to Paul Rivera to modify to add like, you know To add some impedance corrections to it and to add a few extra controls So you got a level control on this in addition to separate controls for the chorus and vibrato side I'm presuming that this is all true bypass, but, uh, we can look and see what the, uh, what the key differences are here.
I'm just scrolling down on their page. And it is,
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): uh, they're actually using bucket for grade chip. So this is an analog circuit path as well, which is pretty cool. It's not modeled.
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): Yeah, it is. They're using BBDs. I'm presuming that they're probably using Cool Audio, although I'm open to being wrong. It seems to be what most people are using.
They're
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): using MN3007X5 Bucket Brigade chip.
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): Okay, the X5 stuff. So that's like a company in China that makes replicas, at least in name. I don't know that they're actually the same, but they say 3005 on the 3005s, they say 3007s on the 3007s. Hopefully they sound good. You know, I, and, and I, I watched, uh, RJ Ronquillo's, um, demo video and it, and it sounded great.
So, um, that's on the
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): prices that on their products are, this is under
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): 200. This is like 189. This is
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): crazy. I don't even
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): know. Yeah. Like you can't even get a CE 2w I don't think for that. So, I think it's promising. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm definitely interested in checking it out. I'll say that. Um, I think that it looks really cool.
I love the sound of this. And, and again, you got, you got a level control. You've got your high and low switch on there. And then on the back, you've got, uh, you've got your high Z inputs. That's just high impedance input. You can select between that. So I think it, it, it, it improves upon. Some of the things on the original that were kind of problematic, let's say, and that often needed to be modded or rectified, or you just kind of dealt with it.
And I hope. That it would have the preamp, you know, in the CE 1, I got a lot of guys like John Frusciante from Red Hot Chili Peppers were, were known to kind of use this as part of the sound. And even there's companies that have gone as far as to disaggregate the preamp from it and make that its own thing.
So you could kind of use that as, as a boost. And I think it's just a, I think it's just like an FET. Um, but the other pedal that looks interesting is their warm audio pedal 76, which is an 1176 style compressor. Now they're not obviously the first person to do this, but one thing that's interesting is they really resemble it, uh, in accordance to how you would find sort of a rack, a classic rack based Yeah.
Compressor, they added a little meter on the front, uh, that just has a really cool vibe for kind of that vintage style. They're using the, the knob style that you might find on some vintage rack, um, uh, compressors. And it looks like on the back they've got some, some variant, a few different tweaks. Selects
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): true or buffered bypass.
It looks like you can also select for, for,
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): uh, for, uh, different types of levels. It looks like, uh, you can go mic, mic, mic level or line level. On balanced out and unbalanced out. That's awesome. And then it looks like also that you got like an input sensitivity that you can adjust there with a trimmer on the back.
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): You can adjust the view meter as well.
Brian Omilion (Omilion Audio): Is the amplifier out just the unbalanced out?
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): Yeah, I assume. Let me go through some specs. Yeah, I think that's, I think that's the, uh, yeah, that would just be the regular output and then the balanced out is, is I mean, I think, I think that that's, that's pretty cool.
It's got a ground left on, I'm presuming that's from the, the balanced out and man, it's just, uh, I think it's a lot on the back. Pretty dang cool. That's pretty dang cool. And
Brian Omilion (Omilion Audio): it's also very, like, it reminds me a lot of, I know that there's like you said, the rack version, but even like a plugin that you would see on like a recording software, like when you put, when it pops up on the screen, it has the same, the meter and has all the switching.
It's very, it's very similar. It's similar. I don't know if the 1176 like compressor from other companies in a plugin form looks like this, but like in logic, any of the compression, it does look very, so it's, it's very cool to see how, how they correlated between the rack and like everything that kind of looked the same.
Um, but yeah, it looks awesome. I mean the size, I can't tell what size of, in two, it's two 69,
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): two 69. Well, let's, let's look, we'll get the exact size of a Klan. Yeah. Roughly the size of a Klon. 5. 9 by 4.
Brian Omilion (Omilion Audio): 1 Is that what it says? Yeah, 5. 9 by 4. 9 and the height is 1. 9 That's not bad though. 5.
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): 9, 4. 1, 1. 9 Yeah, so I think that this looks really cool and I'm kind of curious to see like it's got some features that are definitely more pro audio emphasized comparatively let's Kali 76 Um, I think as far as like the, the look and form factor, I mean, it certainly gives you, gives you, uh, the semblance of the things that you'd want to see on something like that.
Um, and I can definitely see from a bass player perspective, this could also be cool because of the balanced out thing. 269, again, very competitively priced for what it's offering you. I could easily see if a boutique pedal company had released this, this could be, you know, three or 400. And I don't even know that people would even bat an eye at that with the, with kind of some of the cool features of the VU meter and, and stuff like that.
Um, Kind of, kind of a cool, uh, cool thing going on here. I'm, I'm kind of curious to try it, to be honest with you. Yeah,
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): I am as well. And if people, uh, as we all well and truly know and have fall prey to ourselves, you buy with your eyes and, uh, there's certain pedals. I see people release them. Like, I want that.
I have no use for it. But man, it looks cool and I really want to get it. I think they nailed that here. I think they nailed
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): that here for sure. They did, yeah. I really love it. I mean, they've already done stuff that I think is pretty cool with the you know, the mic pre's and microphones and stuff like that.
And we've had various artists using these on some of our video shoots and interviews and stuff like that. This looks really cool. I have to be honest. It is very, very, very cool looking. Maybe one day we can get somebody from Warm Audio on here and we can talk about some of these other products because you know they have the Klon one, they have a Zendrive one, they have a, uh, an OCD.
Um,
Grant Klassen (Goodwood Audio): They have quite a bit. They even have, which I was impressed to see because I was looking through their products before the show. Um, they have a old school Moog or Moog, depending how you say it, ring mod, and it has the wooden panel sides. It has the switches, like. They, I wouldn't say they nailed the look as in it's one for one.
But you know instantly what you're looking at and it looks awesome and I, I really do love it. So they do some pretty cool, uh, I don't, faithful representations or, or, or, you know, duplications of products is probably not the right way to say it. But, uh, they do a good job when they, uh, Replicate a sound whenever I've experienced a warm audio pedal, usually the Klon, I'm impressed.
I mean, it sounds great and it's a very good price. Always warm, always analog. It makes you feel warm inside at
Mason Marangella (Vertex Effects): least. Yes, it's impressive. Dig that. Yeah. All right. Well, so, so those are two devices. I think that this would be a good time to break again for, uh, another sponsorship break of
