It’s okay. You spoke in ignorance, I asked for proof where I might have been wrong, and none was forthcoming. However, your needing to be rude and infantile, and then passive aggressive, takes away a bit more from your credibility.

I was hoping, though, that you might have been right, in terms of there being an actual DIY triggered oscillator pedal which could be assembled so inexpensively. Unfortunately, that was not to be.

I think you’re making a mistaken assumption about what is going on in the Mothership ($475). The oscillator is *not* just some sort of signal shaping/distortion like on the Microsynth (which can sound good, don’t get me wrong); it is an actual oscillator triggered by the input signal, and which can be set to any pitch relationship with the original input.

I own quite a few synth pedals, not just the Mothership, and there is a huge difference between those utilizing distorted and cut-down waves and those triggering an oscillator. I have never seen a DIY pedal for £20 which comes close to sounding the same. For that matter, I’ve even never seen a DIY of the SYB-3, which at this point is one of the most inexpensive true oscillator synth pedals on the secondhand market, and the SYB-5 and Behringer BSY600 are even further beyond the mad haxor skillz of the vast majority of DIY pedal builders.

There are many pedals which claim to generate “synth” sounds, and most are just fuzz/distortion of various types. Although I’m open to considering any schematics, I seriously doubt that any £20 DIY pedal link you care to post will be anything but more of the same.

Of course, for some, that level is enough, and if someone can’t hear the difference between a true synthesizer and fuzz/distortion, then yes, spending money on a real synth is “totally not worth it.”

Having been on the other side of things, and having dealt with “defective” products where, once a returned unit was opened, one could see the results of, for example, using a different type of power than what a unit is rated for (including melted components and scorch marks!), I can understand why a manufacturer doesn’t just take a customer’s word for what the problem is.

You might feel that sending back a big ticket item for warranty work is unacceptable and that a new item should instead be supplied immediately. I’d love to buy a new car where you have found such amazing warranty terms.

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Regarding a point which has been raised in this discussion a few times, it is interesting that you posted on the 3rd about having called EHX that day and not getting a immediate response, and on the 4th, the very next day and about 24 hours later than that post, you posted regarding the response you got from EHX. It is clear from your posts that when you contacted them, they got in touch with you very quickly, either the morning of your next post, or even the previous day when you had called. You may feel that a response time of less than a day is “ridiculous,” but that’s as good as I have gotten when hiring someone make me a custom instrument which cost more than $300.

With that in mind, my question for those who have been posting about how unresponsive EHX has been… how many of you actually contacted EHX directly, and how long did it take for a response?

Cheers!

This past year I’ve picked up a lot of non-MIDI guitar/bass synth gear. I think the POG2 and HOG are amazing, but there is definitely that price differential to get both the HOG and the preset footswitch versus the POG2. Are you thinking of using this live or for studio/recording stuff?

There’s currently a thread/conversation about non-MIDI synthesis over at Talkbass.com.

The POG2 manages to do quite a lot in its small footprint. By itself it can make a lot of great sounds, and adding other effects is like adding modules to your personal floor-based modular synthesizer. Using it with a thick fuzz and chorus (and possibly reverb) allows getting a lot of classic synth tones, and adding some sort of envelope to it (either a simple autowah/synth wah, or the more full featured filters) allows the generation of more classic analog synth tones and envelopes.

Ah… but the HOG… it does a bit more, but that “more” is pretty amazing. The Spectral Gate and Freeze mode are pretty cool, and the fact that there is virtually a one-to-one correspondence between the harmonic sliders on the HOG and the drawbars of a classic Hammond organ means you can use the settings from a dictionary of Hammond drawbar registrations to get those tones from your HOG, and then (again) use a decent envelope generator to get the attack and decay you’re looking for. Here’s one such dictionary.

http://www.modempool.com/haldavis/hammond.txt

And, don’t forget there’s some great stuff here in the Effectology videos and discussion.

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I couldn’t make up my mind between the HOG and the POG2. I own both.

Good luck!

If you read enough threads/topics about guitar pedals, you’ll noticed that people spend a huge amount of time with any given stompbox, seeing how it fits into their signal chain, and finding the perfect setting for what they’re looking for.

When you read enough threads/topics about modelers and multi-effects units, you’ll notice that people spend a lot of time at the macro level of the patches, but not a lot at every single effect which makes up part of any particular patch.

If people spent the same amount of time on the individual parts of multi-effects units as they did on individual stompboxes, they’d get better results.

There are other issues as well. A lot of people don’t understand that one shouldn’t use the ambient settings, which add the space and air of an amp and its interaction with the environment, when then running such effects through an amp. Doing so just makes things sound noisy, because running that ambient processing through the system again just duplicates any noise problems which are inherent in live sound reproduction/reinforcement. That’s why you hear so many complaints about “fizz”; it’s ignorance on the part of those who never learned what their multi is doing.

Given that some multifx boxes contain the same basic sounds as stompboxes, it’s hard to argue that something like the Line 6 M13 and M9 don’t have many of the same patches as the stompboxes they’re modelling. The Boss GT and ME units sound great, and are capable of amazing things.

I do own stompboxes, as there are some things which aren’t available in a multifx unit. My HOG and POG2 are pretty unique. My TC Nova Modulator manages to replicate all the Electric Mistress stuff (including, surprisingly, the Filter Matrix settings), so it stays on the board. (My Yamaha UD-Stomp does as well, but I don’t want to take that out gigging, given its rarity.)

Ideally, I’d be able to spend a huge amount of time with a Line 6 X3 and an M13, and see how close I could get to everything else. It can be really great to just carry an ME-70 into a place and run that, instead of having to carry in huge pedalboards. If it does what you need on a gig, and sounds good, that’s all you need.

There’s quite a difference between experimenting endlessly at practice space or bedroom volume levels, and actually playing a gig and fitting into a band. Stevie Ray Vaughan had less than 6 pedals on his board, including his Tube Screamer, and it was less than boutique. If he could make do with less, and still get across what he wanted, I have to realize that technique counts more towards having a sound that communicates than having a bunch a pedals I can endlessly tweak….

Okay, now I have to ask *you* a few questions:

Where are you curious about whether someone else has built one? Do you have questions about its use?

Do you have an application for it, and therefore are thinking of building it?

Do you have any idea what it’s normally used for, or is this similar to someone who reads about a device, and decides it would be good to have one, even if that person isn’t clear what it does?

Given the following comment…

…it seems that you’re not familar with basic effects or ciruitry. That’s okay, since everyone has to start somewhere. However, one does have to *start* somewhere.

Given what you’ve linked to, you might consider building a tremolo unit. There are kits for such pedals, so you’ll gain a bit of understanding, and can then decide if you want to go further.

Of course, if it’s just idle curiosity, and you don’t want to do the research yourself… then at least spell out what you want, so others can decide if they want to invest their own time to make up for time you don’t want to waste on your own question.

Hi, Andi!

As Julian just noted, there are some substantial differences between the two pedals. However, since you found this site and presumably have read through the relevant product descriptions and listened to demos, I suspect that you’re asking a different question: Is there a substantial different between the organ sounds of the POG and the HOG?

If you don’t need full-out drawbar setting compatibility with a Hammond, the POG and POG2 are good enough.

If your question is actually “What features would I get with a HOG that aren’t on the POG/POG2?,” there are a lot of them. If you’re not interested in Freeze, Gliss or whammy type stuff, and having the ability to do the Hammond percussion and full drawbar set doesn’t matter, then the POG2 will probably do well for you. And, if you’d never be interesting in exploring those features, then yes, for you the POG2 would just be a smaller and cheaper version of the HOG, in the same way that, for someone not interested in more options, a Melody Maker is just a smaller and cheaper version of a tricked out Les Paul. If it fits all your needs, there’s no need to spend more.

Hmm. Alright, simplest thing first.

Yes, you can use the Q-tron plus to act as a gate on your loop return. There is no relationship needed between the loop send and return. The loop send leaves after the preamp, and the return comes back before the Q’s filter.

Secondly… what are you trying to do? Your drawing is a bit of a muddle. Are you trying use the same compressor for everything except the Q-tron output? You want to be able to run either the MM clean, or both the MM and the SL in parallel into the Q? What combinations do you want to get at the amp? MM both clean and mixed with the OM and SL going through the Q? Just alternating between (MM) or (OM->SL->Q)? (I’d probably put compression after the Q, for what it’s worth, and that means the easiest place to put it would be after the SW.)

Hopefully, the exercise of writing out precisely what combinations you want to achieve will make it easier to see how to get there, and for others to help. “No, that’s not what I want… try again! Nope, still not right… try again!” Unless you tell people your destination, they have to guess as best they can, and that puts an unnecessary burden on those who invest the time in trying to sketch out maps for you.