Hey everyone! I have lots of things to talk about but they've been a bit disjointed lately. Social media is most conducive to short-form updates and the mailing list is not inclusive by default, so I'm re-starting the blog for updates like this one. I'll try to keep it off-the-cuff without rambling.
To start: I am not a businessman, social media expert, or anything of the sort—at the end of the day I'm mostly a tinkerer with a webstore, (and one who is happy to have you all along for the ride). The truth is I enjoy design work more than most other things and it's easy to chase a new idea rather than follow through with building dozens of the same device. If I hack together something new that I'm excited about I have zero impulse control when it comes to sharing it... but I'm also a bit of a perfectionist. As a result there is a bunch of confusion about what designs I may or may not have finished!
Fortunately for all of us I'm doing the follow-through now. It's high time to buckle down and release stuff for real: our first forays into time-based and modulation effects. I posted a tentative release schedule the other day on Instagram which had a positive response but I think it deserves elaboration. So, here's my best attempt to list what's coming out and where things stand.
Longsword, Model feT, Dude Incredible: These are rock solid. We make little tweaks under the hood every now and then but general functionality is always going to be the same. As of the time of this post, we're hoping to have more of all of these in February.
Beholder: the fuzzed-out reverb I've been tweaking on and off since mid 2015 or so. The design is verified, but we're in the middle of transitioning to a new enclosure shop which held us back somewhat. In the mean time you can hear some clips on the product page here. This is slated to drop in March if all goes well!
Hypersleep: an analog modulated reverb based on the MN3011 bucket brigade IC. It's somewhat lo-fi and has a room-like decay with the option to modulate the trails, for a weird chorus effect. There are some clips on our instagram (like this one), but there will be a more official demo video before it comes out for real so you know what to expect. The release date is tentatively going to be some time in April.
Surveyor: This is the IVP side of the Dude Incredible. Lower price point, smaller size, no germanium transistors, yadda yadda. Good if you want to BYOPercolator and get a Dirge Even Anguish or hell, use an original HP-1. Unfortunately the compact transformer used in this design was out of stock for a few months so we put it on the back burner. The design should make a debut in late spring, but that depends on our other releases.
Sending: the big one: analog delay with a built-in discrete preamplifier and tap tempo. A good analog delay is my white whale and I won't release it until I know it's my best possible work. That said, I made some major strides in the design over the last few weeks and I finally feel like it competes with the heavy hitters in my personal collection. If the next PCB layout works I'll be doing the release for this one a bit differently, so stay tuned.
Other stuff: an all discrete ring modulator (2018 is the year of the ring mod apparently), Claymore V2 (Longsword + Blend + bass friendly features), a revamp of our Acoustic 360 style preamp pedal, and a smattering of collaborations with other companies. No set date on these, but mentioning for the sake of transparency since I have posted about them before.
Anyway, here's a family photo of some of the new stuff! We had these prototypes at Fear the Riff and got some excellent feedback which brought us to the current iterations of each design. We can't wait for you to hear all the final versions.
TL;DR: We're getting there. Thanks for bearing with us.
Cheers,
John