German music retailer Thomann has modded a large collection of guitar pedals for remote usage over the web. This is the genuine hardware retrofitted with digipots & streaming audio I/O –
A pedal is first deprived of its shell, pots and switches. The pots are measured to see what they do (whether they are linear, logarithmic, etc.) and replaced with digital pots and switches.
Then, for reasons of shielding, the original housing is put back on. Everything is recognisable as a pedal again, but now, instead of pots and switches, ribbon cables hang from the orphaned holes.
This ever-growing Frankenstein is mounted on a rack drawer, which houses not only the power supply but also a mini-computer specially developed for this purpose, per pedal.
Plug into the pedals here. And yes – you may have to wait for the guy in front of you to finish playing Stairway. Learn more @ Thomann’s blog
re: Sloan, educate yoself
Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 9:10 am
by Doog
You can play guitar pedals, over the internet. Like, with your own guitar, live or recording a loop so you can fiddle with knobs during playback. Or use their own raw guitar samples.
I mean, there's a bunch of latency but this is still pretty impressive.
Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 9:46 am
by BearBoy
That does sound pretty amazing tbh.
Will try to give it a spin laterz.
Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 10:14 am
by Doog
It's already put me off buying a few pedals I'd been eyeballing, because you're able to get a real feel for what it can (or can't) do before sinking money into it.
And that's ASDA Price *pats arse*
Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 10:18 am
by BearBoy
Have you tried it with any pedals that you do have? If so, does it sound pretty much the same(ish)?
Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 10:37 am
by Thom
This is pretty cool, will have a play later, cheers.
Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 11:05 am
by Doog
BearBoy wrote:Have you tried it with any pedals that you do have? If so, does it sound pretty much the same(ish)?
Yeah, I tried out some pedals I'm pretty familiar with and it's definitely bang-on, basically you are literally running your guitar/samples through a real box in the world, it's not a collection of pre-effected samples.
Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 11:30 am
by Doog
You can even select a few different IRs or upload your own; it really is very well done.
Of course, we're had 'downloadable pedals' for some years now- the Eventide H9 I had briefly even lets you 'demo' pedal algorithms for a little bit before commiting to buy them- but people still want all the funny little colourful boxes, eh. Me included, apparently.
Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 12:54 pm
by lorez
this is pretty cool and might help me with my reverb question
Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 3:25 pm
by Hurb
nice! will check that out.
Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 4:22 pm
by dots
brilliant idea.
Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 4:55 pm
by Doog
lorez wrote:this is pretty cool and might help me with my reverb question
Absolutely! It's gonna be a long while before we're able to do such things completely "live" without noticeable latency, but this is pretty damn good for now.
Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 4:56 pm
by Mike
I love the idea of someone agonising over a Harley Benton American Sound and then being able finally to justify the £20 after hearing how good it sounds this way.
In a just world this would kill the hype surrounding a lot of pedals, but the gear page lot will just say the pixels were shopped
Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 4:56 pm
by Mike
Doog wrote: people still want all the funny little colourful boxes, eh. Me included, apparently.
The only reason there is a pedal industry at all, btw
Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 5:01 pm
by Doog
Mike wrote:I love the idea of someone agonising over a Harley Benton American Sound and then being able finally to justify the £20 after hearing how good it sounds this way.
Mate, when I was like 14 and/or broke, I would've been all over this shit.
Mike wrote:In a just world this would kill the hype surrounding a lot of pedals, but the gear page lot will just say the pixels were shopped
For sure; people will do anything to confirm their own biases innit
Mike wrote:
Doog wrote: people still want all the funny little colourful boxes, eh. Me included, apparently.
The only reason there is a pedal industry at all, btw
We're all just badly-dressed magpies collecting Duplo, maaaaan
Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 5:03 pm
by Mike
Looking through shop windows/on websites at pedals = logical extension from the toy/sweet shops of our youth.
I don't want to grow up.
Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2021 8:23 am
by NickD
Doog wrote:
lorez wrote:this is pretty cool and might help me with my reverb question
Absolutely! It's gonna be a long while before we're able to do such things completely "live" without noticeable latency, but this is pretty damn good for now.
Jamkazam?
Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2021 11:16 am
by dub
Anyone remember the silophone? You could upload files to be played through an abandoned grain silo with a twenty second reverb trail.
Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2021 1:16 pm
by Doog
NickD wrote:
Doog wrote:
lorez wrote:this is pretty cool and might help me with my reverb question
Absolutely! It's gonna be a long while before we're able to do such things completely "live" without noticeable latency, but this is pretty damn good for now.