DEMO GET TO DA CHOPPA! | Aion FX Luna Optical Tremolo.

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UtilityBeltFX

UtilityBeltFX

Well-known member
Build Rating
5.00 star(s)

My first time building a trem! Pretty straightforward pcb from Aion FX. Had a lot of fun creating the enclosure for this one. Found the film's title font as well as the Predator's language font, which spells out Dutch ;)

I wanted to put some kind of camouflaged Predator on the enclosure and was messing around with different concentric outlines when my brilliant fiancé suggested printing his shape in clear gloss only! Brilliant! It came out perfect. So thanks to her for that moment of inspiration. ❤️
 
UtilityBeltFX said:

My first time building a trem! Pretty straightforward pcb from Aion FX. Had a lot of fun creating the enclosure for this one. Found the film's title font as well as the Predator's language font, which spells out Dutch ;)

I wanted to put some kind of camouflaged Predator on the enclosure and was messing around with different concentric outlines when my brilliant fiancé suggested printing his shape in clear gloss only! Brilliant! It came out perfect. So thanks to her for that moment of inspiration. ❤️
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Top notch... nice video as well.
 
@UtilityBeltFX what is your experience about the noise in this one? I am thinking about building a new tremolo because the one I have is quite noisy and this one seems to be a good candidate. Also, can you dial some more vintage sounds similar to a Fender amp tremolo or is it really a "choppy" one?
 
Smrtokvitek said:
@UtilityBeltFX what is your experience about the noise in this one? I am thinking about building a new tremolo because the one I have is quite noisy and this one seems to be a good candidate. Also, can you dial some more vintage sounds similar to a Fender amp tremolo or is it really a "choppy" one?
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I just plugged this back in to get a better sense of your questions and I feel the noise is very very nominal. It's important to note that the Volume control on it hits unity around 10:00. So the volume knob can really boost the hell out of your amp. If you turn the depth knob all the way down and the Volume up you just have a great sounding bonus boost.

As far as vintage sounds go, it's definitely capable of them. I can't really imagine a trem sound its not capable of... Note that in the demo video I made, I had the Depth all the way up, for the most dramatic effect. I do this for my social media friends and family who are primarily not guitar players and have no idea what this thing does. When I just plugged it in again, I turned the Depth mostly down and the Smoothing all the way up, and it was very subtle and swampy sounding.

The only thing I don't like about the pedal is that the Rate LED is always pulsing whether the effect is on or off. Obviously that's so you know what the tempo is before engaging the effect. But if your pedalboard is in your bedroom like mine is, you have to turn the Spacing knob all the way down every night so there isn't a bright pulsing light in your dark room. I eventually took this off my board because I was tired of doing this every night. You could probably just omit the Rate LED if you wanted.

Hope that helps! I'd still highly recommend it overall. I just played an octave into a fuzz into the trem and it sounded like a synthesizer and I was having a lot of fun. I had to stop myself to answer this question.
 
Thanks, I might give it a shot. The volume boost is really nice feature. That is also one thing I don't like about my tremolo pedal right now (cheap Modtone). There is some volume drop when engaged and the mentioned noise.
 
UtilityBeltFX said:
The only thing I don't like about the pedal is that the Rate LED is always pulsing whether the effect is on or off. Obviously that's so you know what the tempo is before engaging the effect. But if your pedalboard is in your bedroom like mine is, you have to turn the Spacing knob all the way down every night so there isn't a bright pulsing light in your dark room. I eventually took this off my board because I was tired of doing this every night. You could probably just omit the Rate LED if you wanted.
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OK, first of all, great build report and great demo!

But the passage I specifically quoted demonstrates that you are my spirit animal. I have the exact same situation – pedalboard in my bedroom and not one but THREE pedals with flashing rate LEDs that can’t be turned off. I can’t just turn off my power supply at night because it is connected to the same surge protector as my computer. So I basically have to manually unplug those three pedals each and every night.

This may be a stupid, stupid idea that demonstrates that I really don’t know what I am doing even after all these builds I’ve done - but I’m wondering if running a wire from the cathode of the LED down to the 3PDT (just like the overall on-off LED is connected) would work to make that rate LED turn off when you put the pedal in bypass? (I agree with your reasoning as to why it is always on - but, again, given that this board is in my bedroom and I don’t really gig much there, it’s not mission critical for me to know what rate the effect is at before I actually engage it. The dog isn’t going to mind waiting while I readjust the rate.)

Again, thanks for the wonderful demo!

Mike
 
mkstewartesq said:
OK, first of all, great build report and great demo!

But the passage I specifically quoted demonstrates that you are my spirit animal. I have the exact same situation – pedalboard in my bedroom and not one but THREE pedals with flashing rate LEDs that can’t be turned off. I can’t just turn off my power supply at night because it is connected to the same surge protector as my computer. So I basically have to manually unplug those three pedals each and every night.

This may be a stupid, stupid idea that demonstrates that I really don’t know what I am doing even after all these builds I’ve done - but I’m wondering if running a wire from the cathode of the LED down to the 3PDT (just like the overall on-off LED is connected) would work to make that rate LED turn off when you put the pedal in bypass? (I agree with your reasoning as to why it is always on - but, again, given that this board is in my bedroom and I don’t really gig much there, it’s not mission critical for me to know what rate the effect is at before I actually engage it. The dog isn’t going to mind waiting while I readjust the rate.)

Again, thanks for the wonderful demo!

Mike
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Add something like this maybe?

 
Feral Feline said:
I wired my MadBean Wigl (John Hollis EasyVibe) so the rate LED turns off with the 3PDT, replacing the bypass-LED.
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oh-dear.gif
 
Smrtokvitek said:
@UtilityBeltFX what is your experience about the noise in this one? I am thinking about building a new tremolo because the one I have is quite noisy and this one seems to be a good candidate. Also, can you dial some more vintage sounds similar to a Fender amp tremolo or is it really a "choppy" one?
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I have a vero board version of this, that I based on the 4ms pedal Tremulous Lune. Mine is ...quiet. (and considering the spaghetti of off board wiring mine has, I can only expect a pub board to be quieter still.)

This really has more shaping controls than any other tremolo I've encountered—between the huge speed range, multiple waveforms, and even slope direction control for the asymmetrical waveforms, there's pretty much nothing "non-harmonic" based that you can't hit, and once you get used to the ranges, easily. I keep thinking about merging the wave control of this with the throb circuits from the Pendulum; it would be my ultimate term pedal (especially if I kept both throb circuits and made them switchable).
 
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