eh là bas ma
Well-known member
After a few years building stompboxes, i felt confident about these big builds, and i was very curious about these Lovetone circuits.
I built the Spectron before (Meatball) and it is such a great circuit that i thought that everything coming from Lovetone must be amazing.
I have to admit that i struggled a bit to finish these builds. They aren't similar to the other effects i built so far, it was a challenge to even check if everything was working correctly.
These effects are so unusual that it took some time to do the checklist, the first time i tried them was a bit confusing : "is it really supposed to sound like that ?" and such.
I guess it's like the first time driving a spaceship : at first you feel a little bit of panic, then you get accustomed to the lack of gravity, and soon it feels perfectly normal, just like riding a bike.
Of course there was some minor issues, and on these big circuits it can be challenging to figure it out.
The "faceplate" is a piece of paper i took from an old history book called The Middle Age in France. The picture description reads :
"Often, work on the land was carried out in teams, but they were sometimes disrupted by a stern visit from a creditor."
This picture felt right, because i built this after coming back from the harvest in Champagne's fields. And because using this effect can easily feel like digging the earth, looking for something under the ground. It sounds like sweat.
This ring modulator can sound unexpectedly beautiful, before or after a fuzz for example. I only built one other Ringmod (X'orcist from Parasit Studio). They have some similarities, but this one has a much larger range of available sounds, both are great and very different ring mod effects, all things considered.
I waited a long time to get the full kit, i was overjoyed to be able to finally build this, i lowered my guard for a brief moment.
In the heat of the action, as you can see, i soldered the 3PDT board upside down...
Let's just remember that i managed to get it fully working, despite my personal difficulties and a few doubts about the final results.
At first i was disappointed with this effect. As long as i tried to use it as an usual modulation, i couldn't find the main interest. Especially compared to the Flintlock (A/DA Flanger) or other modulation circuits, this one is really weird and hard to use, hard to find good settings.
For example, the Manual control has a very narrow range where the modulation works, i've never seen that before.
I remembered that at first i struggled a bit with the Meatball too, it takes some time to get familiar with these devices, because there are lots of controls, they usually interact a lot with each other, so i often need some time to understand how to use them.
So I didn't give up, and keep looking for a way to use this ? Flanger.
I tried it as a signal generator, using the self-oscillating noises. Paired with one or two delays, i finally could see how it can be an amazing tool with lots of singular sounds.
There are a few bipolar controls, the feedback is especially interesting : you get different sounds going CW and CCW. The lowest feedback setting is at 12 o'clock.
As a conclusion, i'd say that these two effects have in common their singularity and the ability to shape unusual sounds, perfect to escape from the ordinary, great tools to swim into the experimental waters.
Both have Send/Return, and various inputs and outputs to open many possibilities.
They also are both quite challenging builds, a bit expensive, but much cheaper than buying an original unit. Very rewarding too.
On the used market, the flanger is sold between 1500 and 4000 euros/$, if you can find it. The ring modulator is sold between 1000 and 2000 euros.
The full kit is a little bit above 100 euros ( ! ).
I built the Spectron before (Meatball) and it is such a great circuit that i thought that everything coming from Lovetone must be amazing.
I have to admit that i struggled a bit to finish these builds. They aren't similar to the other effects i built so far, it was a challenge to even check if everything was working correctly.
These effects are so unusual that it took some time to do the checklist, the first time i tried them was a bit confusing : "is it really supposed to sound like that ?" and such.
I guess it's like the first time driving a spaceship : at first you feel a little bit of panic, then you get accustomed to the lack of gravity, and soon it feels perfectly normal, just like riding a bike.
Of course there was some minor issues, and on these big circuits it can be challenging to figure it out.
The "faceplate" is a piece of paper i took from an old history book called The Middle Age in France. The picture description reads :
"Often, work on the land was carried out in teams, but they were sometimes disrupted by a stern visit from a creditor."
This picture felt right, because i built this after coming back from the harvest in Champagne's fields. And because using this effect can easily feel like digging the earth, looking for something under the ground. It sounds like sweat.
This ring modulator can sound unexpectedly beautiful, before or after a fuzz for example. I only built one other Ringmod (X'orcist from Parasit Studio). They have some similarities, but this one has a much larger range of available sounds, both are great and very different ring mod effects, all things considered.
I waited a long time to get the full kit, i was overjoyed to be able to finally build this, i lowered my guard for a brief moment.
In the heat of the action, as you can see, i soldered the 3PDT board upside down...
Let's just remember that i managed to get it fully working, despite my personal difficulties and a few doubts about the final results.
At first i was disappointed with this effect. As long as i tried to use it as an usual modulation, i couldn't find the main interest. Especially compared to the Flintlock (A/DA Flanger) or other modulation circuits, this one is really weird and hard to use, hard to find good settings.
For example, the Manual control has a very narrow range where the modulation works, i've never seen that before.
I remembered that at first i struggled a bit with the Meatball too, it takes some time to get familiar with these devices, because there are lots of controls, they usually interact a lot with each other, so i often need some time to understand how to use them.
So I didn't give up, and keep looking for a way to use this ? Flanger.
I tried it as a signal generator, using the self-oscillating noises. Paired with one or two delays, i finally could see how it can be an amazing tool with lots of singular sounds.
There are a few bipolar controls, the feedback is especially interesting : you get different sounds going CW and CCW. The lowest feedback setting is at 12 o'clock.
As a conclusion, i'd say that these two effects have in common their singularity and the ability to shape unusual sounds, perfect to escape from the ordinary, great tools to swim into the experimental waters.
Both have Send/Return, and various inputs and outputs to open many possibilities.
They also are both quite challenging builds, a bit expensive, but much cheaper than buying an original unit. Very rewarding too.
On the used market, the flanger is sold between 1500 and 4000 euros/$, if you can find it. The ring modulator is sold between 1000 and 2000 euros.
The full kit is a little bit above 100 euros ( ! ).
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