rwl
Well-known member
- Build Rating
This is a a report on the U-235 from Parasit. I tacked this on to my Parasit order because it seemed like a really clean-sounding suboctave based on demos on the site. I don't think I've seen anyone else talking about this pedal, which is a shame.
Inspiration
The inspiration for the pedal is a very cool bird, the Sage Grouse. The Sage Grouse is a largish bird that lives in sagebrush, in the northern central US and Canada. I chose this bird for the pedal because the sage grouse is known for the deep popping/thumping sound it makes with its air sacks (another example, and a fun dance mix from the BBC). So a reasonable fit for a suboctave, no? It makes this sound by inflating and shaking its gular sacs, and it's an important part of the Sage Grouse mating ritual. Which, by the way, also has a wild social structure.
Unfortunately, the sage grouse population is in decline, primarily from habitat loss, but also from hunting, and it's effectively been extirpated from many of the US states and Canadian provinces where it used to be native.
I'm reasonably happy with the design. I went with a style and color scheme that roughly matches the Quail Quompressor and the two look good together. However, I always need to remember that Tayda UV prints (or maybe UV prints in general) tend not to show the same shades of black as I see when designing the pedal; dark greys tend to appear darker in the final print than they did on-screen, which led to the pedal looking slightly more muddled than I wanted.
The Build
Populating the PCB was straightforward. This was part of my first (and only so far) Parasit order. I think the Parasit build docs are good, and the PCB feels really good as well - nice pad sizes and feel, and really comfortable to solder. I suppose it's funny to call that out, but it stood out to me when I built a few Parasit pedals. Also like many of the more DIY-oriented pedals I've built, there's a much more consistent and limited selection of resistor/capacitor values.
As for my sins. I wasn't sure whether the switch I was using was ON/ON/ON or ON/OFF/ON and so I ended up kinda mangling the solder job and haven't gotten around to fixing it. Avert your eyes.
Wiring was also rough. The Parasit pedals are set up to be wired with side jacks, and I've made no DIY side jack pedals, nor do I want to if I can avoid it. Especially for a regular pedal in a 125B enclosure. So I had to shift the PCB down to make room for the top jacks, and I had to kinda wing the measurements when drilling (eyeballing with some calipers in hand). The end result is that the controls are lower than I would like. And then the wiring for Parasit seems to be even worse than Aion. It was quite frustrating. The end result is much messier than I would have liked. Oh well.
I have a few more Parasit builts and I'm dreading boxing them.
The Pedal
It's the best suboctave I've made. I mean, I have no other dedicated suboctave pedals, but I also have made a PPCB Dirt Dauber, the PPCB Super Heterodyne Receiver, and a few other pedals that have a suboctave function. I found all of those to be fairly glitchy (often in a good way if you're looking for a glitchy weird sound), and the suboctave often feels more like a sideshow. I just wanted something that delivered really deep, clean bass. You can get that with the U-235. I put a clean boost in front (Plumes in mode 2 was what I had lying around), rolled off the tone knob on the guitar, and it sounds really nice. Seems to work with humbuckers and single coil, although a single coil neck pickup seemed to work best for me. You can also play chords without a problem, although with more than 3 notes they're naturally pretty muddy. But it's nice being able to play power chords or double stops without worrying. The tracking is surprisingly reliable down to about the 3rd fret on the low E string, where there's a not-great warbling sort of effect. With other suboctaves, I've often had difficulty below the 5th fret of the A string. The sustain is pretty good too - you can hold a note for a long time without worrying about glitching out. If you're interested in hearing the pedal, there's a good demo on the Parasit page. I gotta reiterate that the tracking is quite clean and the sound doesn't feel too distorted.
The pedal has a switch for -2 octaves, detuned, and -1 octave. There's also a level knob that sorta acts as a combination of blend and tracking. There's also two trimpots for sensitivity that I didn't touch after an initial setup.
Overall, I think Parasit is the king of CMOS-based pedals. The other PCBs I bought (but haven't boxed yet) are also excellent (Sentient Machine, Theremin Fuzz, Ladder to the Moon).
I think this will stay on my board for now, although I suspect I might end up trusting a DSP-based suboctave more if I can figure one out. Even with the good tracking, there's some weird funkiness that I'd avoid if possible (warbling on low E string, glitchiness with background hum). I think you can only push these chips so far.
Firsts
Pedal rating: 5/5
Inspiration
The inspiration for the pedal is a very cool bird, the Sage Grouse. The Sage Grouse is a largish bird that lives in sagebrush, in the northern central US and Canada. I chose this bird for the pedal because the sage grouse is known for the deep popping/thumping sound it makes with its air sacks (another example, and a fun dance mix from the BBC). So a reasonable fit for a suboctave, no? It makes this sound by inflating and shaking its gular sacs, and it's an important part of the Sage Grouse mating ritual. Which, by the way, also has a wild social structure.
Unfortunately, the sage grouse population is in decline, primarily from habitat loss, but also from hunting, and it's effectively been extirpated from many of the US states and Canadian provinces where it used to be native.
I'm reasonably happy with the design. I went with a style and color scheme that roughly matches the Quail Quompressor and the two look good together. However, I always need to remember that Tayda UV prints (or maybe UV prints in general) tend not to show the same shades of black as I see when designing the pedal; dark greys tend to appear darker in the final print than they did on-screen, which led to the pedal looking slightly more muddled than I wanted.
The Build
Populating the PCB was straightforward. This was part of my first (and only so far) Parasit order. I think the Parasit build docs are good, and the PCB feels really good as well - nice pad sizes and feel, and really comfortable to solder. I suppose it's funny to call that out, but it stood out to me when I built a few Parasit pedals. Also like many of the more DIY-oriented pedals I've built, there's a much more consistent and limited selection of resistor/capacitor values.
As for my sins. I wasn't sure whether the switch I was using was ON/ON/ON or ON/OFF/ON and so I ended up kinda mangling the solder job and haven't gotten around to fixing it. Avert your eyes.
Wiring was also rough. The Parasit pedals are set up to be wired with side jacks, and I've made no DIY side jack pedals, nor do I want to if I can avoid it. Especially for a regular pedal in a 125B enclosure. So I had to shift the PCB down to make room for the top jacks, and I had to kinda wing the measurements when drilling (eyeballing with some calipers in hand). The end result is that the controls are lower than I would like. And then the wiring for Parasit seems to be even worse than Aion. It was quite frustrating. The end result is much messier than I would have liked. Oh well.
I have a few more Parasit builts and I'm dreading boxing them.
The Pedal
It's the best suboctave I've made. I mean, I have no other dedicated suboctave pedals, but I also have made a PPCB Dirt Dauber, the PPCB Super Heterodyne Receiver, and a few other pedals that have a suboctave function. I found all of those to be fairly glitchy (often in a good way if you're looking for a glitchy weird sound), and the suboctave often feels more like a sideshow. I just wanted something that delivered really deep, clean bass. You can get that with the U-235. I put a clean boost in front (Plumes in mode 2 was what I had lying around), rolled off the tone knob on the guitar, and it sounds really nice. Seems to work with humbuckers and single coil, although a single coil neck pickup seemed to work best for me. You can also play chords without a problem, although with more than 3 notes they're naturally pretty muddy. But it's nice being able to play power chords or double stops without worrying. The tracking is surprisingly reliable down to about the 3rd fret on the low E string, where there's a not-great warbling sort of effect. With other suboctaves, I've often had difficulty below the 5th fret of the A string. The sustain is pretty good too - you can hold a note for a long time without worrying about glitching out. If you're interested in hearing the pedal, there's a good demo on the Parasit page. I gotta reiterate that the tracking is quite clean and the sound doesn't feel too distorted.
The pedal has a switch for -2 octaves, detuned, and -1 octave. There's also a level knob that sorta acts as a combination of blend and tracking. There's also two trimpots for sensitivity that I didn't touch after an initial setup.
Overall, I think Parasit is the king of CMOS-based pedals. The other PCBs I bought (but haven't boxed yet) are also excellent (Sentient Machine, Theremin Fuzz, Ladder to the Moon).
I think this will stay on my board for now, although I suspect I might end up trusting a DSP-based suboctave more if I can figure one out. Even with the good tracking, there's some weird funkiness that I'd avoid if possible (warbling on low E string, glitchiness with background hum). I think you can only push these chips so far.
Firsts
First boxed Parasit pedal
Pedal rating: 5/5
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