Guardians of the analog
Papi Fuego
On my boss pedal journey I've already explored some classic pedals that are played and revered by many and this week I'm sharing one that's really rare and most people who have played one have only played a clone, the SG-1 slow gear. A very polarizing effect that most people either like or hate and not much in-between.So what is the slow gear? It's a envelope effect that was meant to simulate volume swells. While it can do that, it can also give a pseudo violin sound, I weird tremolo volume modulation effect, and kind of backwards sound like the vintage EHX attack decay. Add some modulation and delay after and you get get some cool ambient swells. What can't it do? Those really slow controlled long drawn out swells with the long throw like on a volume pedal. This is also a few components different and the same circuit as the boss nf-1 noise gate that makes the envelope work in the opposite direction.
With just two controls it's easy to use. Sens adjusts the sensitivity of the envelope trigger for pick attack and pickup output. Attack controls the onset and release of the envelope. The controls only have so much range so much like an envelope filter you have to play to the effect. Your dynamics, pickup selection and knob settings will determine your results. Some tips: I like the bridge pickup, focus on staccato single notes, if attempting chords use light finger picking (flesh of thumb is great for this) and if you want to get more sustain on the release add a compressor behind it for a more pronounced dramatic effect (especially with delay/mod), which is basically what the vfe bumblebee is doing.
No mods, used a 2sk30a I had laying around from smallbear some years back. Calibration according the the service manual is more convoluted so I simply auditioned various guitars while playing and made small adjustments to the trimmer to get the best response from the envelope across various settings to maximize the range of the effect. I went with a more minimalist approach. Gray powder coat, UV print and for the design I went with Krysten Ritter's Jessica Jones. The hard, alcoholic PI known as Power Woman. A clean simple build with a non complicated setup and lower parts count of cheap easy to obtain parts, I think you can't go wrong with the procrastinator if you are looking for something a little different to experiment with.
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……. I have recently become interested in this one…. Very cool build!
