What's your favorite tremolo pedal circuit?

[HamishR]

The tremolo in my Brown Deluxe clone is about as good as it gets. For pedals the Flint is close but the built-in is better. I built an EA trem years ago and was impressed, especially for how simple it is.

A lot of tremolo pedals seem compressed or too quiet - there are loads of ways to mess up a trem! And once you've tried bias trem the roach trem of a BF Fender sounds lame.

 

[Mentaltossflycoon]

I'm equally in both the wavelord and vibrobot camp.

 

[Cvoxdog]

The swamp thang circuit does a nice emulation of brown face amps.

 

[dcfvgb]

I really like my aion luna, 4ms Tremulus Lune clone. I keep looking at other tremolos, but this does everything I want.

 

[kristopher]

The moonshot tremolo is my favourite. It doesn’t colour my tone. Which is what I found to be an issue with most, including the trembling loon. It has a volume control, which is an important feature. And it can be hummingbird fast. It’s been on my board for almost two years. It’s been a set and forget pedal, aside from speed adjustment. I feel that tap tempo is more useful with delay pedals, and not necessary with tremolo. For what I play at least. I was very happy when the tremolo rabbit hole ended for me, with the moonshot.
The Quaverato is a fantastic kit. Easy and fun to build. With tap tempo and many wave shape settings. Check that one out. It could be what you are searching for.

 

[Feral Feline]

I like the hard chop of a Vox Repeat Percussion (PedalPCB Woodpecker aka EQD Hummingbird).

Tap-Tempo list:_______
Delyk Cherry Pie (Drolo TwinPeaks)
Madbean Dig Dug
Madbean Glasshole
Madbean Tapanator
Madbean Wavelord
MusicPCB
Sabro's Tremulous Lune
Zeppelin Labs Quaveratto

I've built the Quaveratto, and have PCBs for the others except for the MusicPCB and Sabro is a vero build.
I've had the Cherry Pie PCB the longest, but have the Glasshole 1/2 built.

 

[Diynot]

I like the hard chop of a Vox Repeat Percussion (PedalPCB Woodpecker aka EQD Hummingbird).

Tap-Tempo list:_______
Delyk Cherry Pie (Drolo TwinPeaks)
Madbean Dig Dug
Madbean Glasshole
Madbean Tapanator
Madbean Wavelord
MusicPCB
Sabro's Tremulous Lune
Zeppelin Labs Quaveratto

I've built the Quaveratto, and have PCBs for the others except for the MusicPCB and Sabro is a vero build.
I've had the Cherry Pie PCB the longest, but have the Glasshole 1/2 built.

Isn’t the Glasshole a phaser though….

 

[Cybercow]

My personal favorite tremolo pedal circuit is the GuitarPCB "Apollo Tremolo" (Shiver Quiver) for its highly modifiable nature.

 

[Kroars]

My personal favorite tremolo pedal circuit is the GuitarPCB "Apollo Tremolo" (Shiver Quiver) for it highly modifiable nature.

View attachment 69651 View attachment 69652

Great looking pedal, inside and out!

 

[Feral Feline]

Isn’t the Glasshole a phaser though….

Yes, it is.

It snuck into the conversation because it can receive tap-impulse signals from the Wavelord or Tapanator (probably Dig Dug, too [EDIT probably not the DigDug which uses the Molten Voltage MV-52B chip]) or anything that outputs tap-impulses using the Electric Druid TAPLFO3 chip.

 

[CNPCNP]

I like the hard chop of a Vox Repeat Percussion (PedalPCB Woodpecker aka EQD Hummingbird).

Tap-Tempo list:_______
...
Zeppelin Labs Quaveratto

I've built the Quaveratto, and have PCBs for the others except for the MusicPCB and Sabro is a vero build.
I've had the Cherry Pie PCB the longest, but have the Glasshole 1/2 built.

Hi, I'm wondering how close the Quaverato can come to the VOX Repeat Percussion sound?

As I thought to have understood the LFO-waveform of the VOX Repeat Percussion is a sawtooth (immediately going high, and then decreasing).

On the Quaverato there’s obviously the dedicated selection on the Wave Shape knob, but does it actually also sounds alike/identical?

I’m for instance thinking about eventual opto-coupler slowness or rounding off LFO-waveshape edges, possibly resulting in not quite getting that characteristic rhythmic pulsing of the Repeat Percussion.

Any experiences welcomed, thanks!

 

[Cybercow]

Hi, I'm wondering how close the Quaverato can come to the VOX Repeat Percussion sound?

As I thought to have understood the LFO-waveform of the VOX Repeat Percussion is a sawtooth (immediately going high, and then decreasing).

On the Quaverato there’s obviously the dedicated selection on the Wave Shape knob, but does it actually also sounds alike/identical?

I’m for instance thinking about eventual opto-coupler slowness or rounding off LFO-waveshape edges, possibly resulting in not quite getting that characteristic rhythmic pulsing of the Repeat Percussion.

Any experiences welcomed, thanks!

I built a Quaverato and it's an impressive term circuit. And yes, it can be dialed in to approximate the Vox Repeat Percussion.

 

[CNPCNP]

I built a Quaverato and it's an impressive term circuit. And yes, it can be dialed in to approximate the Vox Repeat Percussion.

Hi Cybercow, thanks for the very quick reply and info, much appreciated! Good to hear the Quaverato can come close. This was the last thing holding me back, I’ll be ordering a kit.

I'm looking forward to the MIDI-functionality of it as well, great that it has this.
Actually a bit surprised I saw little to no info about this, as in: most people don't seem to use this or bother (?), while it seems such a useful addition. (Too bad there doesn't seem to be a preset-recall on the unit itself, but you can't have all.)

Thanks/regards!

 

[fuzz]

I have two trem pedals that I break out for specific needs.

1-Dreadbox treminator. I like this because it has a feature where you can delay the trem effect to come in right away and taper off or have the effect slowly (or quickly) build. i do not like that fact that it has a CMOS buffer, and just being in the signal chain takes away 3-4 dB of volume.

2-Sentimental Bob Tacana- Made by a guy in Ukraine, it's just a nice, very fairly priced pedal in a 125b sized enclosure with a ton of features.

 

[Feral Feline]

@CNPCNP

Sorry, saw your question just as I was leaving to walk the dog, came back to see Cybercow Moooved in before me.

You can get a pretty good chop out of the Quaverato, suggested settings ...
- PHASE SW — turn off the Harmonic setting ( switch down to "IN")
- RATE set fairly fast noon to about 3 O'clock is pretty good. (my preference, set rate to whatever you like, of course), maxed you get faux ring-mod
- SPACING (cycle) noon — or to taste, CCW more time off than on / CW more time on than off
- DEPTH set deep (CW)
- MULTIPLIER 1:1 or 2:1...whatever — depends on how fast you want overall RATE if you're tapping in a tempo and how quickly you can tap the tap-tempo
- WAVEFORM to squarewave
- HARMONIC MIX noon
- VOL to taste, a bump slightly above unity is usually good.
- MODE sets bypass to toggle or momentary, latter being great for high-rate hard-chop bursts especially if you bump the volume


Then there's the crossover dipswitches inside and the gain trimmers for high and low, here's the only vid I've seen that addresses those trimmers and dipswitches:

 

[CNPCNP]

@Feral Feline

Thanks, good to hear the Quaverato can properly do this, and thanks for the suggested settings! Will start from there.

Ordered the kit (with MIDI) today, looking forward to it. All looks like a nice & cool looking package, and with the potential to even address multiple trem-demands with one box.

I do have the (old green mono) Seymour Duncan Shape Shifter, which almost addresses everything, but it doesn't do the harmonic trem.
The six presets of the Quaverato are the icing on the cake, very nice. So I can store 'normal trem', 'harmonic' and 'repeat percussion stutter', great!

Thanks/regards

 

[Alan W]

For controls, I love the Tremulous, but for circuit sound the Pendulum beats that for me. So, the Pendulous will be my next. Here’s my Tremulous, on veroboard, from a ways back.

 

[CNPCNP]

I'd like to mention the Carl Martin Surf Trem here as well.
I'm only familiar with the initial big trapeze model. Impractical, but for such gorgeous looks I'd gladly make a bit of room.

A bit of a contrast to the do-it-all models I realize, quite limited with just those 2 controls.
But it sounds lovely, there's something about it that just works.

Interestingly, it uses an old integrated circuit originally intended for hifi-systems (volume and balance by means of control-signal), I'm not aware of any other guitar pedal using this IC-type. No idea if later models of the Surf Trem still use this, as I'd figure this type is from a NOS batch they ran into, but it'll be out of production.