Hi Folks,
I know it's been a long time between posts but I haven't had much to report.
Everything is work, work, work.
I'm pretty sure you're not all that interested in balance sheets, economic order quotients or digging up tree roots and the intricacies of laying a flat garden path with recycled bricks.
Me either, but hey, that's my lot right now (Come on October!).
I did get a little reprieve and have been messing about in a friends studio, but nothing worth publishing yet.
A little way back there was a bit of spare cash and I spied a used Organizer pedal.
I'm a sucker for organ tones and I'm a lousy keyboard player so what's a man to do?
In earlier posts I've written about other pitch shifting devices such as the EHX Hog, Digitech Whammy, MXR Blue box and I think even a Boss OC3. Though the last two don't really count.
I liked the HOG, but it was too expensive and I had gear lust so it didn't last long in my collection.
There was a top end warble that I found to be a bit annoying for the price point. But this is just an artifact of the octave up pitch shifting.
I've heard it in the Whammy 4 and it is present in the Organiser (and POG and probably C9 too).
The Organizer is an interesting beast, but you'll want to use a nice clean power supply as it can amplify ripple from the DC input. I have a bunch of them and they vary within the same model designation, so its just a matter of messing about until you find a quiet one.
The manual suggests placing gain devices before it in the signal chain and after testing I can see why.
Any distortion after the fact will reveal clock noise from the delay chip on lag function. And if you're not using a clean power supply it will be even worse.
I would have thought that distorting on the input would have made tracking less accurate, but it works really well. I don't know the math or the way it actually works inside, but maybe its something about squaring off the waveform that simplifies things, but there is a harmonic component to distortion too so maybe I'm off the mark entirely.
What counts is the end result and it is pretty good.
The lag function "feels" like a delay when you move the knob, but I think may be its more akin to the halfway point on the HOG hold function (sort of like portamento on a synth). I'm not going to open it up, so I'll leave it a mystery.
Turing down the bass and dialing a blend of dry with the upper register can give a nice shimmer.
When coupled with reverb and delay the results are pleasing.
Dialing in the bottom end gives (as you would imagine) a nice full organ flavoured tone, especially when running into a Univibe (or clone) for that simulated leslie wobble.
Having seen the Decemberists this week, I know it's nowhere near the real deal, but still a really fund thing to play with.
I found the Organizer to be a fun and flexible pedal that I expect to retain in my collection (how many times can I keep buying the same basic thing right?)
Maybe one day I'll post a demo.....
