Ander87

Hey gang, decided to take the jump on something unusual. I was really thinking of a C4 by Source audio for my synth stuff but I know myself and I'm not the laptop fiddly kind. I wanted something more knob friendly. So, somehow I ended up with something I hadn't seen here at all... Mastro Valvola. I went over to Joe's Pedals after being introduced to the shop via 'Andy Bassist' on YouTube and looked for Octave / Fuzz pedals, tempted to add some sort of modulation after to make my own synth like stuff. Lots of interesting pedals, but I settled (after measuring up and down and planning the board etc) on the Mastro Valvola stuff, specifically the Octave Fuzz Filter pedal and Lysergic Emotions Module (multi delay for ambiances). Before I dive in, I'll say the treatment I got from Joe was fantastic - fair pricing, great advise and took p/x of some pedals I was parting with at a fair price - he also shipped them super quick so in no time I had them just as I came from my little holiday in Paris. Check this short video out...: The pedals are smaller than the pictures make them look, definitely less tall than, say, an Alpha Omega. Super well built, with solid knobs and brushed aluminium casing - made in Italy. I was initially set for the OFF1 as I wanted that fuzz octave flexibility and this pedal had more knobs than most octave fuzz's I had seen. It has a mid scoop switch, an octave up switch (2 octaves down on knobs) and the filter circuit with resolution and cut off. Then I watched the videos of this combined with the LEM and all the synthy lead stuff really got me. The LEM has 8 ambiance types, even presets! dual modes etc - a mess of LFO, trails, shimmer, delays reversed, fifths up and double function buttons - I will definitely need to work on it but very, very interesting pedal - combined with the OFF1 is just trippy. They feel like Strymon type of pedals but sensibly cheaper than those if that'd help. Huge amount of headroom and analogue circuitry. I'll share more as I progress but these three videos really captivated me - they're on guitar but amazing nonetheless - also basstheworld did a very good review of the OFF1: And of course, the updated pedalboard picture - I'll tell you more about the Alma Compressor some other time... - note I will need the Nano+ for the Jad Freer Capo

polytune 3 / mini has an option for that too if you're squeezed up on space.

Sold my Blackstone devices Mosfet overdrive to Mike; he was a serious buyer and the transaction was super easy and would without a doubt recommend/deal with him again. to make things worse (better?) he’s just a lovely chap and welcome the “support” (enabling?) we do to each other in this gear journey 😂 thanks Mike!

Haha @krispn welcome to join the queue for a Capo you’d be right after me 🤪 I’ll share impressions… in a while 😢 will do octave/fuzz on the pre… and could do another modulation pedal for the post loop which should be so interesting, but I’ll need a bigger board. @MrDinsdale and @krispn know about my temptations for that 😆

Emmett bought my Zvex woolly mammoth. No beating around the bush, straight to the point, and a super lovely chap that has made my sale a pleasure. Would totally recommend.

Jimmy bought my labella strings - easy transaction and top chap to deal with!

dammmmmm son that is a serious piece of kit, assuming it also has a serious price tag to boot tho 🥴 thanks for sharing the video tho that slapped heavy Hmmm not cheap! But very good kit, sounds monstruous as you can tell. And pretty unique, they’re made in small batches! I worked out a deal with Joe at Joes pedals with some pedals I wasn’t gonna use and voila! It’ll be with me next week to share impressions.

this just cracked me up. We could form an army!! I chose to go the same route, and whilst I was considering the poly blue, I’m going for a more analog thing, the Mastro Valvola OFF1 - octave fuzz filter, with latching and regular foot switches, and more control on sculpting the fuzz and filter… I do have enough with two sub octaves and a flickable octave up! This demo, even if for guitar, really sold me:

Hahaha absolutely - saving the dry pre DI for special occasions in studio, gigs are getting the dirt with the LPF on 😜

@MrDinsdale that is most useful thank you! I can definitely see the benefit of having a clean DI, especially for studio - not planning to record much more this year I think but I always end up doing a couple takes, one clean then the distorted stuff etc…

aha! Thank you. I want the capo for a bit of hair/grit on Chanel A then stack B onto it for a crispy darkglass type distortion, leaving the fuzz as a side effect same as octave here and there. I know I can get fuzzy with the Capo but that’d be likely doing B>A or tweaking things around in between songs/live etc. Ander.

QUESTION (Dwight mode on): I'm planning on having the Capo with just a tuner, a compressor and then an Octave/Fuzz pedal (OFF1). Could someone advise on the right chain order/use of loops? My mind tells me the tuner+comp should go on the input, the octave/fuzz on the post loop? or is it on the pre loop? I know the answer should be a 'try it out and see what you like best' but I'm happy to hear thoughts on what should I expect or what's the theory of what should be right. Thanks! Ander. PS: This is gonna look amazing next to the Capo...