ilovefuzz.com

ALLisNOISE wrote:you can dial in some wonderfully smeared 12bit cascades of cicadas leveling a hail of rockets against an army of rusty box fans!

goroth wrote:OD and Dist - A Gain Story part II, or how I loved to learn buying dirt again

While that was going on I'd been watching Laowiz do awesome stuff with the Cystech Overdrive. Jesus, that thing is awesome. IN particular that dude mysqrl or whatever his username is. That demo blew my socks off. And after not really being on a fuzz binge for the longest time I got obsessed with that pedal. So I eventually hit up Laowiz and got him to send a Cystech my way. And he just happend to have an IVP circuit ready to wire up and well, at this stage I still hadn't picked up a Surveyor. I don't think anyway. So those two were sent my way. The Cystech arrived and if anything I'd say it was better than I thought. Of course, I can't play as nicely as the mysqrl demo, but man. There are so many really fun and different sounds in this box. And it's easy to find your way around. It's not as simple as just a resonant filter plus a fuzz. It all interacts in this alchemical (that's so not a word) way and you can get these resonant sounds that crumble and swell and with the intermodulation. Complex chords can sound great or they can sound terrible. Or you can start off with them sounding terrible and lower your volume a bit until they sound good. Or you can make em sound good and bend a note until it sounds terrible. Then you choose another mode on the big dial and you start doing all sorts of other stuff. Previously the Fuzzhugger Suneater was my go to fuzz for "I want to just zone out and noodle", but now the Cystech is the undisputed champion. It can do a whole bunch of other sounds too. It may very well be my desert island pedal. Maybe. hehe. Anyways, anyone who missed out on this needs to get on Laowiz' case to make some more. I know he was thinking about a new version with some upgrades but he can shut up. it doesn't need upgrades. It cannot be improved. He just needs to make more of them and we need to buy them. Laowiz is not a wizard of marketing or promoting his own stuff, but he made like 10 of these and they sat around for waaaaay to long. Best pedal.

The Aion FX Isotope I can't really remember, but I think this dude arrived before the Surveyor did. I ended up swapping out two of the transistors from the funky BC whatevers Laowiz digs to I think 2N3904. I think. I was just messing around and found it sounded best this way. So this is a review for a slightly modded Isotope. Anyways, I found it stayed clean for quite a lot of the travel of the gain range, and that the bass and treble were surprisingly easy to dial in. The transformer limits the bandwidth a lot, so you can really go hard on the treble without getting ice picks. There are quite a lot of nice sounds in this pedal, up to medium gain. It gets that blown out transistor amp sound which isn't really my bag, so I use it in the slightly dirty range. It's a bit cleaner and "nicer" than the surveyor. If you're after the IVP sound then both are very very good, even though they are pretty different in a way.

goroth wrote:OD and Dist - A Gain Story part II, or how I loved to learn buying dirt again


While that was going on I'd been watching Laowiz do awesome stuff with the Cystech Overdrive. Jesus, that thing is awesome. IN particular that dude mysqrl or whatever his username is. That demo blew my socks off. And after not really being on a fuzz binge for the longest time I got obsessed with that pedal. So I eventually hit up Laowiz and got him to send a Cystech my way. And he just happend to have an IVP circuit ready to wire up and well, at this stage I still hadn't picked up a Surveyor. I don't think anyway. So those two were sent my way. The Cystech arrived and if anything I'd say it was better than I thought. Of course, I can't play as nicely as the mysqrl demo, but man. There are so many really fun and different sounds in this box. And it's easy to find your way around. It's not as simple as just a resonant filter plus a fuzz. It all interacts in this alchemical (that's so not a word) way and you can get these resonant sounds that crumble and swell and with the intermodulation. Complex chords can sound great or they can sound terrible. Or you can start off with them sounding terrible and lower your volume a bit until they sound good. Or you can make em sound good and bend a note until it sounds terrible. Then you choose another mode on the big dial and you start doing all sorts of other stuff. Previously the Fuzzhugger Suneater was my go to fuzz for "I want to just zone out and noodle", but now the Cystech is the undisputed champion. It can do a whole bunch of other sounds too. It may very well be my desert island pedal. Maybe. hehe. Anyways, anyone who missed out on this needs to get on Laowiz' case to make some more. I know he was thinking about a new version with some upgrades but he can shut up. it doesn't need upgrades. It cannot be improved. He just needs to make more of them and we need to buy them. Laowiz is not a wizard of marketing or promoting his own stuff, but he made like 10 of these and they sat around for waaaaay to long. Best pedal.

The Aion FX Isotope I can't really remember, but I think this dude arrived before the Surveyor did. I ended up swapping out two of the transistors from the funky BC whatevers Laowiz digs to I think 2N3904. I think. I was just messing around and found it sounded best this way. So this is a review for a slightly modded Isotope. Anyways, I found it stayed clean for quite a lot of the travel of the gain range, and that the bass and treble were surprisingly easy to dial in. The transformer limits the bandwidth a lot, so you can really go hard on the treble without getting ice picks. There are quite a lot of nice sounds in this pedal, up to medium gain. It gets that blown out transistor amp sound which isn't really my bag, so I use it in the slightly dirty range. It's a bit cleaner and "nicer" than the surveyor. If you're after the IVP sound then both are very very good, even though they are pretty different in a way.

goroth wrote:OD and Dist - A Gain Story part II, or how I loved to learn buying dirt again

While that was going on I'd been watching Laowiz do awesome stuff with the Cystech Overdrive. Jesus, that thing is awesome. IN particular that dude mysqrl or whatever his username is. That demo blew my socks off. And after not really being on a fuzz binge for the longest time I got obsessed with that pedal. So I eventually hit up Laowiz and got him to send a Cystech my way. And he just happend to have an IVP circuit ready to wire up and well, at this stage I still hadn't picked up a Surveyor. I don't think anyway. So those two were sent my way. The Cystech arrived and if anything I'd say it was better than I thought. Of course, I can't play as nicely as the mysqrl demo, but man. There are so many really fun and different sounds in this box. And it's easy to find your way around. It's not as simple as just a resonant filter plus a fuzz. It all interacts in this alchemical (that's so not a word) way and you can get these resonant sounds that crumble and swell and with the intermodulation. Complex chords can sound great or they can sound terrible. Or you can start off with them sounding terrible and lower your volume a bit until they sound good. Or you can make em sound good and bend a note until it sounds terrible. Then you choose another mode on the big dial and you start doing all sorts of other stuff. Previously the Fuzzhugger Suneater was my go to fuzz for "I want to just zone out and noodle", but now the Cystech is the undisputed champion. It can do a whole bunch of other sounds too. It may very well be my desert island pedal. Maybe. hehe. Anyways, anyone who missed out on this needs to get on Laowiz' case to make some more. I know he was thinking about a new version with some upgrades but he can shut up. it doesn't need upgrades. It cannot be improved. He just needs to make more of them and we need to buy them. Laowiz is not a wizard of marketing or promoting his own stuff, but he made like 10 of these and they sat around for waaaaay to long. Best pedal.

The Aion FX Isotope I can't really remember, but I think this dude arrived before the Surveyor did. I ended up swapping out two of the transistors from the funky BC whatevers Laowiz digs to I think 2N3904. I think. I was just messing around and found it sounded best this way. So this is a review for a slightly modded Isotope. Anyways, I found it stayed clean for quite a lot of the travel of the gain range, and that the bass and treble were surprisingly easy to dial in. The transformer limits the bandwidth a lot, so you can really go hard on the treble without getting ice picks. There are quite a lot of nice sounds in this pedal, up to medium gain. It gets that blown out transistor amp sound which isn't really my bag, so I use it in the slightly dirty range. It's a bit cleaner and "nicer" than the surveyor. If you're after the IVP sound then both are very very good, even though they are pretty different in a way.

My lord buddy, I can't tell you how much that makes me happy that you are still digging the Cystech! There's something about the core circuit that made me keep coming back to it repeatedly over the years. I really happy you are able to get so many sounds out of it I should probably put out more but there's just so much more to add! Not a whole lot but will probably add an expression pedal option for the filter sweep, an input cap blend for more or less bass feeding into the signal on the front end, an active tone control (this sounds incredible) and a bunch more Cyst modes. This shit take me forever but I am actively trying to be a bit more active lately but do have some other things I need to focus on first. When I do the next round, I will likely send to a few more demo folks so the word is out there a bit more as you are correct I am pretty terrible at promoting these things. It will be extremely tough to beat psqrcl's demo as that it is really really incredible. He really showcases everything in such a great way with that beautiful song and playing. I really love his work. Been meaning to hit him up to say hi as he hasn't put anything new out in over a year, hope he's ok. For the next one, I will likely hit up Collector//Emitter and Harsh Tones and maybe a couple of others, maybe psqrcl will do a new one. I think I also lost some momentum on the last round as I had ordered the circuit boards and placed an order to get the boxes printed right before Covid and the delay made me lose some excitement. Anyway, think I will do my Bath Salts pedal first and then circle back on the Cystech in some time!

For the ISOTOPE, I remember not digging it too much and figured maybe it was just not my sound and then when you said you swapped out the transistors and it sounded rad I think I knew what I had done wrong. Those BC338 transistors that I likely put in there have a pinout that is the opposite of the type called for in that project, I must have put them in correctly according to the silkscreen on the board. I think after I build my Dead End Fx Pompeii I am going to hit this one, the full meal deal -> https://aionfx.com/project/ivp-preamp/

LaoWiz wrote: My lord buddy, I can't tell you how much that makes me happy that you are still digging the Cystech! There's something about the core circuit that made me keep coming back to it repeatedly over the years. I really happy you are able to get so many sounds out of it I should probably put out more but there's just so much more to add! Not a whole lot but will probably add an expression pedal option for the filter sweep, an input cap blend for more or less bass feeding into the signal on the front end, an active tone control (this sounds incredible) and a bunch more Cyst modes. This shit take me forever but I am actively trying to be a bit more active lately but do have some other things I need to focus on first. When I do the next round, I will likely send to a few more demo folks so the word is out there a bit more as you are correct I am pretty terrible at promoting these things. It will be extremely tough to beat psqrcl's demo as that it is really really incredible. He really showcases everything in such a great way with that beautiful song and playing. I really love his work. Been meaning to hit him up to say hi as he hasn't put anything new out in over a year, hope he's ok. For the next one, I will likely hit up Collector//Emitter and Harsh Tones and maybe a couple of others, maybe psqrcl will do a new one. I think I also lost some momentum on the last round as I had ordered the circuit boards and placed an order to get the boxes printed right before Covid and the delay made me lose some excitement. Anyway, think I will do my Bath Salts pedal first and then circle back on the Cystech in some time!

the_bright_undead wrote:Anything from Spiral Electric (anybody tried the White boost?)

Jero wrote:Was not expecting to see so many mentions