Source Audio - Soundblox Multiwave Distortion

[orogeny]

I remember seeing this in GP some months ago. . .

. . . and just saw it on Brad Whitford's hendrix tour board.

ANYONE try this thing?

Relatively cheap. . . . 120?

[Buddy Boy]

:BOUNCE ??? Anyone?

[StompBoxBlues]

Also in the current issue of GP, they review it. Seems very interesting.
If you search on youtube there are a few clips (though they TALK and TALK, and play very little on the one I happened to see...and the guy plays too fast, and I got very little sense of the pedal).

I'm also interested, but have no good info on it, since I haven't found one here in Norway to try.

[MjCartney]

I just ordered one. Based on the reviews & clips it seems like it will be unlike any distortion pedal I have, or at least that's my hope. I'm hoping this will give me some new options to explore. The whole concept of operation appeals to my geek nature too...

[Jumblefingers]

The guy that does the design, Bob Chidlaw, was the chief scientist at Kurzweil and is simply brilliant. His understanding of sound is astounding as are his technical chops. I'd like to try one as well and soon!

[b_rad]

It's a cool pedal. We've made a video of it that should be up in the next couple of days.

[seiko]

I tried one and will buy at some point. Very interesting distortion box, not really blues-rock fodder, although it could cop some octave-up tones nicely, the synthy weirdness of some settings and chunky clarity of others was interesting, would buy straight away if I was recording currently.

[StompBoxBlues]

Originally Posted by seiko

I tried one and will buy at some point. Very interesting distortion box, not really blues-rock fodder, although it could cop some octave-up tones nicely, the synthy weirdness of some settings and chunky clarity of others was interesting, would buy straight away if I was recording currently.

Why not blues, rock? Also, just wondering, what style then do you think it is "geared to"?

[seiko]

Originally Posted by StompBoxBlues

Why not blues, rock? Also, just wondering, what style then do you think it is "geared to"?

Well it depends, if you want a lot of distortion plus string clarity then it could work, but it didn't seem to do the TS-style middy booster sound or the claptony woman toney stuff, so maybe I should say that I don't think it covers staple blues rock sounds.

I could imagine Adrian Belew using one for some tweaked lead tones, it would fit well on early Brian Eno albums and sound good for clear and loud chord stylings that have a lot of grit but clarity, I'm thinking of the kind of sound that Duane Dennison got on the Jesus Lizard albums.

[Padsy9]

I bought one but didn't care for it and returned it. Part of that may have been impatience on my part because the store only had a 5 day return policy, but regardless, I didn't care for a few things about it.
1) It doesn't feel terribly sturdy. When I first got mine, the footswitch was broken so I returned it for one that did work. But overall, it's a plastic box with kind of finicky-feeling knobs.
2) I thought it sounded like I was playing a keyboard. It just didn't sound like guitar to me. And this could just be that I'm locked in some old mind-set about what electric guitar sounds like.
3) While there were some interesting sounds in there, none of them jumped out to me as incredible useful. There was no moment where I thought "this is what I've been looking for". Again, maybe it just wasn't the box for me.
4) I realized that the appeal of chord clarity in a distortion box was only interesting in theory! I found myself listening to this high gain, more clear distortion and thinking "what's the point?!". It made me appreciate intermodulation distortion much more actually....to the point where I'm instead shopping for a good crunchy fuzz pedal now!
5) 2 really big problems- the compression ratio in fixed and there is not way to tweak any EQ. For a box that seems real versatile, I found this very frustrating. Maybe I'm just too used to the tweakability of my Barber Small Fry.

It's not a bad box but it was a bad choice for me.

[kludge]

It's probably my next distortion pedal, although I'm not really GASing for more right now.

[rsmith601]

The Multiwave product page on the Source Audio site has an extensive collection of soundclips that provide a better sense of what it sounds like than the video.

[rsmith601]

I will be happy to respond to this, but will do so in the manufacturers section.

[Millo 3.1]

This is probably my next dist pedal as well... Maybe around February

[MjCartney]

Mine arrived Friday but I haven't had much time to check it out 'cause I've been busy with other stuff. I haven't had much face time with it, but it does seem sonically interesting so far. The sounds I've found are similar to the clips I've heard. There are lots of possibilities for variation and I'll definitely need to spend some time learning to tweak this thing.

First impression: Distortion isn't a good name for this pedal, it's more like an early 70's analog synth. Some of the sounds remind me of the 2 synth voices of the Digitech Synth Wah pedal, but way more fun. On some of the most keyboard-sounding modes it sounds like a synth with a bit of clean guitar mixed in underneath. You can hear that a little on some of the clips/videos, but you can really hear/feel that in real life. It will do a respectable "regular" distortion, but there is nothing special about it and I will probably rarely use those modes, if ever.

Construction: When first I opened the box, I was kind of disheartened to find that the thing is almost entirely plastic and all the blue panels had scratches/gouges all over them. The blue pieces have protective plastic on them so this "damage" should all peel off. Not a big deal, but it does look like a well used pedal right out of the box.

It's a lot bigger and lighter than I expected. I thought it would be Small Clone/Stone wedge size, but it's more like a typical keyboard expression/volume pedal. The bottom is a shiny chrome metal, and it is surrounded by a black plastic shell, but I can't tell if the metal is on all sides or how far it goes up behind the plastic. It is metal where the I/O jacks are mounted, which is a good thing. It seems well made, but it just doesn't look all that durable to me. I'd say it is slightly more solid than an Arion pedal. I'm very gentle with my stuff so I'm not too concerned, but it is not something that will age well if you are rough with it at all.

It uses 4 AA batteries, and the manual is unclear on how much power it consumes, it specs both 200ma minimum, and then later states that it uses 110ma or 145ma with a Hot Hand adapter attached. In any case, it says you'll void the warranty if you use any power supply other than the Source Audio SA 150. It uses the standard barrel connector and if 110ma is correct, it should work fine with most of the popular board supplies. (warranty not withstanding, do so at your own peril.)

I don't know how much real use I will actually get out of it, but I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with it.