Best sounding simple tremolo pedal?

[pinkspider]

I liked the Cool cat Tremolo but the knobs on top did bother me a lot as I was constantly changing the rate and depth for different songs so, recently I went on a Tremolo quest.

I settled with a Catalinbread Semaphore and I was extremely happy with it. Same size as my Carbon Copy, simple, great looking, led pulses along with the speed/depth/shape and I like how it can go real slow. Compared to the coolcat, the semaphore sounds warmer and sweeter somehow. On a side note, I tested an Empress Tremolo just to hear how it compares and I find that the tone just doesn't sound good. Realised that every tremolo induces a different tone to your sound.

I have considered the Lovepedal Babyface as it looks very nice and pedalboard estate friendly, I would have went for it without any hesitation if it had an external depth control.

[Jellyroll]

It seems to me that once the internal depth is set, that the waveform switch could provide the variety usually achieved with depth control. I could be wrong so any owners can chime in on this.

[tazzboy]

The pedal I am interest in hearing the Black Cat Mini Tremolo.

[brownshoe]

Originally Posted by cletus

I use a Boss TR-2 and after doing the C4 mod to it to fix the volume drop (you just clip it out with some small cutters) it's one of the best tremolos I've ever heard. It's not true bypass but I need the buffer.

cletus

I'm with this one. I don't know about the volume drop, but I did not like this pedal until I did the c4 mod about a year ago and since then I use it for just about everything. Note that I also have the voodoo labs 4 knobber, tuna melt and the moogerfooger ring mod.

[tazzboy]

I hate to mention this, but some of the people over at the bossarea.com forum have done the C4 and they said that C4 is part of the LFO Circuity and only effects the wave form.

They did however, recommend try lowering the R10 which is the resistor on input gain stage or raise the R12 the feedback Resistor in the gain stage.

There is only recommendation on lowering the R19 and R31 and to take out the C7 cap which give it more sparkle sound.

[brownshoe]

Originally Posted by tazzboy

I hate to mention this, but some of the people over at the bossarea.com forum have done the C4 and they said that C4 is part of the LFO Circuity and only effects the wave form.

Why you would "hate to mention this" is a mystery to me.

[PeteReverb]

I have a T.C. Electronics Vintage Tremolo, pretty simple... speed, depht and volume( works very well as a booster too). Also haves a soft/deep switch to smoother or deeper effect. I love the Tremolo sound, the most Fender like tremolo pedal that i ever played!

[TxTeleMan]

Originally Posted by Jellyroll

It's got to go fast and deep, be true bypass, smallish....mxr sized or so, either boost volume or have a volume control, no more than three controls, cost $150 or less, analog, and sound as much like an amp as possible. Does this exist?

Yes.

[surfco]

+1 on the Cool Cat Tremolo

[tazzboy]

Originally Posted by brownshoe

Why you would "hate to mention this" is a mystery to me.

It's not mystery. It's just a fact that doing the c4 mod is going to cure the volume drop problem.

[brownshoe]

Originally Posted by tazzboy

It's not mystery. It's just a fact that doing the c4 mod is going to cure the volume drop problem.

But I was not looking to do the volume drop fix. Read my post again.

[Socrates67]

BYOC BYOC BYOC!!!!!!!!!!!

[Billy B.]

Check out Sioux guitars on Myspace they are a new small company out of sioux city Iowa and the guy is makin good stuff.........I got the"truckstop tremolo" a few months ago and I love it .....metal case (mxr size) true bypass great price and a nice guy ,he's also got a couple of overdrive a distortion and a big box flanger ,and they LOOK great in fire engine red powder coat,

[fuddy]

Originally Posted by schenkadere

Nice pedal for the money, but I disagree about the volume drop.

Ok, now I'm confused. I have the Tuna Melt pedal, and I love it except for that irritating volume drop.

So I just saw that the Coolcat tremolo has no volume drop. I'm thinking of buying it precisely because of that.

Someone else now says that it does have a volume drop.

?????

Is this a subjective thing? How does the alleged volume drop in the Coolcat compare to the Tuna Melt?

[tazzboy]

I'm going to mention another one that good as well and that is redwitch pentavocal tremolo pedal

[Jellyroll]

fuddy, keep reading and another post mentions an internal trim for volume on the coolcat. tazzboy, the red witch looks amazing, but way, way too big. MXR sized or smaller trems only! This in the hopes of simplifying and downsizing my pedalboard to the bare minimum.

[tazzboy]

Oh so you want a compact size tremolo?

[Jellyroll]

Originally Posted by Jellyroll

It's got to go fast and deep (yes, ha ha, I get it too), be true bypass, smallish....mxr sized or so, either boost volume or have a volume control, no more than three controls, cost $150 or less, analog, and sound as much like an amp as possible. Does this exist? I already own the Cusack TAW, which I love, but need something smaller and more amplike. Please help.

Just a refresher for future posts, though I am about 95% sure that I'm getting the Lovepedal Babyface.

[Jellyroll]

Originally Posted by TxTeleMan

Yes.

Do you make this pedal yourself? I was unable to find anything about it. Links?

[xjazzy]

I just got the Cool Cat and I like it.
I had a TR-2 for years and never liked the way the guitar disappeared when it was on.
On the cool cat I miss the wave form knob.

[TeleBrew]

I sold my Cool Cat in favor of the BBE Tremor a few weeks ago. The Cool Cat was okay, but the Tremor is better. I love the fact that you can footswitch back and forth between hard and soft channels, rather than having to flick the switch on the front of the Cool Cat. The two channels have independent speed controls, too. I now have three BBE pedals and love them all.

[mkg]

Originally Posted by johnnykf

http://www.pureanalogeffects.com/

Just came in. Also works great as a clean boost with or without the trem.
I like it better than the trem on my '64 Black with white knob Princeton. The
idiot light pulses with the trem so you can time the speed by sight.
Can go fast, deep and has true bypass, built like a tank and under $150.
Sandy Phillips builds each one by hand, fast service and delivery, made by a local bro in PA vs an overseas sweatshop. He's going to build me a delay pedal and a compressor next.
Very reasonable prices, boo-teek quality

Yep, this one. I've got the smaller version, the Blue Bird. Sounds just like bias-vary trem, my favorite flavor. Setting the level just above unity makes for throbby swamp grease.

[JohnK24]

Anyone try the tremor (tremolo) pedal yet ? This is the only demo I've found...and I found a source for getting them cheap...

[crossroader]

If you can find one, the old Ibanez TL-5 Soundtank pedal is great.

I bought one, new in the box at a local shop (though they've long been discontinued) for $40. Great amp-like sound, very much analog, and it has speed, depth, and volume controls.
Yes, it's a plastic housing, but unless you're jumping on it from across the stage, I can't believe it wouldn't hold up as well as those little Danelectro boxes.

Now, if you had stopped your question at "...the best tremolo.", I would whole-heartedly recommend the Empress Tremolo. But now we're talking tap-tempo, multi-mode, larger, and more expensive (which you've already got covered with your Cusak).
Before I got my Empress though, I was very happy with the TL-5.

[vjf1968]

Originally Posted by JohnK24

This little guy seems stellar, and priced nicely for a hand built box...I'll be ordering one soon...

Lovepedal Babyface Tremolo http://lovepedal.com/pedals/tremolo.html

The only downside to those pedals is that they are so small that when you activate the footswitch you also end up kicking the knob off its setting. I have the AMP 50 and I will be changing the chicken head knob for something more practical.

[Telesavalis]

boss works for me.

[Ben Harmless]

My Boss has done everything I've ever needed a tremolo for. I dunno if some have a greater than normal volume drop, but a perceived volume drop is to be expected when you're removing a bunch of your signal on purpose.

As for the C4 mod, I tried it. I don't know why I did, but I was curious. What I discovered was zero change in volume, and only a slight change in tonality, and that was so long ago that I don't remember.

Looking at the schematic I see that C4 lives next to a VCA chip. Between that schematic and the VCA's datasheet I feel pretty confident in saying that C4 is not a volume fix. It looks like, if anything, the cap serves to balance the unused side of the VCA, which is a stereo chip. I remember hearing about the C4 mod online years ago in the same forums where people were complaining about volume loss. Somewhere the wires got crossed, (my guess is wishful thinking combined with a dab of psychology) but if you want a different output from the pedal, there are far better places to look. C4 is so far from the source that it's pretty much redundant - which is why removing it does not alter the pedal in any serious way.

My guess is that the reason some experience a volume drop and some don't is rooted in the consistency of the transistors that are used as buffers in the pedal. Being that the pedal is designed as a unity gain device, problems with those transistors could potentially be a factor.

[TxTeleMan]

Originally Posted by Jellyroll

Do you make this pedal yourself? I was unable to find anything about it. Links?

I made it myself. It's based on a kit by Moody Sound, slightly modified, and the Mojo knob is actually a volume control/boost. If you roll the tremolo depth all the way off, and then switch it on, it becomes a clean boost pedal.

Usually I adjust the Mojo for unity gain, and then dial it up just a bit so I don't experience the tremolo volume drop.

Having the depth and speed knobs on the side allow me to adjust them on the fly with my foot; I don't mess with the depth much, but I can roll the speed faster for "Everything is Broken" or slower for "The Shape I'm In."

It's very natural sounding.

Resistor values can be tweaked for a greater or lessor speed range, and the mojo pot can be replaces by a fixed resistor to build in a volume boost.