NPD: Beetronics Swarm...

[bluesholyman]

I heard Henning Pauly do a demo of this vs the GCA Plasma and I was hooked. I thought of the Plasma as a cool "far edge" kinda pedal that would be neat to have and experiment with and that sounded bland when compared to the Beetronics Swarm.

I should have stopped myself when I thought "...the Plasma sounds bland compared to the Swarm...." The Plasma is not bland at all and if it sounded that way next to something else, I probably should avoid something else.

But did I? No, I did not. I jumped in head first and ordered a Swarm thinking "this fuzz sounds great!!!" And....it does....but dang is it hard to control. It might be easier to fly a helicopter than get a consistent sound out of this pedal.

I am trying out the pedal in my home office, and if I am too loud or annoying (aka fuzz,) my wife will usually rap on the wall to get me to turn it down. Did she? No. She walks into the office and spends 2 whole minutes explaining to me why I cannot do whatever it is I have been doing for the last 5 minutes. Something about "....its noise..." and "...whatever it was has no resemblance to music in any culture...." and "....fingers on a chalkboard could be tolerated but...."

Challenge accepted.

 

[RetroTeleRod]

Congrats. It’s my color! Happy NPD.

 

[Killing Floor]

I love their branding. I have the Royal Jelly and I’ve really been thinking about this one. I am out of control for out of control fuzz pedals.
Enjoy.

The demo I heard reminded me of an oscillator fuzz a little. If you haven’t seen the inside of a Beetronix pedal you owe it to yourself to pop the hood. Their boards are super cool. The Vezzpa might be a good idea too.

Edit to say my wife knocks on the wall when I use my Montreal Assembly pedals. I also accept the challenge.

 

[CV Jee Beez]

You could've been like The Dude and told her that's just like your opinion man.

 

[bluesholyman]

You could've been like The Dude and told her that's just like your opinion man.

My wife is great, but if she gets agitated, all filters instantly turn off. This critique was actually quite well managed on her part. I think she employed the "my husband is having fun so let me not totally ruin this" filter...

....I am out of control for out of control fuzz pedals.....The demo I heard reminded me of an oscillator fuzz a little. If you haven’t seen the inside of a Beetronix pedal you owe it to yourself to pop the hood. Their boards are super cool. The Vezzpa might be a good idea too.

This one is a square wave and it just gets more out of control from there. Did learn a few things before project angry swarm was shut down by the bee keeper:

1) The input is "very" sensitive. Single coil guitars with the slightest hum will send the pedal into a frenzy and even if all strings are dampened, the fuzz will be going - quite interesting - that was the hardest thing to figure out - why is the pedal still playing when there is no sound. Even a low grade hum that is barely audible will activate the pedal. Rolling the volume "off" on the guitar convinced me that the pedal was not actually broken, but the gate does not seem to handle any amount of hum - I asked Beetronics if it was adjustable but I have not heard back yet.

2) Humbuckers are the easiest to work with and rolling back the volume on the pickup to where the noise gate kicks in properly is important. Hot humbuckers will just send the swarm into an uncontrollable frenzy, like single coil hum.

So last night, I had the swarm, followed by a micro pog with the down octave on followed by a leslie rotary on my terraform. As insane as you think that might be, it was actually quite a glorious sound. The leslie served to smooth and widen things.

While the swarm is a fuzz, it really strikes me as more of a synth-type pedal than anything. It reminded me a lot of the Atreides, but with way more options and being far less tamed. I wouldn't be too surprised if the Swarm was the muse for the Atreides.

 

[stormsedge]

HNPD! Try not to harm any small animals during your experimentation.

 

[D_Malone]

Congrats on your super cool new pedal. These guys are making some interesting stuff, and I love their design aesthetic. I’m very interested in their Fat Bee.

I hope the Swarm brings you much joy and inspires you.

 

[Edgar Allan Presley]

Sounds like great fun. I have a similar good time playing around with my Fuzz Factory with wah after (riding that feedback), delay, Pog, trem, etc. I can see how analog synthesis could be addictive.

 

[MatchlessMan]

I’ve just bought a Beetronics Swarm on another forum. I await its arrival with anticipation!

 

[MatchlessMan]

Yep, it’s completely nuts.

I need to sit down with a notebook and work through the options. I may be some time…

 

[bluesholyman]

Yep, it’s completely nuts.

I need to sit down with a notebook and work through the options. I may be some time…

I have not had much time to play with mine since getting it (we packed, moved, still unpacking) so would love to hear what you discover. I think there are some great sounds to be had, but it definitely takes some finessing to get there.