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Brief Catalinbread Perseus Review


anglerfish

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I got one of the first run of Catalinbread Perseus pedals today. :) Luckily, Howard's demos are already so good I'm not under a lot of pressure to try to do the Perseus justice in words. For anyone who doesn't already know, the Perseus is a fuzz with two switchable sub-octave tones that you can blend with to the fuzz tone to taste. There's also a "Cut" control that controls the amount of low end in the fuzz itself (not technically a "presence" control, but that was kind of how I was using it).

 

You can turn the sub-octave off entirely and just use the fuzz (it's pretty decent; kinda spitty and gated, could be used on its own for rhythm if you wanted), but I think it's safe to say that the point of the Perseus is the sub-octave blend. If you've ever used an octave-down effect, you already have a pretty good idea of how it works. What makes the Perseus special is the number of tones you can get by choosing which sub-octave (I or II), the amount of octave, the blend of fuzz and octave, and the cut of the fuzz itself. You can get "barely there" following bass lines, huge organ or synth type tones, smoothly-tracking or glitchy, etc. There's really a lot of range and you can easily and intuitively dial in pretty much anything you can imagine within the limitations of the effect itself. I found that running a relatively tame Perseus tone into a high-gain fuzz pedal (like the Zero) added even more possibilities for synthy goodness and got real awesome real fast (however, the Zero definitely cut out a significant amount of the Perseus' low end; I'll have to see if the Supa Tone handles the low end any better).

 

I think someone asked in another thread if the Perseus can handle chords. Uh, that's a NO. Unless I'm missing something, the Perseus is all about single notes, unless you're going for a wash of glitchy noise, which the Perseus can definitely pull off as well if you want.

 

I was playing through a single 12" speaker. It wasn't farting out or anything, but I really need to try the Perseus through a larger cabinet SOON...

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meh not really my cup of tea.


but on a related note just picked up a Formula no 5 in a trade and that {censored} is the bomb
:love:
really likin it right now, my first Cbread pedal ever and its impressing me

 

Formula 5 is legit, love mine....

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I wish I didn't have such a problem with pedals that have decals/stickers on them... I just can't deal with looking down on my board and seeing a matte reflection.... If this pedal was screen-printed I would totally buy it, and probably many other catalinbread effects. I know it makes no sense and it is the sound that matters, but I'm inspired visually, too.... I think I'm just pedal vain like that.

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I wish I didn't have such a problem with pedals that have decals/stickers on them... I just can't deal with looking down on my board and seeing a matte reflection.... If this pedal was screen-printed I would totally buy it, and probably many other catalinbread effects. I know it makes no sense and it is the sound that matters, but I'm inspired visually, too.... I think I'm just pedal vain like that.

 

I have and have had a bunch of Catalinbread pedals and never even notice the decals. They just look like nice screens to me, even close up. I know intellectually that they are Lexan decals, but they don't look cheap or "stickery" in the least. In fact, they look GOOD. If the decal thing is keeping you from picking up some of their pedals, it's keeping you from trying out one of the most consistently exciting builders of the last few years, IMO. :/

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I wish I didn't have such a problem with pedals that have decals/stickers on them... I just can't deal with looking down on my board and seeing a matte reflection.... If this pedal was screen-printed I would totally buy it, and probably many other catalinbread effects. I know it makes no sense and it is the sound that matters, but I'm inspired visually, too.... I think I'm just pedal vain like that.

 

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/forumdisplay.php?f=4

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I have and have had a bunch of Catalinbread pedals and never even notice the decals. They just look like nice screens to me, even close up. I know intellectually that they are Lexan decals, but they don't look cheap or "stickery" in the least. In fact, they look GOOD. If the decal thing is keeping you from picking up some of their pedals, it's keeping you from trying out one of the most consistently exciting builders of the last few years, IMO. :/

 

yes

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I have and have had a bunch of Catalinbread pedals and never even notice the decals. They just look like nice screens to me, even close up. I know intellectually that they are Lexan decals, but they don't look cheap or "stickery" in the least. In fact, they look GOOD. If the decal thing is keeping you from picking up some of their pedals, it's keeping you from trying out one of the most consistently exciting builders of the last few years, IMO. :/

 

I've actually owned several catalinbread pedals. They just didn't gel with me. I thought the Heliotrope was cool....

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