TYPE: Hand Painted Series [HP] | MODEL: MACHINE™
Congratulations! You’re the proud owner of a hand painted Z.Vex Eects Machine!™
OVERVIEW:
Pedal users in these days are very sophisticated. Take the
old conventions: of in on the right, out on the left, battery
connected when input plug is in place, use this pedal before that one for a certain sound, reverse for another, positive ground, negative ground, pedal switching systems...
we’re living in a ‘been there, done that’ pedal world. Most
every guitarist is familiar with the limitations of putting one
fuzz or distortion into another... losing the detail but perhaps
gaining that fun “shutdown” eect as one overloads the
other, and the “where’s my fuzz?” experience of playing a
fuzz into a really dirty amp. Limitations. They increase your
creativity but hob-gobble your plan.
I designed this new distortion generator, Machine™, with
some dierent limitations. Like try playing chords through
it. Hmmm. But put it in front of any string of fuzz pedals,
and try to make it disappear. Machine™ is actually a dual
frequency-tripler circuit that uses crossover distortion for
the rst time in any pedal, ever. It generates the distortion
of the wave in the sloped part of the cycle, instead of the
peaks and valleys like all other distorters and fuzzes. In other words, it distorts when your guitar string is in the middle
of vibrating, while it’s swinging, not as it’s turning around.
That’s the same place where your speaker cone is sort of
coasting, between all the way in and all the way out. Where
nothing is happening, this pedal happens. With Machine
you can leave your favorite distorting pedals on and still add
a new element of energetic grind.
THE CONTROLS:
Knobs are In, which is drive; Limit, which clips the original
waveform o at about the same size as the harmonics (if
you want); and Out or Volume, which is output level. If the
Limit knob is set to the right, the signal remains unclipped.
Keep in mind that this pedal needs to see a sloped wave in
order to do it’s thing, so an undistorted guitar signal going
into it will allow it to generate the strongest harmonics.
WARRANTY:
Your hand painted Machine™ has a lifetime warranty. Please
visit http://zvex.com/website/repairs.html for any repair
questions or more information.
Enjoy!
OPERATION:
One thing to keep in mind, however, is that this pedal basically sounds horrible. It’s primary purpose is to cut through.
But like a wild man with a machete, it is not nice.
You’ll notice the dynamic response is higher than most pedals. If you put a tremolo pedal set smooth in front of it you’ll
hear it sweep through it’s wild frequency multiplying stages,
or if the trem is set for square wave it will jump back and
forth between crunchy harmonics. Conversely, you can get
ringing harmonic eects using a dynamically freezing pedal
in front of it like a compressor. The biggest drawback to this
pedal is that of anything in your arsenal, it’s the most likely
to get you kicked out of the house by your mom, girlfriend,
boyfriend, or wife. Or roommate or Dad. Or Grandma. Even
your dog. Whine.
P.O. Box 16078 | Minneapolis, MN 55416
www.zvex.com | zack@zvex.com | repairs@zvex.com
Last Updated: January 2012
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