Source Audio SA125 Soundblox Multiwave Bass Distortion (Awesome with guitar too)

Description

Try it with guitar! Octave sounds that work in NAM! TL;DR; Pack of 42 profiles (2000 epochs each) of every mode on this pedal: 21 of them 100%/80% dry/wet (files with M prefix), 21 of them - wet signal only (files with W prefix). This pedal is a wavefolder, that is even capable of producing octave sounds (files W10 - W14 for best demonstration). With guitar, best used before a high gain amp. Capable of producing wavefolded, fuzzy, octave fuzzy, glitchy, heavy sounds. Multiband programs 01-14 have high ESR, but still sound incredibly close to original pedal and even capable of octave sounds. Single band programs 15-21 have extremely low ESR < 0,00071 and are perfect. Full ESR chart is in a public spredsheet, link below. Best way to support what I do is to listen to my original argent-metal project Memorycorp, links below. ---- Digital wavefolder pedal by Source Audio, released in 2010. This is a bass version, but from the information that I could gather, the only difference between bass and guitar versions is the knob configuration. Guitar version has Sustain, Drive and Output knobs, bass version has Clean Level, Drive and Distortion Level knobs. Most of the programs are multiband ones. This pedal essentially takes your waveform and folds it on itself on reaching certain threshold level, so at extreme levels of folding this even starts sounding like an octave pedal. Multiband wavefolding just seems to apply different levels of folding to different signal bands. Personally I use this pedal with low tuned guitars (even 7 and 8 string), before high-gain amp, to get cool and unusual sounds, that I rarely find in heavier genres of music. At some settings running this pedal before high gain distortion sounds like some cool fuzz, or octave fuzz, at some settings it sounds like swedish chainsaw death metal tone, but without all the noise that a Boss HM-2 brings. More severe settings give your sound glitchy character, which works well with octaves, fourth and fifths and starts glitching out on other intervals. Capture chain: Roland Rubix24 main output 3 (+3.5 dB in Reaper) -> Behringer Xenyx Q502USB Mixer (to increase level a bit for reamp box) -> Radial ProRMP (max level) -> Source Audio Soundblox Multiwave Bass Distortion -> Roland Rubix24 Hi-Z input (volume knob in the middle). Capture method: first, I gain matched the signal with pedal off, so after the trip through the hardware it comes back at the same level. I noticed that the recording comes back with latency of 12 samples, so every recording I made was moved back 12 samples to compensate. I've set the levels on the pedal so they won't clip at every setting, as high as possible, and after that I didn't touch levels and I didn't normalize any recordings not to introduce additional noise and to stay true to experience of just sitting down with the pedal and tweaking the knobs. I recorded every mode of the pedal: 21 of them with dry signal mixed in (100% clean level, 80% distortion level) and 21 of them fully wet (0% clean level, 80% distortion level), Drive knob is at 50% for every frofile. After that I ran NAM profiling locally with 2000 epochs using the default input file provided with the latest version of NAM profiling program. I think that this project perfectly showcases the incredible capabilities of NAM technology, handling even complex digital effect with such accuracy. While we observe that complex multiband effects may increase ESR significantly, as in the case with this pedal, it's crucial to remember that your ears must be the ultimate judge. To my ears, even profiles with high ESR still retain the pedal's core character, with slight differences mostly in frequency response that are easily adjusted and may not even be noticable for people who never worked with this pedal. For instance, the multiband octave effects, despite their high ESR, sound remarkably close to the pedal and genuinely deliver an octaver effect within a NAM profile - I haven't encountered profiles with such convincing octaver capabilities (maybe I wasn't looking hard enough though). This underscores the valuable insight that even high ESR profiles can effectively reproduce complex effects like octaves under certain circumstances. And again, after all profiling was finished, I sat down to play through this pedal and through the profiles I created and it was difficult to me to even hear what am I playing through at the moment.

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