Hello 3DA community,
Welcome to our newsletter! The winter of 2021/2022 has been SO busy as we now have two effects pedals in production ... the Bygones Stereo Nostalgia, and the Rewire 4x4 Matrix Mixer.
The Bygones, our first pedal, has been selling now for about 6 months and has received many positive reviews. I'll highlight a few in this newsletter. Our newest addition is the Rewire 4x4 Matrix Mixer with on-board audio effects. Both products are on our website www.3degreesaudio.com where you can find pictures, more product details on form and function, and ordering information and availability.
But read on to hear about what we have planned for this year!
3DA WILL EXHIBIT AT NAMM 2022
Find Us at the Delicious Audio Stompbox Booth
We're as excited as this guy to be part of The NAMM Show, the world's largest annual musical instrument and equipment trade event this June in Anaheim, CA! Disclaimer - this man is not Mark :-).
If you'll be there, stop by Delicious Audio's Stompbox booth to meet Mark and introduce yourself! And of course, check out the newest pedals on offer from 3DA.
Guitar World Press Release - The Bygones Stereo Nostalgia offers a combination of degradation, modulation, pitch and delay effects
Check out this review from Ambient Endeavors:
Bygones is also featured in this Lofi Shootout from Tri Pedal Reviews:
So....Many....Pots....
Yes, the Rewire four channel matrix mixer is actually IN PRODUCTION! Orders will be fulfilled in May, barring any unforeseen issues. When we've proven out the assembly, we'll be opening up orders for the next batch so watch for that this spring.
PRODUCT ROADMAP SNEAK PEEK
You've noticed the current Bygones and Rewire pedals are housed in a black aluminum case with subtly backlit colored knobs. While these pedals look great, they have been a challenge to assemble. Therefore the next three pedals to be added to our lineup will look a bit different. I'll talk about the new look after some background information.
The Bygones V3, with 12 knobs, uses an 'alternate parameter mode' to allow two parameters to be adjusted using one knob. Simply press the footswitch while turning a knob and you can adjust an alternate parameter. This allows for 24 nostalgic lo-fi broken-ness adjustments on this small pedal -- which is good. The bad? It doesn't allow for what we call live mode, and it's a bit cumbersome. Wouldn't it be great to have 24 knobs AND live mode capability?! I know you want it as I've heard your feedback!
Now the Rewire, with 32 knobs, is a beast. Each of the four channels has eight knobs with the first knob being an 'Effect' selector. With five simultaneous effects per channel, there's actually 21 parameters per channel; four for mixing audio, an effect selector, and three parameters for each of the five effects. Whew ... it's a lot to wrap your head around! Thus this pedal might offer too much tweaking for some folks. And because of the effect selector concept it cannot support live mode.
Hmm, what if these products could have live mode capability?! They would need to have fewer effects, but for some that would be an advantage....
Enter the new 24-knob pedal design....
This design will simplify parameter mapping by having 24 parameters each one mapped to it's own knob, i.e. no alternate parameters and no effects selectors. They also support live mode. Like all 3DA pedal designs, the pedals support stereo audio, full MIDI control, and user presets. With 24 knobs, we're going to use potentiometers (black shafts rather than illuminated clear ones) that have the white position marker on them without putting on separate knobs. This allows for a compact design, lots of adjustments, easy to read large text and labeling, and a more manufacturable format to keep costs down.
Three effects pedals are now in progress based on this 24-knob platform, with demos planned for NAMM!
The Bygones Pro
The Bygones Pro is nearly identical to the current Bygones; notable changes include eliminating the delay (this can easily be added with the delay pedal of your choice), adding some frequency loss options, and now all parameters are easily and directly accessible with each having a dedicated knob.
Bygones Pro Mock Up
The Rewire 4x4 Matrix Mixer 24
The 32-knob Rewire has a lot of effects built in but some folks really just want a simple to use matrix mixer for their pedal board The Rewire 24 is just that. It still has 4x4 channel mixing support but only has two effects built in, a delay with a single delay-time parameter, and a filter that can be adjusted for either low pass or high pass filtering. That's it. Pretty simple and great for parallelizing effects, re-routing effects on the fly, putting effects in feedback loops with or without delay, or creating stereo separation using on board delay.
Rewire 4x4 Matrix Mixer 24 Mock Up
The Lumen Multi-Effect
The Lumen was originally conceived of as a 12-knob pedal that places a harmonic tremolo in parallel with a reverb. The idea behind this is to provide immediate amplitude (standard tremolo) or frequency splitter (harmonic tremolo) modulation to the output with a soft reverb that's sourced with the dry unmodulated audio for a smooth and consistent decay. But I've also had this dream of making a single standalone multi-effect with this parallel tremolo and reverb concept. So I added an overdrive/preamp with support for pre-gain EQ, gain stage voicing, and post-gain EQ. Put this all together and we have the 24-knob Lumen Multi-Effect! The tremolo and reverb are in parallel and can be sourced with an adjustable blend of the dry input audio and the preamp output audio.
Lumen Multi-Effect 24 Mock Up
WHAT ABOUT LIVE MODE?
If you read the above Sneak Peek, you may have asked yourself 'what is live mode'? Great question.
Our current pedals (Bygones and Rewire Matrix Mixer) have 7 user presets. When you move from one preset to another, you never hear effects based on the current knob positions, but rather based on the preset values.
When you turn a knob, the pedal will update the current preset value for that parameter (but it will not commit this change to memory unless you press and hold down the foot switch for 3 seconds).
To hear the effect as determined by all 12 knobs you'd have to nudge each of the twelve knobs to force an override of the preset value - great for making small changes here and there to your presets, but not good for just experimenting or exploring the pedal.
Live mode is when the effect is voiced by the knob positions rather than the preset values and this isn't possible when many of the parameters are only accessible by additional gestures (like the alternate parameters via foot switch on the Bygones, or multi-effect parameters accessible via an effect selector on the Rewire).
The new 24-knob pedal designs have no additional gestures to access parameters so they all support live mode!
When Will My Bygones Ship?
We're fulfilling the 3DA product lines in small batches as we're a small shop based in Minneapolis, MN. From Mark....We're very small ... I do the pedal design and implementation (hardware, software, graphics, PCB's, etc) and social media. My wife Erin does the finances, emails, sourcing and shipping. A couple of my adult kids and I do the soldering when they have time (they have their own lives and jobs too). So we're a bit sluggish in production but we're working hard to get faster at this :-).
We'll begin shipping out the next set of Bygones toward the end of May and into June. If you miss that window, the next batch will be going out early Fall (assuming demand holds).
Why No Bygones User Manual?
Part of the appeal of this pedal is that it's readily discoverable! Get your hands on it, and play around. If you have specific questions, or just like to read more about your pedal, there are several short manuals for the Bygones User Interface, Parameters, and MIDI usage on our Support page. Check out our home page video feed for additional demo videos that go deep into our parameter offerings.
Video demos are in progress!
Thank you ...
Thank you for your continued support of 3DA! I know many of you share my passion for creating cool stuff, and your feedback and purchases mean a lot to me.
As always I would love to hear from you....
What do you like best about your Bygones?
Where on your pedalboard is the Bygones?
How would you make the Bygones better?
What other effects are you interested in?
PS - feel free to drop me a line with your comments, questions and ideas!