SolidGoldFX NU-33

From SolidGoldFX:

We love vintage guitars for very much the same reasons we love listening to vinyl. While they might not play as great as a shiny new high-end, precision built custom axe, their magic lies in their flaws. Every ding and scrape tells a story, every little bit of player wear and lacquer checking lends a feeling and leads to inspiration. Same goes for records…. a little bit of noise and static pops add ambiance, allowing the listener to get lost in the music while mesmerized by the rotating platter…. its not so much about fidelity but rather warmth and texture to create a mood. We set out to combine our love for guitars with our love for records and the result is the NU-33.

Named after the Greek letter symbolizing spatial frequency and the RPMs of a turntable, the NU-33 is a lo-fi Vinyl modulator like no other. Designed to capture the vibe of some our favorite records such as a particularly worn out copy of Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality and an original pressing of Led Zeppelin I with just the perfect amount of static, the NU-33 serves up chorus and vibrato mixed with tastefully engineered hiss, crackle and pops to give your riffs just the right touch of vintage flair. The controls allow you to choose how much or how little flutter to add to your tone, color it with 2 additional filter modes, shape it with 3 different waveforms and dial in the mix with an analog blend; you can easily make this pedal sound as pretty and lush or as dark and sombre as you please.

Once we were finally happy with the way it sounded, it was time to pepper it with all the fun bits! Crammed in this little box is a manual mode to create a doubler ranging from 15ms to 50ms, an internally assignable expression pedal/CV input, multi-function foot switches for tap tempo and speed ramping, top jacks, relay based true bypass switching and a hold-to-skip function with 3 selectable speed presets to create a unique sonic stutter.

Well, with all that said, and whole lotta painstaking work leading up to this point, the NU-33 is finally here and all that’s left to do is to get lost in its immersive waves and textures.

Knobs

• Speed: This knob adjusts the speed of the LFO, from low and slow, to warble fast. The speed can also be manipulated by using an expression pedal. (See Dipswitches)
• Flutter: This knob adjusts the width of the chorus/vibrato effect. When set fully counter-clockwise, the NU-33 enters into manual mode, where the delay can be swept with the Speed knob from 15ms to 50ms for a doubling effect. The flutter can also be manipulated using an expression pedal. (See Dipswitches)
• Ramp – See: Tap/Hold Ramp Footswitch: The ramp is a momentary feature. This allows you to speed up or slow down the LFO by holding the Tap Tempo/Ramp switch. With the knob in the center position, the Ramp feature is off. Turning it down from the noon position ramps it down, while turning it up from noon position ramps it upward. The distance the knob is from the noon position determines how quickly the speed will ramp up or down and return to its original position.
• Hiss: This knob controls the amount white noise that is mixed in with the effect. The hiss can also be manipulated using an expression pedal. (See Dipswitches)
• Blend: This center-detent knob blends the wet and dry signals. The center is a 50/50 mix for chorus effects while turning the Blend fully clockwise turns the NU-33 into a Vibrato.
• Level: This is a master volume of the pedal and can boost or cut the output.

Switches

• Wave:This three-position switch changes the LFO waveform. When switched to the left, the waveform is a combined sine wave wiggling up and down a triangle shape, center selects a traditional sine wave, and the right selects asawtooth wave.
• Skip –See: Bypass/Hold Skip Footswitch: This toggle switch provides three tempo presets for the Skip function. The left position selects long (937ms), the center position selects medium (625ms) and the right position selects short (312ms).
• Color: This toggle selects filter modes.  The left selects a low pass filter for darker sounds and the right position selects a high pass filter. The center position bypasses the color filters.
• Crackle:This toggle adds random vinyl-like pops and crackle to your signal when set to the right.
• Bypass/Hold Skip Footswitch – See: Skip-Turns the effect on and off. If you hold the foot switch down while the effect is on, you will momentarily engage the Skip function, endlessly looping the signal left in the delay buffer until the switch is released.
• Tap/Hold Ramp Footswitch– See: Ramp– This footswitch allows you to tap in the speed. When the switch is held down it ramps the speed up or down, depending on how the ramp knob is set.

Auxiliary

In: Plug in your instrument (or another pedal etc.) into here.

9V:The NU-33 requires a center-negative, 2.1mm 9VDC power adapter with at least 60mA of current (not included). Almost all power supplies meet this requirement, but check yours beforehand. There is no option for a battery.

Expression Pedal/CV Jack (EXP): Using an expression pedal takes over certain knob functions depending on the internal dipswitch settings. This jack can also be used for 0-5V CV operation.  A special cable is required for CV operation – Mono 1/8″ or 1/4″ to 1/4″ TRS with the ring disconnected for most applications.

Dipswitches:

• Down/Down: Expression pedal/CV controls Speed
• Down/Up: Expression pedal/CV controls Flutter
• Up/Down: Expression pedal/CV controls Hiss
• Up/Up: Expression pedal/CV controls Speed and Flutter

Out: Connect your Amplifier (or another pedal etc.) from here