Product: Catalinbread Semaphore Tremolo
Price Paid: US $179
Submitted
09/25/2005
at
07:39pm
by
Sean
Ease of Use
:
10
Very easy to use as all of the controls are very intuative. Doesn't take long at all to get a good sound out of the Semaphore. There are so many sonic posibilities with this that it's near impossible to settle on just one! No manual came with it but it really isn't needed.
Sound Quality
:
10
Setup: Gibson RD / Custom Fender Jaguar into Boss TU-2, 4-loop true-bypass pedals (various pedals in loops - 2x vintage EH Polychorus, Boss CE-20, Ibanez, DE-7, original digitech Whammy, vintage Big Muff, Boss DF-2) into Kitty Hawk Junior tube amp.
The sound quality on this and flexibility set this apart from every other tremolo pedal I've tried. Just blew my Dunlop tremolo off my board and into the neighbour's yard :) Interacts well with other pedals and the volume control means that unit-gain or even a slight boost for solos is always possible no matter what setting.
The beauty with this pedal is the range of tones - the wave-shape possibilities and the range of speeds (uber-slow to ring-mod fast). This is the most musical tremolo I've ever tried and there are beautiful pinging sounds I didn't know a trem could make!
Controls:
RATE - from stupidly slow to so fast that it's almost pure tone!
FAST/SLOW - switches between the two rate ranges.
SHAPE (knob & switch) - this is where the Semaphore really shines. Not just the standard triange to square wave-shapes that more tremolo pedals offer - this goes the extra step and gives "Square, Triangle, Sawtooth, Ramp, Pulse, Blip" wave-shapes. And they really do make a difference and give so much more flexibility over other pedals.
DEPTH - From absolutely no trem effect to nice and full sound. Only naggle is that the depth knob doesn't seem to do anything below 12:00.
VOLUME - controls the overall volume of the pedal. This is great to ensure you have unity-gain, but also to give a bit of boost when needed. At some settings (especially very fast rates) a bit of boost is great. Plus if you turn the depth to zero you can use this as a boost pedal! Sweet...
Reliability
:
10
Inside and out this pedal looks beautiful. Great quality parts - Alpha pots, really nice knobs, good quality switch, etc.
Customer Support
:
10
Emailed Nicholas about a small issue I was having (pickups seemed to overload the pedal - btw, just adjust the internal trimpot) and he emailed me back within the hour! That's impressive!!
Overall Rating
:
10
Overall this is just an amazing pedal - probably the most musical, flexible and well-designed tremolo pedal available. Worth every penny and more. There isn't anything this pedal is missing or can't do, and I can't see ever replacing it with anything else. The Semaphore does standard sounds to wacky sound and everything in between - and does it all very well.
