Electro-Harmonix Pulsar Reissue

Takes some getting used to. Some small things that kind of got annoying, but once mastered, are very usefull!
-Shape (Wave form)
-Rate (Speed of trem)
-Depth (how much it affects your signal)
-Wave shape switch (a ascending and descending wave, and a sqaure, almost ""on-off" wave)

unfortunetely, the "manual" is, well, not a manual.

kinda ghey.

Now i don't know about all this true bypass. and hissing and noise thst people are talking about. it's an analog tremelo, deal with it.

When not dicking around with settings, i primarly have the wave at 12:00, a symetrical wave form, the speed always changes so i dont care (But anything past 12:00 is uselessly fast), and the depth at it's max. Now here's the thing about the Depth Conrol, anything past a little past 3:00, it's stops working correctly, doubling the rate and creating s#!*... i dont know why. whatever, i just found where it didn't start effing up and left it. then i put it on the square wave. re-creates the "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams" intro. pointless right?

WRONG, this is why i bought this pedal, to create whacky awesome sounds. i can make feedback sound like a heart rate moniter. beat that. Coupled with my Whammy WH-4, i can make my audience ask the greatest question a guitar player could want; "How did he do that?" and "WTF!?!?"

and of course you can set it up to make great beautiful sounds that are generic tremelo sounds, blah, blah, blah. but i love how EHX takes there effects and makes them OUTRAGIOUS!

it's be a 10 if the depth control wasn't weird.

looks like a muff, plays like a muff, but it's a tremelo. don't think it'll be dying anytime in this millenium.

never dealt with them,

Great pedal for many uses. dont buy it if you suck at guitar, i guess...

This pedal has only 3 knobs so how hard can it be right? wrong
There are no numbers along the knobs, so ist very hard to get the exact sound a second time.
Also the knobs do very strange things that are not very logical.
There are a lot of settings on this pedal nobody wil ever use, because the have no use.
The rate knobs doesn't do anything before its turned halfway up.
The debth knob does very strange things if you turn it further than 3 quaters. The rate wil go up and the debth wil decrease. First I thought it was broke. I emailed elektro harmonix and the sayd it was normal.
And the manual?what manual? there is one peace of paper that congratulate you thx al lot

First, some people say that this pedal is versatile.
Well thats a bit true with all functions accept the depth knob, this knob doesn't do a lot it ruines the whole pedal.
You cannot get this pedal silent between the pulses, forget machine gun sounds or playing "how soon is now". Your stick with somewhat moderate tremelo sounds.

Second, dont buy this pedal because it has a shape knob this knob is fun for about an hour but after that you will never use it. Well ok maybe you will but you can do without trust me.

Third,
!!!THIS IS THE REASON WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER BUY THIS PEDAL!!!
People who think or say that this pedal is true bypass are wrong, very wrong.
This is why,
If you put it between your guitar and your amp it cuts 5 db( I don't know exatly how much but it's easy noticeable)of your sound. A lot of people don't notice it however because EVEN IF YOU PUT IT ON BYPASS "THIS WORST PEDAL EVER" ALSO CUTS 5 DB OF YOUR SOUND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So you don't notice it before you put your guitar directly in the amp.
They do this ofcourse so when you play with it and you turn the pedal off(on bypass), your sound won't get louder. But don't mather this is something a pedal should never do.

Also this pedal ofcourse is very noisy all kinds off hissing noise comes from this pedal. Some people say that easy to overcome just buy a noisesuppressor.What?!?!?!!?!?!?! Buying another pedal because a this pedal sucks noway!!!

But I must admit this pedal has some nice sounds that got me hypnotized for a few houers unfortunatly it has so many design faults its no fun using this pedal.

I returned it the next day

In my opinion this pedal is already broke when it leaves the factory.
I only had it for a day so I don't know how long it will last.

The replyed on my email 2 days after. Thats ok

This by far the worst pedal I ever played on.
I didn't know that they still made products that seemed to have so much flaws in them.
Some people are happy with this pedal because its cheap. The TR-X Vintage Tremelo has even more functions than the PULSAR and has no design flaws.
People in favor of the Pulsar say that it is really vintage and it has a mind of its onw.
Vintage isn't always better in fact most of the time its not why you think people moved on? The should remake this pedal keeping the nice vintage sounds and remove all the flaws.
And I understand when its nice that your guitar has it's own carakter and your amp, but you don't need pedals that do weird things that you don't need.

Don't buy this pedal if your planning on having lots of sounds. Only buy this pedal if your absolutely sure you will never get those vintage sound out of any pedal. And you really need that one sound.

Pedal can, and will make wild and crazy sounds(in a good way)
VERY versatile...so versatile in fact, I suggest you find a fine-tip felt pen and mark settings you love, Because you may never find them again.
Manual explains ONLY control function.
-No unit augmentation-

THIS PEDAL IS GREAT!! So much variance in terms of sound.
Fantastic quality, virtually no volume ghange(on most usable settings)

Okay, everyone and their mothers have been griping that it's not true-bypass...have you stopped to look INSIDE the unit? Apparently not.
The EHX Pulsar IS IN FACT TRUE-BYPASS. And now the issue w/the disengagement clicking. There IS clicking when unit is off. the LED is powered by battery, wired to switch, ALOT of true-bypass pedals are wired this way with the LED. The problem lies in this particular pedal having an LED which flashes based on settings, and a battery powering whether unit is off or not.
This coupled w/an amplifier boosting the signal = TA-DA! creepy phantom oscillation. So battery or Adapter,
you will get a quaint controllable clicking

Possible Cures:
1) Use pedal AFTER pre-amp stage(so the noise isn't boosted)
2) Have this fantasic unit analyzed and re-wired by a $professional$ (whoops, I mean "professional")
3) Use a separate bypass/loop box
4) 2 words, 4 syllables: NOISE SUPPRESSOR
5) don't power unit(makes a fancy looking line coupler)
6) DEAL WITH IT (small price to pay for good trem)

Sounds GREAT ...and CHEAP!
Rating : 8.64694565730280...

depend on it.
box will live,
nuts will loosen,
paint will die.

gig w/out backup

???

I A/B'd this big guy against some other items...

ZVEX Seek-trem : Great tone, but does too much of one thing (for me).
no variable waveform, seek-trem great for song parts, the sync-ing is as the french say "coule-asse". Beats EHX in size.

BOSS TR-2 tremolo : Awesome if you are looking for ye olde tremolo of amps long past. Wave knob goes from triangle to "square", noticable volume drop, Rate pales in comparison to Pulsar. The "square" was too soft-edged for my taste, prefer clarity of Pulsar. TR-2 kinda "tube-ish"

If you can overcome the noise issue, it's good stuff

Well what can I say its very tricky to get the right sound out of it, but if you like experimenting with the knobs then this is the pedal.

I cant complain it sounds like a tremolo. Many people have the problem of the noise it makes when its not engaged and the noise it makes when tweaking the knobs, I solved my problem by conecting the pedal to the efects loop on my amp, if I used it directly to the amp it created the nasty noise it produces.

Well I bought it a month ago. havent had a problem yet, it has a metal casing prety tough. I have a little concern with the input and output jacks they seem to grab the lines really hard so when pulling the line out im afraid I might brake it or something but if you hook it up to be steady with the rest of the pedals in your pedal board then no prob. !

Havent had to contact them yet.

I play alternative rock. I listen to very strange music jeje. Cant complain much about the pedal it gets the job done.

I'll tell you right off, this thing is a treasure to behold, but as with all treasures, you've gotta go digging for it. Maybe I'm just stupid, but I found this thing, at first, to be qutie a challenge to yank the sound I wanted out of. But only a couple of hours later, I found myself with the exact tremolo sound I had envisioned. The manual for this thing is a POS, but oh well, I managed without it. Take your time with this pedal and you shall be rewarded.

I use this with a Fender Princeton Chorus (original model, not the DSP reissue). This is my setup in order.

Gibson Les Paul Vintage Mahogany (fantastic guitar by the way) -> Dunlop Crybaby Classic -> MXR ZW-44 Wylde Overdrive -> Boss BF-3 Flanger -> Boss DD-6 Digital Delay -> Electro-Harmonix Pulsar Reissue -> Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor -> Amp

As you can see, I'm beginning to build up an arsenal, and I'm glad to have this thing at my disposal.

First off, let's get the no-no's out of the way.
-Do not turn the depth knob up to or very close to full. You will get the most completely crap sounds out of it with the buzzing and the everything.
-Be careful with putting distortion/overdrive/fuzz in front of this pedal. Without a good noise suppressor, you'll get a lot of echoing in the tremolo's quiet spots.
-This thing is quite noisy on some settings, but a little tweaking, a good noise suppressor, and you're golden.

If you tweak this pedal enough, you can get just about any tremolo sound you want. TRUST ME. You can get short choppy tremolo, or long, smooth tremolo, get it pulsing in time, have it drop off gradually. The cool things about this pedal are 1-The shape knob. I don't use it much personally (I keep it right in the dead center, the balanced shape setting), but it can help you tweak the tremolo in any way you imagine along with the other knobs. The waveform switch takes you between triangle-waveform (smooth sounding tremolo) and square-waveform (choppy sounding tremolo). I also like how the LED blinks in time with the tremolo, very cool feature.

I'd depend on this, but it's a little light. Seems quite durable, but I'm scared by its light weight, so I'll be careful with it.

Never dealt with 'em.

I play about every style under the sun (jazz, blues, funk, reggae, punk, ska, fusion, the list goes on...), but my heart lies firmly in old-school metal and good old-fashioned rock. Obviously, this pedal is used a lot less in metal, but hell, when I get my band up and going, I can think of plenty of metal-friendly uses for this baby! Rock, as you all know, has its share of tremolo in its more mellow moments, and this is the reason I bought this pedal, to get that cool "chopped-up haunting-sounding clean chord sequence" thing goin' on. BULLSEYE!!! I've played about 2 1/2 years, and I've listed all my gear already, no reason to do that again. What do I love about it? It's everything I want in a tremolo! The rate knob, although, seems to be a bit TOO versatile. I can't find a use for anything past 10:00 on it. After a point, it's going so fast, you can't tell the tremolo is even there! If this thing got stolen, someone would be getting their ass kicked MAJORLY. If it was lost, hell, I'd be saving up for another one. This thing has already helped me make some very cool song sections, and given me some ideas for songs in the future...my little box of inspiration. What do I wish it had...? Maybe a differently shaped 9V adapter so I don't have to use the ONE blue connection adapter thing that came with my Godlyke PA-9 Powerall Power Supply.

Fairly easy to use once you get an understanding of the pedal. One knob changes the shape of the wave, the other changes the speed. Also, there is a switch for going between square and triangle wave modes, and obviously a stomp switch.

Excellent. There is absolutely no sound coloration, no noise and no volume change from the original signal. This was actually a little surprising as most guitar pedals don't work quite right for bass (cutting off the low and such), but this one is perfect.

Also, great in an effect loop as it can do everything from subtle vintage trem to crazy helicopter noises. My favorite sound is ebow >> env. filter >> big muff >> pulsar.

Bass >> GR-20 >> Synth Wah/Env. Filter >> Big Muff Pi >> Opto Stomp >> GEB-7 >> DD-6 >> Pulsar >> RC-20xl >> amp

I use a variety of basses as well as chapman stick and upright electric, this pedal works on all.

I don't use it as often as some of my other pedals, but it was my first (odd choice, I know) and has withstood the last couple years quite nicely.

I would go on a gig without a backup -- it's built like a tank and I don't use it as much as it deserves.

Dunno. Never had a problem.

I play pretty much everything, and if there's a weird way to do something, I'll give it a try. That said, it's also great for subtle usable-every-song sounds. I had a guitarist friend use it with

My only real problem is that it's a little too deep -- huge tweakability -- which occassionally leads to some distance between usable or desired sounds.

Not easy at all people... Needs a lot of time of searching and pulling knobs and switches to find out the way this things really works, especially because the triangle waveform and the square waveform behave in a totally different way.
But in the end of the day you'll probably be very happy to have all these features unveiled. From light background tremolo to pure square waves up to ring modulator this thing can do a lot of nice things.

Almost perfect as almost every EHX product. It doesn't affect the pitch or the master volume level when engaged or disengaged and it can reach from 60s vintage tremolo sounds to synth-like square waves and LFOs.
The best thing for me is the pure square.It sounds quite like the tremolos Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead) uses on songs like "Lucky" and "My iron Lung". Putting shape at 12 o'clock and depth around 3 o'clock, you can use the speed knob to change the speed of the effect.The flashing led can help you find the right speed and if you put it's output through a long delay on the same millisecond rate...it's awesome!!!Just hold a chord or note and it will keep playing and playing...
Many people claim that it sounds too digital. Well I totally disagree. Some settings sound very synth-like and that's a very different thing, which I personally like!
I also used it on a friends rhodes stage piano and it was really cool. It somehow arpeggiates the keyboard's sound and if you try a little bit and synchronize it with beats and bass line it can kick ass for electronica, trip-hop and stuff like that.

Well it's an EHX pedal. Built like a tank with a stell chassis all over it, you have to try hard to break something on it.

I bought it from a friend who had it for 2 months and used it in 4-5 recordings and 2-3 live gigs. It didn't even had scratches on the surface and dust around the knobs. So I can't consider it as "used" but anyway...

Never had to deal with EHX support because all my stompboxes work fine.

Needs time to learn how to use it, and I mean a lot of time...but when you are done with the hard part, it's a real pleasure! Great sound quality, lots of fx capabilities from light tremolo to ring modulation...try it!

Three knobs and one Square / Sine wave switch. It seems to be quite easy but all the knobs react to each other. If you max the depth knob at some settings you get no modulation at all. I wanted a very harsh square wave that went from silence to full but I couldn't quite find it. It went from quiet to full volume, not silent.

For such a simple effect it's quite difficult - far too hard for most guitarists (who tend to be quite a simple bunch) to figure out in a hurry. All the great successes in the guitar world tend to be very simple (telecasters, boss pedals and so on).

I differ from most people here in that I use a guitar and various other instruments as a tone generator into various effects into a mixer, then the PA. I never use a guitar amp so I have no comments about noise in a standard guitar - amp set up.
This pedal is designed for guitar ie midrange frequencies. It has far less effect on samples outside that frequency range. I also wanted a harsh stuttering effect that went from silence to max. It doesn't quite mute the sound, which is odd because the huge range in the speed knob suggests an extreme pedal. I would have liked more depth in the "depth" knob. It's just too subtle.
I like the enormous range in the speed knob. It goes from slow throbs of 10 seconds or more to psuedo ring modulator sounds. Good stuff, although I'm not sure how useful this is for most people wanting to play "How Soon Is Now".

EH pedals are not boss pedals. But they are not quite plastic junk either. Some people break their pedals at once, some use them for years. It runs on batteries so there is no problems with a stupid wall wart running on 40v volts like some other EH pedals I could mention.

EH have been pretty good to me for service in the past, and I've had no bad experiences.

EH pedals are made by American hippies. This means you can get some unique sounds that you don't usually get with regular stompboxes but often you don't know what the hell they were thinking. But their pedals are pretty cheap compared to the boutique pedal rip offs. This is an odd Tremolo pedal and as such it's quite interesting.

Nonetheless I sold the pulsar immediately. It's too subtle and I couldn't get the sound I wanted and I didn't have time to tweak knobs all day to find it. As with all EH pedals it's huge and takes up a lot of space, but I was expecting that and would be willing to overlook it if it sounded good enough.

This pedal eats batteries. A new battery lasts about 15 minutes in the pulsar. This is probably due to the flashing LED that blinks in time with the speed. Good idea, but utterly flawed if it kills the battery life.
The AC socket is a different type to boss pedals, meaning that I would have to use another PSU from my multi tap to use it live. I use an awful lot of gear live and I simply do not have the strength to lift much more than I have now. This meant that I decided to use a sequencer to make interesting throbbing and stuttering sounds in the studio, and a Boss TR2 live. The TR2 is not nearly as interesting, but it does the job much better than the Pulsar. Good try EH, but it wasn't for me. Keep taking those drugs guys.

I thought it was easy to use a few months back when I bought it. Rate determines rate, depth, depth, and shape a mystery. I was wrong. Dependent on the combinations of the knobs anything can control the rate. You do have to get to know the pedal and find out what it can do, not just turn the knobs and get what you expect. e.g. you need more depth on a square wave or if you're using distortion.
EHX brags that the knobs go past a standard tremolo's usable setting, but that's not really any sort of benefit. The Depth is useless before 12 o'clock, and the rate starts making dull robot noises after 12. The usable range is about 1/4 of the knob, so turning it ever so slightly will give you a vastly different speed, making it a challenge to remember that great setting you found the other day.

The manual is totally useless.

Fender Fat Strat -> Pulsar -> Traynor YCV40WR
You get noise sometimes, often it's inaudible. I'm not sure what's affecting it. You can tell, turn up the rate and the noise changes speed. I do wonder why they'd use a DPDT switch if they weren't going to True Bypass the blasted thing.

The sound is very bright, but the shape is rather variant. I can get a good subtle Death Cab sound to a really jagged Our Lady Peace.

Turn up the depth for distorted signal and for a good square wave sound. Square wave - 'Bang Bang' by Nancy Sinatra (from Kill Bill)

I don't expect it to short out on me; I bought it used and I haven't had any problems with it whatsoever. It's very large, solid, and made of sheet metal, but I don't expect to be going after it with a hammer for any reason.

I play alt rock and it's suitable for my rig. It's just a tremolo, so it does its job, but there ought to be a bevy of interesting sounds you can get out of it.
I used to have an expensive multi-effects box, and I have to say the Pulsar outdoes it in Sound Quality, but certainly not in ease of use.
If it did become lost I'd probably try out some other models, maybe spend a bit more, but it was fairly cheap, attractive, and has its own unique sound. It's also an easy target with a big switch.
I do wish it had a Tone/Color knob and less range in the existing knobs. A few settings are interesting (the ring mod-ish tones others have mentioned) but utterly useless if not for a laugh.

Fairly straightforward layout. Offers much more scope to experiment with sounds than most trem pedals, although whether or not this is constitutes an advantage depends on the type of sounds you're after...

My setup is 88 USA Std Strat/Explorer/Steinberger > Yamaha OD > Powertran Black Hole Chorus-vibrato > EH Small Stone > Yamaha DDS 20M delay > Vibrochamp/Deluxe Reverb.

I bought the Pulsar for more choppy, modern trem sounds than the Fender trem sounds my amps offer, and to see whether I could dispense with the amps in certain circumstances. Overall, the Pulsar is a quiet, flexible unit. It does allow for modern/choppy/extreme trem sounds, and does approximate the classic Fender sound - however, after extensive A/B testing, I'd say that the Pulsar just can't equal the shape and quality of Fender's valve-driven trem sound.

For those wanting to use trem for the odd song/part I'd recommend it, especially for the price. For those wanting to nail the Fender sound, I'd have to advise they look elsewhere - Voodoo Labs, Demeter, for instance.

I've used EH stuff for many years and have never had any problems, although I wish they'd use a finish that would offer a bit more protection than the look-at-it-and-its-scratched finish they seem satisfied with

never dealt with them

Good quality, quiet, flexible unit and you can find them at reasonable prices if you hunt around. If only it could nail the Fender sound it'd be a 10.

Still, I'd recommend anyone after a trem pedal should try it out