Pigtronix Attack Sustain

Like the other Pigtronix pedals, the ASDR has several different functions and sounds to discover, so it takes a little time to learn the ins and outs. However, the manual is very well written and easy to follow. I was gigging with this pedal comfortably within 24 hours of getting it.

I play a Heritage 535 and a Godin LGS through a Fender Deville.
The compression feature alone is worth the price of this pedal. I am able to get a snappy, Telefried chicken pickin' sound ala Jim Campilongo, a sweet, long sustain like Trey Anastasio, or a wailin' bluesy howl like SRV.

The pedal has it???s own overdrive/distortion with via the harmonics feature, but compression sounds especially good when you use it to drive my Ibanez Tubescreamer, Pigtronix Disnortion, or even just the amp???s overdrive.

The options available with the Attack/Decay features are endless. I???ve had the pedal for several months and still find new sounds. I use it to create ambient, textural layers for soundtracks and dance performances. It???s great when combined with some delay (my rig has a Pigtronix Echolution, Ibanez A-9 Analog Delay, or SIB Mr. Echo).

Built like a truck.
Gig without a backup all the time.

These guys are the best in the biz. Always respond to my calls/emails.

I play a lot of jazz, funk, world, country, and rock music and I use this pedal with every style.

Been playing for 20 years now and this immediately became a permanent pedal in my rig.

It's irreplaceable and if it were ever to be stolen or lost, I would replace it instantly.

If you put 'Ease of Use' into context, this unit is pretty easy to use. Sure, it has 4 times the number of switches and 3 times the number of potentiometers of the highly coveted (and less flexible) Boss SG-1 Slow Gear; but you don't actually NEED to read the manual to figure everything out. If you want to have the simplicity of the Slow Gear (which is only part of what this box can do) you can look up the preset in the manual and then it will always be one stomp away. Every switch and pot has a label on it and you know exactly what they do before you even turn the knob.

However, READ THE MANUAL as the Owner's Manual is clearly written and has 12 example settings, in full color, of every effect you could think up on your own; PLUS settings for some things you wouldn't think of yourself and are IMPOSSIBLE to get on any other current unit. The stuttering effect (fairly quick Attack and Decay settings and turning the Sensitivity down) is useful and bizarre. Kinda sounds like the old Vox Repeat Percussion if you blend in some of the original signal again. The idea of adding the Blend knob was a master stroke.
Also, the manual walks through the pedal in a nice guided tour that explains the features quite nicely.

You may have to do some work to fully exploit the potential of this pedal; but it ain't no multi-effector rack unit.

The sound quality of this unit is excellent. There are quite a few great sounding features in this box. I love the tone-shaping extra of the High-Boost switch as it adds a bit of jangle and sparkle to the compressed clean tones. The Harmonics knob adds harmonics as you turn it up. The effect can be subtle or very pronounced.
An added bonus, that totally makes sense given the nature of the design of the box, is that it acts as a mighty fine compressor if one engages only the 'Engage' switch. This is the 'sustain' part of the pedal. Throw on some High Boost, blend some of the uncompressed sound back into the signal chain with the 'Blend' knob, and you have the same type of parallel compression that is in the often-lauded-upon Barber Tone Press; but more sparkly-jangly. Adjust the "Harmonics" (how I wish that they had stuck with "Harmonix" as the labling!) for as much harmonic fullness & girth as you desire at any time... and we still haven't even discussed this pedal's raison d'??tre... the envelope shaping!

The fact that this pedal is polyphonic and responds without a single glitch whatsoever just takes the cake. Complex chord swells are a cinch. My unit works exactly as advertised and does not 'clip' off the signal. Not to start a beef with the prior post, but mine does shape the envelope according to the settings on the dial. Smooth fading in and out.

I can't comment on long-term reliability since I've only had it for about 45 days.

David Koltai (Pigtronix head honcho) is easily reachable by phone or email. He reminds me of what top-notch customer service is all about. I'm a real stickler for this kind of thing as my entire career has been dedicated to customer service and meeting (and anticipating) clients' needs. David hits all of these points.

I can never give anything a '10'. This is because I can usually think of a couple of things that would PERSONALLY have been of benefit to me and would have not added anything, or much at all, to the end-user price.
That said, this has been the single most inspiring pedal purchase, that I've made, in the past few years. It has exceeded my expectations and has made playing more fun and enjoyable. It has been quite some time since I've felt that way about a guitar product. What more could one want than to be inspired?

Plus, the built-in compressor with the added 'Harmonics' knob is GREAT for punching up solos and getting some killer sustain.

Howard 'Mick' Davis did some work on the design of this pedal; and if you look at the Electro-Harmonix Attack Decay, which he designed, you can see some similarities in features. However, this new and improved Attack Sustain has much better noise specifications and is polyphonic; which the EH box never was & the Pigtronix pedal has more flexibility. It has been a loooooong time since I've played the EH Attack Decay, but if memory serves, my impression is that the new Pigtronix Attack Sustain is easier to dial in. Also, the Pigtronix's construction is much more robust.

The Attack Sustain also has a 'Trigger' input so that you can have anything else control the triggering of the unit while you play through it with something else. A cool thing to do if you play some compressed guitar through it and have something like a snare or high hat trigger the unit.

A few background notes to put this review in context:
??? I've got a Boss RPS-10 digital delay that actually does play, what you put into it, backwards in near real-time. There is a bit of playing time adjustment necessary as it samples your input signal and then flips it around in discrete chunks of audio. It actually is playing back your sound backwards, but you really have to pay attention to what you are doing and sustaining long notes is out of the question with there being a cyclical 'hiccup' in the sound. This is due to the RPS-10 resampling your sound every 800ms or less. The sound is cool as hell, but is far more limiting than the Pigtronix Attack Sustain.
I've played the Boss Slow Gear for some time and the Attack Decay from yesteryear.

??? I've been using this pedal with an Eric Clapton Signature Strat (with a built-in active Pre-amp), Telecaster Plus Deluxe (Lace Sensor humbucker & single coils), 1966 Fender Mustang, Will Ray Signature Jazz-a-Caster (Seymour Duncan custom overwound Jazzmaster Pickups plus humbucker switching), an Ibanez Black Eagle Bass (old school cool J-bass style), as well as synths and various line level signals. It responds well to all of these completely different impedances and signal levels as long as you adjust the Sensitivity knob. Being polyphonic, it responds really well to alternate tunings.
I've used it through a 1965 Gibson RVT 79 Stereo Amp, a Crate VTX200S, a 1965 Ampeg Reverberocket, and a 1972 Orange 120W 2x12 Combo amp. I've also got some outboard pre-amps that I've been just too lazy to hook up to my rig at the moment. However, I feel that I've got a pretty good representative sample of what this pedal does and how it sounds. It currently sits as the first thing in my signal chain and is followed by a couple of compressors.
I've got about 100 effects here on hand and they are one of my biggest vices... I buy lots of 'em!

I can see that my review is in complete contradiction to the previous review. I can't comment upon his personal experience with this pedal except to postulate that he may have received a defective unit or it just didn't fit into his signal chain. It is an envelope pedal and it is based upon responding to dynamics and altering them. I don't know of any way to do everything that this pedal does with just a volume pedal and a compressor.

I don't work for Pigtronix although I do work in the audio industry. Nothing to do with Pigtronix although it does

This takes a lot of fiddling to get useable results and the "sweet spot" is very small. The envelope follower circuit seems like a bad match for passive guitar pickups, as you have to turn the sensitivity knob up all the way to get an acceptable result. Perhaps active pickups or putting a clean boost in front of it would improve matters.

Tested with a Les Paul Standard and Fender Deluxe.

I was hoping for something that would provide a synth-like control over the guitar's volume, i.e. dial in a slow volume swell for a pad sound, shorten the decay for a percussive sound, etc. The pigtronix hype calls this pedal "a polyphonic amplitude-envelope synthesizer", that "mimic[s] bowed string, horn and synthesizer textures without altering the essential "tone" of your instrument." But the pedal simply won't do a smooth, gradual attack sound, because it doesn't fade in the attack. Instead, it delays the attack (keeps it silent), then brings it in rapidly. This is useless for pad or string type sounds. The release- same deal, it just clips off the guitar decay into silence at a certain point. You can dial in <when> it clips, but not how slowly it clips. Again, useless.

Also of note- the compression circuit is apt to "run away" and amplify pickup hum to unbearable levels. Like the envelope follower, you have to crank the sustain knob up almost full to get a long sustain, so it's easy to get horrible sounds as the sustain continues. I was using a medium-output humbucking pickup, by the way.

No opinion here, as I didn't have it very long. But overall the pedal seemed underbuilt for its price point. A 279.00 pedal should be rock solid.

I play a lot of experimental music and I was deeply excited about this pedal. Unfortunately it let me down. It simply didn't do what the hype lead me to believe it would do. Try before you buy, or better yet, get a volume pedal and a compressor.