The Visitor is the more interesting of the pair obviously as a brand new endeavour - while the Fault 2 seems on first glance mostly just to have cosmetic difference - but there is a lot more to it - as we shall see!
The Visitor essentially has two different Modulation Channels - the Primary with Tremolo, Chorus and Phaser options while the Secondary just has Tremolo and Chorus. For the Primary you get Rate and Depth Controls - while the Secondary only has a single knob which interacts with the parameters of the Primary. You then have a further two controls - the Regeneration which controls how much of the signal is fed into each other Channel / Effect, and the Mix dial which adjusts the balance between the two channels / effects.
I have just fairly recently acquired the amazing GFI System Synesthesia which does a lot more with 22 different algorithms fed into two series / parallel / mixing / stereo-split interacting channels. The Visitor can be viewed as a very clever, very junior version of the Synesthesia - while its key advantage is in the clever use of the Regeneration function / control.
I predicted that this year would be all about ’Fusion Cuisine’ for Effects Pedals - and this is very much a practical manifestation of that. Anyone who has a Synesthesia doesn’t really need a Visitor - but there is a huge difference in cost, scale and complexity - so if you just want to dip your toes into this area - then the Visitor is perfect.
As for the Fault V2 - there are fairly scant details available thus far and no sound samples or demo videos yet - ywhileet a little cursory glance and due diligence on comparing the two pedals reveals an additional ’Voice’ knob for the core drive, as well as 2 new toggle switches - Boost and Crush which obviously impact the gain structure in some as yet unspecified manner - in particular versus their Gain 1 vs Gain 2 application. All the other controls and dual footswitches remain the same as the original pedal - with the exception that the 3-Band EQ is now on Graphic EQ Sliders versus the original’s knobs.
As I already have the Synesthesia - the Fault V2 may be the more interesting pedal here for me after all. Yet I need to wait for more references, resources and collateral to be made available - so that I can formulate a proper scientific conclusion in my usual manner!
The Visitor will be available from March 5th for $199, while we’re sill waiting on details for the release of the Fault.