Stone Deaf FX's first pedal in 3 years is the rather special Rise & Shine Octave Up Fuzz combined with Dynamic 'Octapulse' Tremolo Vibrato
So the new Rise & Shine is quite the departure for Stone Deaf FX - and based on an entirely new compact platform - 3 years in the making - with Multi-Mode switches and special functions. Every aspect of this pedal is custom - from the hand in-filled recessed enamel facia, sand-blasted anodised custom aluminium enclosure, custom milled aluminium knobs, and custom optical + magnetic footswitches - with innovations in every area!
Owner Luke Hilton describes how much innovation went into the creation of this pedal - which initially was just intended to be some sort of Upper Octave Fuzz. Everything about this venture is new for Stone Deaf - including the look / styling of the very colourful new graphics. It took me a few attempts on Midjourney to create a suitable backdrop - which I feel I really nailed in the end - with just some minor tweaking of colours needed in Photoshop.
Luke graciously gave me a first peek at the manual - otherwise I would not have been able to do the visual or this text to this level of detail! There’s a whole lot more going on under the surface. While one of the main innovations for this pedal is the two key Mode and Voice light-up and colour-coded combination Push & Status Buttons. They also indicate when each corresponding Footswitch is active - by the strength / intensity of their illumination.
This is very much one of those Analog Heart, Digital Brain pedals - featuring a discrete transistor fuzz circuit with analog octave up, and digitally controlled unique Tremolo Vibrato - which somewhat unusual style of Tremolo Luke is calling ’Octapulse’. It’s nothing like a traditional tremolo but rather a sort of Octave Modulation / Octave-Pulse - which is why it is engaged with the right-hand Octave footswitch - when the appropriate +Trem Mode is activated!
No effort has been spared in making this pedal as highly and robustly engineered as is possible, as Luke recalls :
"I invented a new optical footswitch system for this new range which again hasn't been done before in the same format. Which is actually going through global copyright as we speak. Without a doubt now the fastest and most responsive in the industry."
"It uses no parts that can fail unlike SPST, SPDT and 3PDT and is contactless - using a break beam sensor and magnetic relay. Mechanical & electric failure is minimum 10 million switches but we've tested over 22 million switches to failure."
Controls - Volume, Tone (See-Saw EQ), Dry>Wet Mix, Fuzz Saturation, MODE : Fuzz - Standard / Latching [orange] | Fuzz- Momentary Octave [green] | Fuzz - Momentary Bypass [cyan] | +Trem - Standard Division [magenta] | +Trem Custom Division [white], VOICE : Bright Tone [orange] | Fat Tone [cyan], Bypass / Fuzz Engage Footswitch, Analog Octave / +Tremolo Engage Footswitch, Expression / Tap Tempo socket on side.
The pedal takes standard Boss style 9V DC [-] power supply with 100mA current draw - an isolated power supply is required!
The left footswitch essentially engages the core Fuzz Effect - and depending on which 'MODE' you've selected on that left-hand Mode push-button - if either of the +Trem options are selected - then the Octave footswitch will engage that modulation - as it's actually a modulation of the Octave - hence 'Octapulse'! [short hand for octave-pulse].
So the left-hand footswitch is the Core Fuzz, and the right-hand footswitch is static or modulated Octave, depending on Mode!
There are several Advanced Features on the pedal - including a Factory Reset function, Momentary Octave Mode Polarity (Octave always on!), Momentary Bypass Mode Polarity (Default on - footswitch then Bypasses when pressed), then Custom Division Mode (white), and finally External Footswitch Octave Mimic (EXP connected footswitch controls Octave).
I'm a huge fan of the TremFuzz format - which this undeniably is - albeit a somewhat advanced take on that. I'm not aware of one prior to this which had an upper octave in the mix - and certainly not this flavour of 'Octapulse' Tremolo Vibrato.
Up to this point my TremFuzz Champion has been Chase Bliss / Abracadabra Audio's Ayahuasca - which has a choppier version of the Gravitas Tremolo combined with the Wee Beaver Regulus VII Silicon Fuzz. Other favourites include the Catalinbread Antichthon and Subdecay Harmonic Antagonizer. Will be cool to see how the more feature-rich Rise & Shine compares with those when it lands / gets delivered early next year.
For anyone wanting to get their hands on a Rise & Shine TremFuzz - they are available for preorder on the Stone Deaf FX Webstore - with an MAP / RRP of $285 / €300 / £265 respectively. And should be appearing imminently for order also at the usual select international dealers. These will be shipped out early in the new year - around NAMM / January is the current target.
I've been nudging Luke for years to build more compact and pedalboard-friendly varieties of his pedals. And this new platform is exactly what the Doctor ordered! I really love everything about this new pedal - now just the matter of getting one in for the reference collection!
How do you all feel about this new departure for Stone Deaf - are you as excited about this format and its potential as I am? Custom knobs always get a big like from me - as do enamel-based artworks! Looks like a winner to me!
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