Tavysh Effects' HARM Multi-Gain Machine combines EQ, Harmonics and Saturation for the ultimate 12 Degrees of Saturation Pedal
When I first glimpsed the HARM pedal - it very much appeared to me to be the full-fat embodiment of my ’12 Degrees of Saturation’ Methodology. Now that I’ve been road-testing it for 3 weeks, I can absolutely vouch for its potency, versatility, and prowess - its range of coverage is extraordinary!
This is the one compact pedal that can pretty much cover all your gain needs. That’s not to say it wholly accurately 100% replicates every gain pedal, while it most definitely gets well beyond the ballpark for most. For instance for my Phat Modded Blues Driver Settings - my original Boss pedal still has a little creamier delivery of its tones - while the overall feel and nature of the HARM tonality is nigh identical - with all that magical clean-up fully intact. So we’re not talking about wholly 100% replication - just getting unerringly close. We’d probably need a few more components and another couple of controls to near enough get all the way there - but it’s so close at the moment - that this really is all you need - you could just have an array of these to replicate all the different varieties of gain you need - from Clean Boost, to Pushed Saturation, Overdrive, Crunch, Fuzz and Octave Fuzz, Distortion and fully blistering balls-to-the-wall High Gain - this pedal covers them all - with aplomb! It’s also really super dynamic with great under-the-fingers feel and next level guitar volume gain cleanup.
There’s also some really clever things you can do by utilising the Gate and Overtone elements - with very low ’Drive’ settings. Actually - each one of those 6 control dials operates highly interactively - and the Volume knob adds a significant degree of gain and character too when cranked - so relatively tiny movements of each control can impact in a big way. While the dial-in is still fairly even-tempered - you just need to go slow and gentle as you seek out those various sweet-spots - as there are thousands to be found - and if you sweep the dials too fast you might overshoot some!
Ilya from Tavysh Effects has done a superb job on this pedal - and as he rightly says - the ’Overtones’ switch delivers the most incredible harmonic possibilities. You can deploy it subtly for added harmonics and zing, or go full fat Octave - with the Drive control Maxed out and the Overtone switch in the middle. It really pays to experiment with those controls - to see what impact they make at their various different strength values. Mostly those switches to the Left are Moderate (some!), and to the right they are fairly significant (lots!) - with the exception of the Overtone and Clipping ones!
So the starting point is really understanding the control topology and what each one of those elements represents and how it impacts. The enormous interactivity of each of those knobs - means that you’re typically having to tweak them in tandem.
To make it slightly easier to understand how everything interacts - I've split the topology into 4 different control segments per the above visual.
Your starting point is typically the yellow encircled controls of Gain, Volume, and Clipping Options - those are at the core of the circuit's Saturation elements along with the lower-left Mids Boost. You then have all the EQ controls in white - the Low Pass Filter Knob, High Pass Filter 3-way Switch, and Active Treble and Bass Knobs. And then finally in orange we have the main constituent parts of the Fuzz and Harmonics elements.
I would say you always apply the EQ last - set the Main Gain first, then the Fuzz / Overtone elements if required, and then the EQ section refines everything and delivers the exact tonality you're seeking.
So we have :
MAIN GAIN } Gain, Master Volume, Clip : Hard / Off [OpAmp] / Soft; MID BOOST } Boost : Min [some] / Off / Max [lots]; FUZZ / HARMONICS } Gate [Fuzz Character] : Some / Off / Lots, Overtone [Octave] : Some / Most / More, Drive / Fuzz / Overtone Gain; EQ } Filter [LPF], HPF : Some / Off / Lots, Active Treble, Active Bass.
You can see from the following sample settings below - that the range of this pedal is vast - and for higher gain applications you definitely need a noise gate - that's the only change I might recommend for this pedal is to have an internal noise-gate running off a single mini-knob - like how Licthlaerm does it on a couple of its pedals.
Otherwise the pedal is wholly perfect as is!
As mentioned - you kind of typically start off by deciding which gain structure / genre you want to target - that almost always involves setting up the Main Gain and Master settings first, and the degree of Mid Boost. If the voicing doesn't require any of the fuzz components - you can set all those to minimal values, and move straight on to the EQ-shaping side of things which is incredibly potent. In one way I was in two minds as to how to reference the Mid Boost - as that is not just a gain component - but has an inherent humped EQ curve that comes with it and makes it relevant to that category too. In the end I decided I should simply just separate that one out - while you could argue that it could be both a Yellow and White -specific control in accordance with those symbolic values.
For the recommended presets Ilya had prepared 11 suggestions - where I tweaked a couple of those, and added a slew of my own - to bring it up to 18 Settings Examples in total - which also just happened to fit in perfectly on my following visual! :
So I've split the 18 recommended Settings across 3 different 'sheets' as such - which are mostly sorted by the most appropriate category.
SETTINGS 1 - Fuzzes
- Tone Bender MKII - I would have liked to have gotten this a little softer, but it still sounds pretty grand!
- Classic 60's Fuzz - Classic 2-Transistor Fuzz Face
- Octavia Fuzz - Uper Octave Fuzz
- Hyper Fuzz - Boss FZ-2 style Super Fuzz
- Muff Fuzz - Sort of Russian Muff voicing - while you can tune it up in all 7 directions via the expansive EQ!
- Synth Fuzz - Really cool synthy style square wave fuzz
SETTINGS 2 - Overdrives & Distortions
- Screamer - Classic TS808
- Phat Blues Driver - Keeley Modded Boss BD-2 style output
- Dumble Drive - Harmonic Dumble ODS style 'Rock' voicing
- Ultra Distortion-1 - Keeley Modded Boss DS-1 Distortion
- Rat - Classic ProCo Rat style Distortion
- Heavy Metal - Boss HM-2 style High Gain
SETTINGS 3 - Mixed
- Harmonic Overdrive - Sort of Spaceman Aphelion / Greer Southland style voicing - but with my ow preferences
- Liquid Distortion - Smooth searing 80's singing lead line distortion
- Harmonic Distoriton - Textured Distortion loaded with richly coloured harmonics
- Chunky Metal - Fantastic beefy percussive metal tones - perfect for palm muting / chugging
- Broken Speaker - Torn raspy speaker sound
- Old Radio - Signal interference with radio frequency-like artefacts
Supreme All-Rounder Gain Machine
This is truly a fully 12 Degrees of Saturation pedal - just as the doctor ordered! - and that delivers in every area. As mentioned previously there will be component differences in certain pedals that produced slightly softer and creamier sounds - while the HARM pedal fully covers each of those 12 Degree sections with verve and nuance!
This pedals is kind of crying out for onboard presets - in a similar way to how the Kernom Ridge does it. While this is a fraction of the size of that pedal. I have the BYOC Crown Jewel and Chase Bliss Automatone Preamp MKII also - which are all fantastic full-range gain machines - while in some ways the HARM covers more ground in a somewhat neater fashion.
You might decry the lack of a Mid-Band EQ on this unit, but as mentioned the MID Boost adds that kind of impact - so you just deploy that in a slightly different way. Also with Active EQ's dialling those back accentuates the Mids frequencies - and you have enough volume on tap to cope will pretty much all eventualities.
I really can't speak more highly of this pedal - it's just beautifully smartly engineered for maximum impact. I'm quite happy to proclaim this as 'THE' 12 Degrees of Saturation Pedal. While it won't necessarily be for everyone - some patience and due diligence is required, while the dial-in is still relatively simple - but those controls are incredibly interactive and do still require a deft touch now and again. There will always be people who just prefer the simpler pedals - but for those who want more out of life - then the HARM pedal is the one to deliver more!
Its operation is like mixing up a special sauce or cocktail - you need to know when to add a dash of Overtones, or leave it out entirely. You can get some incredibly soft and smooth settings with this pedal - but the joy of it really is on the more textured and harmonic side.
The HARM goes for $249 on the Tavysh Effects Webstore - and for me it's so well worth it - a magnificent all-round gain machine for sure!
Demos
