Catalinbread Heliotrope
Catalinbread Heliotrope
Catalinbread have called this pedal a “Harmonic Pixelator”. When you hear this thing, it will be apparent why. This pedal takes your sound and devolves into a robotic tonal mess that ebbs and flows in and out of chaos and logic as you play. It is a lot of fun!
External Control: none
Cost: $$
HornFX Review
| Interface | Versatility | Clarity of Effect | Live Application | Total Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3/5 | 1.5/5 | 5/5 | 2/5 | 11.5/20 |
Complexity: Simple
Interface: 2.5/5
This pedal is not at all confusing to use. However the sounds it produce can be, which makes the pedal a bit intimidating at first. The interface allows you clear and simple control of some outlandish sounds. A preset would be nice so that you can dial in something specifically crazy and recall it.
Versatility: 1.5/5
There is not much this pedal can do outside of make your horn sound like one of a few different angry robots.
Clarity of Effect: 5/5
There is no doubt when this thing kicks in. There angry robot living inside this pedal is sprung forth in an undeniably brash and outspoken way when the pedal is turned on.
Live application: 2/5
If you want some electronic sounding fuzz, or some crazy robotic distortion, this is a great pedal for you. However, this may not get a whole lot of use on normal gigs.
The HI/LO switch switches the frequency range of the Heliotrope’s carrier frequency.
The SAMPLE RATE is the fine adjustment of the carrier frequency within the given range.
The RESOLUTION control determines the duty cycle or the ratio of on to off time of the Carrier Frequency. The effect of this control is somewhat like focusing the lens on a camera, you can make it as sharp or as blurry as you’d like.
VOLUME controls your overall output volume.
GAIN distorts and compresses the signal. You can get a decent amount of grit and fuzz out of it for more squarewave synthy type stuff.
Product info from the Catalinbread website