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Noise Box & Liquid Sunshine
by Patrick Huddleson & James Egolf
Noise Box Harmonic Frequency Generator
There are many types of tone freaks in this
world. Some people love the vintage tones
from the days of yore. Some folks rely on
the newest or most expensive technology
to achieve that perfect tone. And then
there are those who want to explore new
sonic territories – or just make a bunch of
racket. If you fit into the latter category, the
SubDecay Noise Box is undoubtedly for you.
The Noise Box is an envelope sensitive
harmonic frequency generator. Beneath all
the noise, it features a fuzz tone with some
nicely subtle octave effects; on top of that is
the Frequency Generator, with various controls
for your sound mangling enjoyment.
The control knobs are Level, Voice, Sense,
Chaos, and Frequency. Level controls your
overall volume and the Voice control allows
you to select between two different “voicings,”
essentially frequencies/tones with
different characters. Dialing between the
voicings – set far left or right – rewards
you with different levels of frequency
filtering. The Sense knob controls how
much the input will affect the range of the
generator, while the Frequency knob sets
the resting pitch the frequency generator
will start from. And then there’s the
Chaos knob, arguably the coolest setting
on the pedal. This controls the attack, and
the farther you turn it, the less correctly
the pedal can track to keep the pitch. The
sounds created by the frequency generator
will become more random, depending how
far you push the Chaos knob.
So what do you get from all these
knobs? A ridiculous amount of different
sounds, that’s what. I was able
to dial in a diverse array of tones
with the Noise Box. On the tamer
side I was able to get a cool octave
fuzz with interesting overtones that
seemed to bounce off each other
with crackling breakup; on the more
extreme side I conjured up crazy
synth-like, 8-bit video game madness –
think Mega Man explosions. The Noise
Box is also sensitive to the input signal,
and depending on where you have
your instrument’s controls set, you
may be able to create completely different
sounds.
There are only a few nitpicky points to
make about this build: it’s a solid pedal, but
oddly the power supply input is located on
the side, which may or may not be a problem,
depending on your setup. Also, the
9V battery inside the pedal isn’t the most
secure, and you can feel it moving around when handling the pedal.
This pedal’s versatility makes for a wide
range of sounds, ranging from octave fuzziness
to sounds that’ll make dogs attack
their owners and cause dolphins to beach
themselves. For all you noise heads out
there, I strongly recommend adding this
pedal to your arsenal. To anyone else just
looking for some new inspiration, I suggest
checking it out and tweaking away.
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Liquid Sunshine Overdrive
In my effort to introduce the concept of
K.I.S.S. – keep it simple, stupid – into my
life, I tend to sidestep things that I sometimes
shouldn’t, product manuals being
one of them. I’m all for educating myself,
but given a choice between reading some
overly optimistic and over-manipulated
manufacturer specs or tossing a baseball
around with my kid, you can guess which
one wins out.
When the Liquid Sunshine arrived for a
review, I figured I could easily rock an
overdrive with one Volume and two Drive
knobs, mistakenly reckoning that it was
some sort of stackable overdrive. In this
case, the truth is ultimately so much cooler.
Volume is what one would assume,
handling the Liquid Sunshine’s level
duties, with the real fun starting whilst
fiddling with the two Drive knobs, located above one another to the right of the big Volume control.
The top Drive control affects the guitar’s full
frequency range, while the bottom boosts
the mid and high frequencies. It’s a really
clever way to eighty-six the need for a
dedicated tone control, while still providing
more-useful-than-you-could-imagine toneshaping
capabilities. From the factory, the
controls are voiced for guitarists wanting
some dirt for an amp they appreciate as-is.
The pedal’s voicing can be changed via
two internal dip switches – one for bass,
one for treble. Flipping up the treble switch
on the right gives the Liquid Sunshine
the ability to act as a more pronounced
treble booster by boosting, or cutting, high
frequencies at the pedal’s output, while
the bass switch – which boosts or cuts
bass frequencies to the Liquid Sunshine’s
input – at least to my ears, imparts a more
traditional overdrive tonality by adding just
a smidge of mid-range boxiness. It may be
just what’s needed to cut through certain
mixes, but it’s by no means anywhere near
Tube Screamer territory.
After putzing with all of the dip switch settings,
I ended up liking the factory settings
the best, and this is where I found it easiest
to coax truly inspirational tones. The Liquid
Sunshine made my amp sound like my amp,
simply cranked up louder than it actually
was, all while adding a touch of very useable
thickness to the lower mids. Sustain was on
par with a dimed tube-amp, with none of
that overly-compressed, nasal quality common
with traditionally designed ODs.
Another first for me was the Liquid
Sunshine’s ability to convincingly replicate a
cranked amp with the amp set completely
clean. I tend to not like the way overdrives
sound in this setting, preferring an OD in
front of an already-hard-working tube amp,
but the pedal performed exceedingly well,
making it an excellent choice for lower
volume gigs. Of course, running the Liquid
Sunshine in front of an amp that was
sweating a bit was in a word – glorious.
SubDecay set out to make something that
wasn’t your father’s overdrive, and has succeeded
admirably, offering up a pedal truly
worthy of any desert-island list, right after
the endless supply of beer and Adriana Lima.
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SubDecay Studios
Noise Box MSRP $159
Liquid Sunshine MSRP $149
subdecay.com
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