With the Deep Space Pulsar, the ever-clever David Rainger has stuffed an effective side-chaining device in a compact enclosure designed for performing guitarists. Like all Rainger effects, it can look and feel scarily unorthodox. But it’s a cost-effective and surprisingly straight-ahead means of achieving tightly sync’d ducking effects without MIDI. It’s so accommodating to lo-fi, lo-tech approaches, in fact, that it can be triggered by a microphone stuffed in a kick drum and wired right back to the pedal!
Tiny Purple Beat Slicer
David Rainger takes inventive approaches to interfacing with effects—and even the guitar itself—and his work often assumes that you’ll interact with your guitar in ways your music teacher didn’t cover. That aspect of Rainger’s design ethos is strong here. But Rainger’s ingenuity pays more practical dividends too—most notably in an effective, flexible control scheme that fits in a “mini” pedal enclosure.
The Pulsar’s two primary controls make the pedal feel a little like a mutant tremolo/phaser/compressor hybrid. The dip control changes the intensity of volume drops. The “rel” (release) control, meanwhile, regulates the rate with which volume returns to normal after the drop. A volume knob controls the output. But there’s also a cool inverse button that flips the relationship between the rhythmic pulse and your instrument so they hit simultaneously.
Ratings
Pros:
Clever compact interface. Inspires riffs and songwriting. Microphone input. Inverse side-chaining option.
Cons:
Dip and release controls can feel slightly vague.
Tones:
Ease of Use:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street:
$182
Rainger FX Deep Space Pulsar
raingerfx.com
On the top of the unit, just next to the I/O jacks, you’ll see a 1/8" jack that is key to making the Deep Space Pulsar work. It receives input from your rhythmic “controller,” which can be the included Igor tap tempo unit, a drum machine, or best of all, a microphone on a drum kit. It’s this latter trick that makes the Pulsar so accessible and full of possibilities as a live improvisational device. And it’s a cool flipside to the rigid side-chaining typically used in pop and EDM.
Parts That Pop
Though the control set is easy to grasp conceptually, most players will need time to adapt to the way it feels. Bold use of the effect means an inherent latency between what you play and what you hear, which will probably change the way you approach your parts rhythmically and dynamically. What’s cool is the way that limitation can make the Pulsar into a riff-writing conspirator—forcing unorthodox meters and rhythmic shifts that can transform simple melodies and chord changes.
The Deep Space Pulsar is good for much more than heavy-handed effects. I loved using fast release times and less intense volume dips, and then driving the effect with a drum machine or kick drum to create subtle, poly-rhythmic tremolo effects. It’s a trick that adds cool complexity and movement to chord patterns and works well with spacy reverbs and delays downstream. If you’re a fan of My Bloody Valentine’s dance/space pop hybrids, you’ll love this facet of the Pulsar’s personality.
The Verdict
The Deep Space Pulsar isn’t a pedal for minimalists. At the very least, you’ll need the tap tempo controller to make it work. And if you get hooked on the pedal’s potential—which is likely—you’ll almost certainly want to explore the possibilities of miking drums or syncing up to a drum machine via a cable splitter. On the other hand, the Rainger is brilliantly set up to do all this with a minimum of fuss and space. Given the potential sonic dividends and songwriting inspiration, it’s an avenue worth exploring for even the casually curious.
The Roland Space Echo is one of the coolest delays ever. It ran on an interior tape loop that looked like a hedgerow maze from above, and the hippest version—the RE-301—had two playback heads for sound-on-sound recording, so it could function as a looper, too.
One of the latest Space Echo homages, the Nu-X Tape Core Deluxe, is digital, but it convincingly performs some of the Space Echo’s best analog tricks. It’s easy it is to drive a signal into analog-style delay-feedback or use the repeat control transform the universe into a series of slapping oscillations plucked from This Island Earth. And by using an expression pedal with the Tape Core (not included), the magnitude of those oscillations becomes deliciously controllable and combustible.
Pros:
Sweet, clean Space Echo sounds with added tape head options at a fraction of the cost. Expression pedal utility rocks.
Cons:
Slightly noisy toggle. Only 40 seconds of looping. Fewer options than some modern tape delay simulations. Gobbles 9V batteries.
Tones:
Ease of Use:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street:
$99
Nu-X Tape Core Deluxe
nuxefx.com
From Basic to Batty
I love exploring a pedal’s capacity for weirdness, and the Nu-X offers a lot via its basic voices and a software editor that enables delay combinations. But there’s a lot to like about the Tape Core that’s less far out.
Let’s start here: It’s $99 versus the RE-301 I saw on eBay for $1,499. There’s also simplicity. The solidly built pedal comes in a cast-aluminum with one in and two output jacks for playing in sweet, dimensional stereo. There are four dials on top. Three are marked time, mix, and repeat—familiar to anybody who’s used a delay. The fourth has a graduated dial, marked for positions 1 through 7, and “SOS”. The SOS stands for sound-on-sound and provides 40 seconds of sonically accurate looping. But much of the Tape Core’s secret sauce is within those numeric settings.
The numeric settings represent virtual playback heads and various playback sequences. Settings 1, 2, and 3 correspond directly to the three heads on a Space Echo, providing the Tape Core’s shortest and longest delays, which range from 55 ms to 546 ms. The other settings use multi-repeats to fatten tones and lend hints of Echorec and Copicat-style delay colors. Mode 4 blends head 1 and 2, mode 5 blends 2 and 3, mode 6 blends 1 and 3, and mode 7 uses all three. Mode 4 provides a fat, singing tone. Popping a fuzz pedal in front of the Tape Core on 7 yielded sounds like Sam Andrews’ sinuous tone on Big Brother and the Holding Company’s Cheap Thrills. In general, though, the Nu-X’s tonality is brighter and sharper than a real Space Echo.
The Tape Core also has a toggle with normal, T-lock, and trails settings. On normal, delay trails end abruptly when the pedal is clicked off. T-lock is clumsiness insurance: If you bump a dial while playing, your setting is unaffected. The trails can be a little magical, enabling delay trails to continue to roll in diminishing waves, allowing for a cool psychedelic song finale and solo transitions. Alas, small switching sounds were occasionally audible while using the toggle. You should also use an adaptor, because the Tape Core eats 9V batteries like candy.
The Verdict
If you’re not into retro, the Nu-X Tape Core Deluxe may not be the delay/looper for you. But it is a cool, and very cheap, efficient way to incorporate the sounds of the legendary Space Echo into your own effects palette. By adding an expression pedal, those sounds are more controllable than ever.
Watch the Review Demo:
Tiny and Tough
The Dyna Comp was my first MXR box and, like many first-time MXR customers, I remember the sense of heft and brick-like solidity of that unit. The Mini is a lot less hefty, but it still feels as sturdy as stone.
The whole of the Dyna Comp Mini’s interior is taken up by a very streamlined and orderly printed circuit, which is dominated by the presence of a Intersil CA3080 “metal can” operational transonductance amplifier. This component was a fixture in the ’70s-vintage MXR Dyna Comp, the Ross Compressor that inspired it, and many boutique versions. MXR says they are using NOS versions of the component, and the Intersil website suggests it is no longer manufactured. Whatever MXR’s source, it would seem to be a finite supply for now.
Ratings
Pros:
Clean, transparent compression. Wide output range. Effective attack switch.
Cons:
Some players may miss heavier vintage-style coloration and squish.
Tones:
Ease of Use:
Build/Design:
Value:
$79
MXR Dyna Comp Mini
jimdunlop.com
Clean It Up
It’s hard to know exactly how much the CA3080 adds to the tonality of the Mini. But the Mini sounds different than most Dyna Comps I have used. In general, the Mini is cleaner, more transparent, less noisy (a big plus), and less ham-fistedly squishy than the older block Dyna Comps I have known.
For a lot of players, these improvements will be welcome. The Mini’s transparency and headroom are certainly assets when working with other effects. The Mini can also feel a little more dynamic than older Dyna Comps. And there’s no question it colors the intrinsic tone of your guitar less. Some players, like myself, may miss the overt squish and coloration from vintage models. It really comes down to whether you tend toward the musical artificiality of ’60s compression or cleaner, more transparent studio compression. There is no wrong answer, and personal preference—and the make-up of your rig—should be your guide.
One notable addition to the Mini is the attack button, which switches between slow and fast preset attack speeds. In slow attack mode, output from the MXR seems to bloom a little bit more. The fast mode is much more in your face and the output is hotter. There’s also a touch more sustain at the highest sensitivity levels (though sustain is excellent in both modes).
The Verdict
In any form, the Dyna Comp is the essence of pedal economy. In its new, more miniscule design, it economizes even further while adding a useful function via the attack switch. I suspect that most players will dig the greater clarity that the Mini brings to the party, though guitarists who like extra coloration in some vintage compressors might find this version a little too clean. No matter what side of that fence you’re on, it’s hard not to appreciate the miniature enclosure and equally diminutive price.