Flexible and rich with liquid-to-choppy textures, this analog tremolo is addictive fun and a potent tone-shaper.
Abundant textures of analog trem’ you can really get lost in. Intuitive. Rich modulations.
Costs just enough to sting.
$279
JAM Pedals Harmonious Monk mk.2
jampedals.com
The second iteration of JAM’s Harmonious Monk, a tremolo pedal designed with Dan and Mick from That Pedal Show, has a way of making hours disappear. It’s super fun, full of sounds you can swim or drown in, and, after a short time, quite intuitive to use. I’d be surprised to encounter a gigging musician that couldn’t cover 90 percent of their tremolo needs with the mk.2. For most, I suspect, the mk.2 will cover every need and then some.
My own tremolo predilections span on-off, stop-motion, Spacemen 3 throbs and liquid, subdued, wallflower modulations. The mk.2 covers both of those extremes. Its capacity for fine tuning via the pedal’s depth, speed, level, and mix knobs; square, sine, and reverse wave shapes; and amplitude- and harmonic-style trem’—plus a tap tempo switch—lend the mk. 2 a painterly, intuitive functionality. Exploration of the expansive range of modulation sounds here can be a pretty meditative exercise. But you can just as easily use it surgically, without disappearing down a rabbit hole.
There are cool new features on the mk.2. “Tap” and “ramp,” in one button, is probably the coolest of them. It enables you to set and switch between extreme speeds as well as set the rate of the ramp. It’s a crazy-cool way to build dramatic mood shifts and even whole riffs. Even the grumpiest stompbox skeptic would have fun with the mk.2. The fact that it’s so completely practical, too, is pure cream on top.
A positively luxurious stomp nails the liquid textures of brown-panel Deluxe bias tremolo.
Top-shelf quality. Immersive, liquid, trem' textures that meld seamlessly with guitar and amp tones. Elegantly simple but capable control set.
Expensive.
$430
Origin Effects Deluxe61 Bias Tremolo
origineffects.com
Editor's note: Deluxe61 Amp Tremolo & Drive is the updated name of the Origin Effects pedal that debuted under the name REVIVALTrem.
Some gear nerd debates get pretty pointless. Disputing the merits of different op-amps in two late-model RATs? Maybe that time would be better spent practicing. But tremolo circuits are another matter. The differences between bias, optical, and harmonic tremolo can be audible and profound. Each has its merits and champions. But in terms of soul and musical utility, it's hard to beat bias tremolo's soft, contoured pulses and mellow-to-throbbing range.
Origin Effects' all-analog Deluxe61 is based on the power tube bias tremolo from the brown-panel Fender Deluxe—a circuit many players regard as the silkiest ever built. Authentically reproducing such a circuit is no task for the timid. Then again, Origin made its name reproducing the topology and performance of the legendary UREI 1176 studio compressor in stompbox form. So it's no surprise they would tackle an effect so nuanced and full of sonic intangibles. What's impressive is how the Deluxe61 nails those elusive, intoxicating bias tremolo colors.
Wave-Riding Luxury Liner
If you love the sense of craft that goes missing in much modern technology, the Deluxe61 will be a treat. It's built almost absurdly well by stompbox standards. Ever wondered what the Rolls-Royce of pedals looks and feels like? This is certainly a contender.
A two-tiered circuit board accommodates the many high-quality components that make up the modulation and drive circuits. (The latter is derived from the company's excellent Revival Drive.) Soft-relay footswitches and jacks are all chassis-mounted independent of the circuit boards. The enclosure feels close to bulletproof. Clearly, the Deluxe61 was built for heavy touring and meant to be serviced in the unlikely event a component fails.
The control set is smart, logical, and simple in practice. Even the two footswitches, which cleverly enable operation of the drive channel independent of the tremolo, are thoughtfully situated toward the outboard reaches of the enclosure—reducing the risk of hitting both switches simultaneously.
There may be more radical tremolos, but few achieve such musical seamlessness.
Watery Wobbles
In some respects, it's easy to characterize the modulations the Deluxe61 produces. They're exceptionally smooth, liquid, and very dreamy. But they are also beguilingly complex. Some stronger settings subtly suggest pitch shifting and phasing without suffering the dynamic penalties those effects can incur—a remarkable bit of sonic trickery. A/B'd against the optical tremolo in a recent-vintage '65 Twin Reverb reissue, the Origin is clearly more complex and watery, its undulations less binary and harsh, and its effects on picking dynamics less intense. Compared to a near-50 year old Vibro Champ that utilizes a preamp-bias tremolo circuit, the Origin nails the very best of the vintage amp's sounds and responsiveness, but sounds richer and offers much more expansive fine-tuning range in the pots.
There are trade-offs for all this intoxicating aqueousness. The Deluxe61's most intense modulations might not be intense enough for players that like the hard pulses of a Vox Repeater circuit or the angular textures of an optical black-panel Fender tremolo. Nor does the Deluxe61 get as woozy as a Magnatone-style circuit (a harmonic tremolo to which brown-panel Deluxe tremolo is often likened). But the payoff is clarity and presence that makes nuanced, complex, and melodic musical passages sound perfectly interwoven with the modulations. There may be more radical tremolos, but few achieve such musical seamlessness.
Then there's the versatility afforded by the extra modulation and drive controls. The 3-position "multi" toggle significantly extends the range of the speed control, enabling super-fast flutters amp trem' can't deliver and giving expressive fodder to experimental tremolo fans. Another toggle activates a harder, almost triangle-shaped wave to generate more intense modulations. The post-drive EQ switch is invaluable for making the effect more subdued or pronounced when switching between dark and bright amps or pickups, but also offers a flatter-response option if you want to route directly to a recording interface or a desk. The drive channel, meanwhile, is delicious—generating sweet and malleable low-to mid-gain drive and body that you may never want to remove from your tone equation, tremolo or not.
The Verdict
The Deluxe61 is expensive at 430 bucks. But the quality is absolutely top shelf and the sounds are, too. What's more, you can enjoy the benefits of bias trem without the extra wear and tear that bias trem circuits inevitably inflict on your tubes. If you're on the fence, perhaps those cost savings can help justify luxuriating in this pedal's priceless tones.
Origin Effects Deluxe61 Tremolo & Drive Demo | First Look
[Updated 10/6/21]
A toneful trembler packed with vintage tics and new tricks.
RatingsPros:A wide range of tube-warmed tremolo sounds with a friendly control set. Cons: Might be a tad conservative for sonic buccaneers. Street: $199 Fender MTG Tube Tremolo fender.com | Tones:  Ease of Use:  Build/Design: Value:  |
When gospel-blues legend Pops Staples needed a backline amp, he always requested a Fender with “shake.” If Pops were still with us, he’d be able to get all the “shake” he needed—and more—with Fender’s MTG Tube Tremolo.
Like other Fender pedals I’ve encountered, the MTG honors the company’s heritage by dialing in the traditional sounds just right. But in this case it also explores the wilder side of the tremolo effect and offers control that no old-school amp can offer—thanks in large part to the highly flexible wave controls designed with Bruce Egnater.
Peek Inside the Box
There is, indeed, a tube inside this pedal’s ultra-sturdy 5" x 4" x 2" metal enclosure. It’s a tiny NOS 6025 preamp tube, made in the 1940s. Fender acquired a thousand of them when it bought Groove Tubes in the ’90s. So, naturally, the device requires a 9V power supply—especially because the perceived volume drops a little as tremolo intensity increases, and turning the level dial up compensates for the loss by raising the voltage fed to the tube. Cranking the level also works as a bit of a signal boost—but just a bit.
All four dials have LED position-markers that improve visibility on dark stages, but you can switch the lights off with a switch at the back of the pedal. This is increasingly a standard-issue feature on Fender pedals, and it’s a brilliant, genuinely useful idea.
Just as on a classic Fender amp, there are controls for tremolo speed and intensity. What is improved is the degree of precision the MTG’s speed knob provides. Handy markers for specific beat subdivisions—quarter note, dotted eighth note, quarter note triplet, eighth note, dotted sixteenth note, eighth note triplet, and sixteenth note—are listed around the speed dial, eliminating guesswork. Since there are no detents, you can set the knob anywhere between those spots, too. More personalized speed settings are possible via the tap tempo switch, and a flashing LED above the tap switch always pulses to the active tremolo tempo.
Outside the Box
Tremolo wave-shaping controls include a mode toggle and a wave dial. The latter blends or selects between available waves shape in a given mode, and together they can produce real magic—sculpting trem forms that run from languid, smooth, and soothing to the nattering blips of Martian radar. In toggle-up position, the mode switch moves through a triangle- to sine-, to square-wave range, providing traditional smooth textures as well as choppy effects. In the middle toggle position, the wave control spans sawtooth to triangle waves. In the down position the wave control governs pulse width for a hard square wave, which is great for stuttering effects.
The wave dial really expands the potential of each waveform. In the toggle’s up position, for example, 12 o’clock on the wave dial provides a creamy balance between smooth and choppy with more buttery and hard pulses at the two extremes. (I run through all three toggle settings at different wave dial positions in the demo video online.) The many pulse and wave shape variations can translate to surreal textures with other effects too: I had a blast setting the toggle in pulse-width terrain, cranking the wave dial all the way right, and passing the signal through a granular delay for a sound a lot like mice squeaking in Morse code.
Obviously, the MTG is not just about weirdness, Many players who use this pedal are likely looking for accurate traditional tones. And with my Stratocaster plugged into a clean Carr Vincent with the reverb on 3, the MTG Tube Tremolo was a ticket to the past. I found a wide variety of pretty and articulate tremolo sounds. My favorites included the gentle shimmers I got from a balance of triangle and square waves, as well as a eighth-note setting with the intensity that I crafted in honor of Pops Staples.
The Verdict
Both classicists and rebels will find textures to love in Fender’s super-easy-to-use, mid-priced MTG, which puts the company’s classic tube tremolo formulas—and more—in one convenient box.
Watch the Video Demo: