We love a good synthesizer pedal when they come through the shop, and we love the effects that Robert and the crew at Keeley Electronics put out, so the combination of both of these was a welcome announcement. The goal was to create a synth sound that took you from unnatural fuzz noises to pseudo-harmonic, random glitchy counterpoint, and boy, did they ever succeed. The Synth-1 Reverse Attack Fuzz Wave Generator lets you create unique, fuzzy synth waves with ease, propelling your sound into a completely new and original direction, or maybe dimension…
The controls are not too complicated, yet they can be maneuvered in many different ways to shape and sculpt the sounds coming from the Synth-1. Level sets the overall output level, while Blend lets you seamlessly mix the effect with your original dry signal. Attack is a volume swell control, one that ranges from 1500ms to 4ms, and is applied to both the wet and dry signals.
The Filter section comes next, with the main Filter knob controlling the cutoff frequency of the square waves. The freq sweep is the same, regardless of which mode you’re in ranging from 50Hz to 5000Hz. The modes you can select from are assignable via the Rocker switch, and consist of Square, Saw and Sine options. There’s an Expression pedal jack on the side as well, allowing for hands-free operation of the Filter control (see our demo below).
Finally, the Chaos switch gets nice and nasty, adding to the complexity of the Synth-1 by changing dimensional triggering and octaves. In Normal mode, it sounds similar to the classic Boss OC-2, using positive and negative peak detectors, but with more stability and consistency. In Chaos mode, the possibilities open up, using zero-cross detection to obtain octaves, harmonics, distortion and even a bit of flanging modulation. This control is fun, trust us.
We found some really useful settings, and some that were just plain out of control fun, during our delve into the Synth-1. One thing is for sure, though: Keeley Electronics really knows how to keep themselves on the forefront of the pedal market, with innovative and exciting new effects around every corner. Cheers to Robert and the team on another great creation – check out the demo below to hear it in action, you won’t want to miss this one!
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