The effects that have come out of the Red Panda camp since their inception have been radical, unpredictable, exciting and pretty much game-changing for this industry. Their latest adventure into the sonic unknown gives us a tape delay like no other we’ve heard – time stretching, pitch shifting, loop sampling and intelligent randomization are the names of the game here, people. The Tensor is a wildly entertaining, experimental, mind-boggling effects machine, one that will flip your world upside down, spin it around and launch it into the great beyond…and that’s just the beginning…
There are a lot of controls and options on the Tensor, so let’s dive right in. Speed controls the realtime tape slowdown, with Stop at 12:00, and -100% and +100% fully CCW and CW, respectively. The Time knob sets the time stretch and compression, with no pitch shift. The ratios here, from CCW to CW, go 1:4, 1:2, 1:1, 2:1 and 4:1, are in increments over the course of the dial. The Pitch knob rolls through multiple increments again, this time ranging from -2 octaves up to +2 octaves, as well as changing the playback speed in Hold mode.
Blend mixes your wet and dry signals, while Rand sets the randomization amount, which reacts depending on the settings of all the other knobs (this one is fun!). The Hold footswitch mode is set by a small toggle switch, where you can choose from Overdub, Record or Next. The direction of the loop can be controlled as well, via a second toggle switch, with settings of Forward, Reverse or and alternating mode between the two. The Hold and On footswitches can be set to Momentary or Latching as well, for injecting pitch jumps, adding random glitchiness and stutters and more.
The Expression jack defaults to morphing between the current knob settings and normal playback, but can also be assignable to any of the knobs. 31 presets are available if you’re a MIDI guru (or by way of a remote switch), and there’s even a Kill Dry mode if you’re in need of such a thing. The Tensor just might be Red Panda’s most experimental pedal yet, and that’s certainly saying something, after the effects lineup they’ve released over the years. We tried to harness the power of this beast in the demo below, and hopefully you’ll get an inclining of what it is capable of, but you really have to test this one out for yourself to get the true gist and awesomeness of the Tensor. If you don’t know about their other pedals, check out the Red Panda website as well – it’ll blow your mind!
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