Sooooo... now that we have you guys cornered...

[Gunner Recall]

Pretty please?

[TweedBassman]

[Blurillaz]

perhaps you're gonna make an 8-bit nes mario synth nes type pedal? *hint,hint*

[Ryan]

Well shucks guys, this is going to be kind of a disappointing thread..

Lately I've been updating pedals... new Cosmichorus in the works, added some Tremolessence and Frazz features, new pcb layouts and that kind of thing, but I haven't had any time to work on new designs... I couldn't say when there'll be a new Dr. Scientist pedal.

The problem Tanya and I are having is that we just can't keep up with our orders and all the aspects of running the business.. but we don't want to change anything about it, we love doing it all! So we have about an 8 month lead time with store orders and it keeps getting worse and worse even though we've been turning down new stores for months and stopped taking direct orders ages ago.

Our near future plans are to get control of our backlog by finding ways that can help save Tanya and I time without changing anything we think is special about our pedals.. so instead of new designs in the near future we're hoping to just have more pedals available to our retail partners. (We do around 70 pedals a month)

Should I put up some pics of the new style Tremolessence and Cosmichorus? I don't want to be all spam-like, but if you'd like to see the changes or what I spend time on instead of designing new stuff..

That's not to say I don't have ideas for new pedals.. I do! But our first priority is packing some more features into our existing pedals and focusing on keeping up with orders. (We know we should hire help but damnit, we're work rogues and we wanna do it all ourselves! *smile*

-Ryan

PS - Blurillaz, I love 8-bit NES sounds too... what kinds of synths or tone generators did they use for those sounds? Are there products out there today that specialize in that style?

PPS - :morestarwarsguysplease: :obiwan: :landocalrissian :rancor: :sarlacpit: :chokingpeoplewithmind: :thisguyisthatotherguysdad: :rogerroger: :cinnamonbunhead: :mybackpacksgotjets:

[Gunner Recall]

New trem and chorus features? You've offically got my attention

[Ryan]

Hi moringstaru! I'll put up some pictures then, in a few days if that's ok.. Tanya has to whip up a new chorus for me to get a nice shot of the insides and outsides of and then I'll put it up.

Mostly utility features like clean blends, treble controls, volume controls, just things to give some more flexibility. The new Cosmichorus is a pretty big departure from the old style though, it's basically a new chorus pedal but I couldn't come up with a better name for it. *smile* I'll show the pcb and everything when we have one ready here.

-Ryan

[Ryan]

No sweat, Mike! I'm happy to chat about the ins and outs of our business, we're a very small and personal operation.. we're an open book if you like!

We did get popular faster than we expected and we've never actually been caught up since we launched the website in the summer of 2006. Tanya and I do this as a lifestyle thing, not a get rich thing, so we're not really motivated to make millions of pedals... we just love doing what we do, making pedals and having our hands involved in all the steps. I don't even want anybody else to drill our boxes.. I like drilling them!

I made things worse for us in 2008 by agreeing to work with too many stores than we reasonably can at the moment... it's made our lead times really bad, and every time we start a new store order they double or triple their numbers and throw us off even more. (I'm not complaining or being negative, the demand is wonderful and we really appreciate it.. we just are having a hard time keeping up, most stores appreciate our situation and don't grind our gears about it.)

It's all part of the fun though, we're learning ways to be faster and smarter about building while still keeping the personal touches and I guarantee you that the day will come when there's a new Dr. Scientist pedal or two! Soon as our current line up is beyond perfect and our lead times are less than people's birthday times.

-Ryan

[Blurillaz]

PS - Blurillaz, I love 8-bit NES sounds too... what kinds of synths or tone generators did they use for those sounds? Are there products out there today that specialize in that style?

Dam, I don't know... No products I can find, and I've searched for a while... Maybe this copy and pasted article shall help. I'll ask about the tone generators and such on some video game forums or sumthing...

The NES board supported a total of five sound channels. These included two pulse wave channels of variable duty cycle (12.5%, 25%, 50% and 75%), with a volume control of sixteen levels, and hardware pitch bending supporting frequencies ranging from 54 Hz to 28 kHz. Additional channels included one fixed-volume triangle wave channel supporting frequencies from 27 Hz to 56 kHz, one sixteen-volume level white noise channel supporting two modes (by adjusting inputs on a linear feedback shift register) at sixteen preprogrammed frequencies, and one differential pulse-code modulation (DPCM) channel with six bits of range, using 1-bit delta encoding at sixteen preprogrammed sample rates from 4.2 kHz to 33.5 kHz. This final channel was also capable of playing standard pulse-code modulation (PCM) sound by writing individual 7-bit values at timed intervals

Yeah, It's from wikipedia.

[Gunner Recall]

I think we were just being greedy pedal whores...you guys already have an incredibly balanced lineup.
It is cool you are going back and tweaking the existing pedals to make them better.

I'm actually glad the new cosmichorus is of a different design...I was worried I'd have to sell mine off and pick up a new one.
But if they are very different I can justify having both

[Blurillaz]

Got some more info..

The square channel(s) have the ability to generate a square wave frequency in the range of 54.6 Hz to 12.4 KHz. It's key features are frequency sweep abilities, and output duty cycle adjustment.

The triangle wave channel has the ability to generate an output triangle wave with a resolution of 4-bits (16 steps), in the range of 27.3 Hz to 55.9 KHz. The key features this channel has is it's analog triangle wave output, and it's linear counter, which can be set to automatically disable the channel's sound after a certain period of time has gone by.

The noise channel is used for producing random frequencys, which results in a "noisey" sounding output. Output frequencys can range anywhere from 29.3 Hz to 447 KHz. It's key feature is it's pseudo- random number generator, which generates the random output frequencys heard by the channel.

[Ryan]

Awesome info there, Blurillaz, I wonder if out there in the unbelievably cool world of boutique synths there's a company making something that does those sounds...

Thanks again to you, morningstaru, much appreciated. My goal from the get-go was to cover lots of territory but I hadn't really thought about how little time I'd have to work on new things... and how my ideas of what makes a great pedal might change over time. I'm not sure if I ever really consider a circuit done.. they can change as my opinion of the best way of doing things can change.

I've definitely found that I consider some aspects more important now than I used to, or at least think differently about them...the Cosmichorus is a great example as I used to think it was ok for an effect like chorus to take some liberties with the overall tone or sound of the instrument. With the new version of the Cosmichorus I'm keeping the dry tone as true as possible to the bypassed tone. The old and new chorus pedals don't have a lot in common anymore, they're very different and I'll show you the insides of a new one in a couple days so you can see it compared to yours. And I'm really glad to hear you like your version too.. I think the version 1 style is really cool sounding and it's just a different style of chorus effect that I'm going for now.

We can chat more about it soon if you're still interested, I'm working on pcbs now and will be building a few over the next couple days.

Thanks again, guys!

-Ryan

[Ryan]

Hi Mike!

That volume issue was absolutely a priority with this re-visioning of the Cosmichorus.. volume and tone controls are now part of the deal, I think it's important for folks to have control over those aspects. I'm sorry your older version didn't work out for you!

I'm sending you an email now so we can chat about that further,

-Ryan