by dickens » Mon Mar 22, 2021 10:14 pm
I've only made a few comments on ILF, and two of them were for this pedal... It's just close to my heart. So I wanted to chip in my opinion on the V1/V2 differences.
Everything others have said rings true to me:
MODES
1. Hall: is way more natural and distinctive in V2. In V1, Hall mostly seemed like a neutral platform for adding interest with modulation and texture. I've recently adopted this setting fully wet with no decay, high clock, high AM/FM mod and a touch of texture as a dope modulation that makes me very excited for Falma V2.
2. Metal: is tamed significantly, without the wild volume jump etc. However... I find myself desiring something between V1 and V2 in terms of volatility. Metal in V2 has a sort of muffled tone, which is actually more mellow to my ears than hall—especially with tone rolled off how I like it. I like this mellow version, but it doesn't get that David Lynch vibe that V1 hit—although it was a little impractical.
3. Grain: so beautiful and so natural. Hard to go wrong with this mode imo. Every combination of settings sounds great. However, I would agree that some part of me misses the hard edged grain mode even though it wasn't really a reverb. Primarily, I liked how there was no chopping with the decay down, as this allowed for some interesting, on-the-fly changes to the pedal's behavior. Ultimately, V2 wins for me, though, as it is a reverb. It would be wild to have a way to somehow change the blurriness/hardness of the grains in the mode.
MOD KNOBS ETC.
1. Texture: it is more usable in V2. But, again, there was a volatility in V1 that wasn't quite practical, but was completely unique in its degradation. V2 texture is very balanced, but it's not usually a tone I want a lot of. Again, a part of me misses the ability to go wild with this.
2. AM: this is actually the only clear negative to V2. I deeply miss the AM of V1. There was nothing else like it. Somehow, random AM is more interesting to me than random FM. It's the most existential sound.
3. FM: it's certainly an improvement to not have the distorted little insects when this knob is active. Sometimes it was fun in V1, but the change makes sense.
4. Tone: lpf in V2 seems like the clear winner for this one.
5. Clock: so... maybe I'm just imagining things, but there were some very odd and beautiful types of degradation when changing clock settings with high texture in V1. I guess it adds to stability, but I don't find much destruction in turning this knob with infinite decay. Again, there is some volatility lacking in V2. I think this probably has more to do with texture than clock if I had to guess, but I don't know.
Overall: The signal to noise ratio was a killer for me with V1. I thought I didn't mind it, but then I heard the pedal in headphones and it wasn't workable. V2 is a much more stable and polished pedal. However, and this is a significant however, V1 did many strange things that feel a little too ironed out. The sacrifices mostly seem reasonable. Two things I wish there was a touch more of in V2 are a metal mode that has more of the unpredictability in its clang like V1 and, likewise, more explosiveness and degradation in texture—which happened largely in metal mode. The one thing I absolutely wish was different in V2 is that I wish it had the harder AM modulation of V1.
All things considered, I would agree that V2 is the pedal I'd choose. If polished in a few key ways, however, V1 might have edged ahead.