There are times when we receive a box in the mail here at the office, open it up and just say “WOW.” Today’s pedal did exactly that to us, in an awesome and slightly unnerving way. The Schumann PLL Analog Harmonizer from FTelettronica Pedals is an absolute beast, full of more options than any pedal probably should have, sending your signal into the far reaches of space and beyond. Taking the input, turning it into a square wave and then adding intervals might seem crazy and a bit confusing…but that’s just because it is.
Just take a look at this guy, and you’ll see what we mean: 4 footswitches, 14 control knobs, 2 octave mode selectors and 9 toggle switches make this one of, if not THE, most intense and insane effects we’ve had come through. And, in case you were curious, it is a big ball of fun, let us tell you that right now. If you’re looking for a nice, transparent, slightly distorted overdrive pedal, or maybe a cool octaver to add a little girth to your tone, or a wacky piece of gear to show off to your friends at practice – this is not it. This is something else all together.
The controls are VERY interactive with each other, making the Shumann PLL a truly exploratory and exciting unit. You can control each voice independently from others with the specific knob (Multiplier, Divider, Squarewave), and the Loop control let you decide how accurately it follows your playing. Tap that Drone switch, and the whole thing goes into oscillation territory. You can control the oscillation pitch with knob A when toggle switch 1 is in the Up position, with knobs A and B when it is in the center position and only by knob B when switch 1 is in the down position. The Swap Freq. gives you the same features with switch 2 and knobs C and D.
The Momentary section is something else altogether – the upper switches let you choose which voice control by the momentary action (Multiplier, Divider or both). The Interrupt/Enable switches let you choose what kind of action the Momentary switch will perform, independently for Multiplier and Divider voices. Holding down this footswitch gives you stutters, glitches, crazy octave stuff and more, all controllable by the aforementioned switches. The entire pedal is true bypass, but why would you want to turn it off in the first place?
Taking one note and turning it into a triad might seem fairly easy, but when you have the amount of options that the Schumann PLL Analog Harmonizer has, the word “easy” suddenly seems completely out of place. Not to be discouraging, by any means, but this is definitely an experimenter’s pedal, and not one for the easily frustrated or faint of heart. It’s also a difficult one to put into words, so we tried our damnedest to showcase a fraction of its capabilities in the demo video below. Be sure to check it out, as well as the FTelettronica Pedals’ website, for more info on this and all of their exotic creations. More reviews and demos from these guys on the way, so stay tuned…!!!
