Tremolo pedals?

[Beech]

Hi folks.

Could anyone recommend a tremolo pedal that would mimic the tremolo section on a Fender Twin? I've had occasion to reamp guitar tracks but can't make the old fashioned trem. Thanks!

[Blast9]

My mate has a Demeter Tremulator. It sounds amazing, and it is adjustable too!

Demeter Reviews

[rob S]

i second that.
i really dig the demeter.
it doesn't get dark like a bunch of the other pedals do.

[84K]

3rds on the Demeter. It is a rip of the Diaz. R.I.P. Cesar. Great design.

[bongomania]

The Guyatone VTX "flip" tube tremolo and the Aramat "Tubular" tremolo are both fantastic vintage-voiced trems with the fattest throb I have ever heard.

[ColourSurround]

Have you guys used the Demeter Preamps, like the HXM-1 for example or their compressor? They seem like a solid company.

[MrVelvet]

Demeter is great, the Semaphore Tremolo has a little more vibe if wanted and is more felxible - but the Demeter gives you the Amp sound + Tremolo

[Ruudman]

I use this:
[IMG]******//www.empresseffects.com/images/tremolo/new_front.jpg[/IMG]

thumbsup

Ruudman

[TAVD]

Brown face = Demeter
Black face = CAE Supertrem
Most bang/ buck = Danelectro Tuna Melt

[doorknocker]

Originally Posted by Beech

Hi folks.

Could anyone recommend a tremolo pedal that would mimic the tremolo section on a Fender Twin? I've had occasion to reamp guitar tracks but can't make the old fashioned trem. Thanks!

I've tried various trem pedals over the years:

- Dano Tuna Melt: great bang-for-buck, small size and extremely affordable. Expect the jack plugs to wear out fast though. Great pedal for the price but lacking dimension if compared to a real Fender tube tremolo.

- Guyatone VT-X Tube Tremolo: A joke. Very good sound and pretty dimensional but the extreme hiss makes it unsuable to me. I thought mine was broken actually but I learned that it wasn't. Now hiss as say in an EH pedal isn't a problem and actually part of the sound but the Guyatone was ridiculous, especially considering the price.

- Electro Harmonix Pulsar: I like this one. Less an imitation of a Fender tremolo liek the others and for that more successful IMO. Think Pink Floyd's 'One of these days' intro, lots of 'psycho' sounds available. Not as dimensional as a real Fender tremolo but then nothing is.

I stopped using tremolo pedals since I've got a Fender Custom Vibrolux amp. The tremolo is magical and much like the reverb it stays dimensonal and transparent even at high settings, no doubt due to the tube stage involved.
While some pedals like the Pulsar are very useful in the 'special effects' departement. there's nothing that can approach a real Fender tube tremolo, period.

[HEADROOM]

Any opinions on the T -Rex Tremster? (danish company I think)
I heard some positive things about these......

I normally use the vib from my Vox ac30. It is not adjutable though, so I m thinking about getting a pedal too.....

[octatonic]

Voodoolab Tremelo is pretty cool, like all their pedals.

[ootle]

And I like it!!!

[hangman]

Originally Posted by doorknocker

I've tried various trem pedals over the years:

- Dano Tuna Melt: great bang-for-buck, small size and extremely affordable. Expect the jack plugs to wear out fast though. Great pedal for the price but lacking dimension if compared to a real Fender tube tremolo.

- Guyatone VT-X Tube Tremolo: A joke. Very good sound and pretty dimensional but the extreme hiss makes it unsuable to me. I thought mine was broken actually but I learned that it wasn't. Now hiss as say in an EH pedal isn't a problem and actually part of the sound but the Guyatone was ridiculous, especially considering the price.

- Electro Harmonix Pulsar: I like this one. Less an imitation of a Fender tremolo liek the others and for that more successful IMO. Think Pink Floyd's 'One of these days' intro, lots of 'psycho' sounds available. Not as dimensional as a real Fender tremolo but then nothing is.

I stopped using tremolo pedals since I've got a Fender Custom Vibrolux amp. The tremolo is magical and much like the reverb it stays dimensonal and transparent even at high settings, no doubt due to the tube stage involved.
While some pedals like the Pulsar are very useful in the 'special effects' departement. there's nothing that can approach a real Fender tube tremolo, period.

If the VT-X had more hiss than the tuna melt... it was broken. i've had mine for years, and never noticed anything other than standard quiet operation.
funny too, i worked at a guitar store when i bought it. I plugged it in to a fender Twin Reverb, and set the tremelos to similar rates and depths. EVERYONE liked the Flip better. its an amazing pedal. the stereo function is nice too.

[Messiah]

Electro Harmonix Wiggler covers a lot of Vib/Trem bases, and sounds superb to boot... valve too.

[doorknocker]

Originally Posted by hangman

If the VT-X had more hiss than the tuna melt... it was broken. i've had mine for years, and never noticed anything other than standard quiet operation.
funny too, i worked at a guitar store when i bought it. I plugged it in to a fender Twin Reverb, and set the tremelos to similar rates and depths. EVERYONE liked the Flip better. its an amazing pedal. the stereo function is nice too.

Well, mine was unusable and I heard others comment in a similar manner.

Obviously, there are differences between the respective tremolo sections of Fender amps too. YMMV, but for me nothing compares to a tremolo in a great Fender amp. Obviously the gain staging is different with a pedal and that is surely one reasonwhy I've never really liked the pedal emulations, the dynamics are always compromised. But then again, I also once had a Voodoo Lab Microvibe and didn't like it either.....

[Pasta4lnch]

Originally Posted by HEADROOM

Any opinions on the T -Rex Tremster? (danish company I think)
I heard some positive things about these......
.

I'm curious too . . . I recently bought a mudhoney and I can definitively say it's the most "useable" pedal I've ever bought!

FWIW I've been using the Guyatone VT3. small, cheap, simple and sounds pretty good . . .

[GuitarRuss]

I currently use the Dunlop Tremelo which has some fantastic features that I love. It splits your signal to two amps, which was fantastic when I was doing gigs with two amps. Especially in a smaller room, two amps really enabled me to be heard on all sides without bringing up the volume. The Dunlop has a stereo button so you can sweep from amp to amp kind of like a Leslie effect. At a slow speed it could sound kinda phasey like hendrix moving from one place to the other. At high speeds it had a cool b-3 organ type vibrato.

[IMG]******//guitargeek.com/gear/img/dunlop_tremolo.gif[/IMG]

Also, you can change the shape from round to square which is fantastic for getting cool sounds when I'm asked to sit in with a DJ for live Acid-Jazz/Triphop. With the square setting, it sounds like the sound is getting cut up. As well, if you have great timing, you can set it to just before square and then play a fraction of a second before the swell which gives you a wild volume effect. It's a lot more pronounced than using this effect with a normal tremolo.

It really has a compressed kind of sound that is great some of the time. It doesn't sound too vintage though. I've really gotten a lot of use out of this pedal although I don't like that it sucks some of my tone out, so I don't use it for a lot of gigs where I don't need trem and I currently don't have two amps. If you are looking for a vintage trem - other options are better, if you happen to like cool trippy effects and have two amps, this thing is amazing in that application.

[TML]

fulltone supa-trem
thumbsup

[chrispick]

I like the Voodoo Labs Tremolo.

[Screwdio]

I second the Wiggler. It's great. Can go super deep and super phat.

[Beech]

Whow, thanks for all the replies! I only just got notification of them. I thought the post was dead in the water. Anyway, it seems like there are some options ... I'll see what's available locally and demo a couple of them. I am using a Randall RM4 so its to go in front of that.

[ianb11]

i have also used the wiggler by EH. It is an amazing sounding tremolo pedal..... Infact, i plan on getting one myslef i liked it so much. It was very playable. The trem effect did not take away form the guitar parts, but rather added alot of depth to them. Gave the tracks a really spooky feel...

[theGeek]

Duncan Shape Shifter Tremolo is very nice and you can adjust it to just about any trem setting known to man.

[popvulture]

I second the Supa Trem. It's awesome - speed cut/double switch, hard/soft setting, real photocell tremolo. Awesome.

[travisbrown]

I haven't tried anything better than the Empress Tap Trem. It's what I bought after trying half a dozen others.

I also have a Peavey Valverb that is a little more "vintage" sounding, but it's a rackmount unit.

[Musiclab]

my favorite trem has been whats on my ac 30, but I got an eventide mod factory pedal and the tremolo is nice

[mrhenry76]

The best I tested are
- Catalin Bread Semaphore Tremolo ( very versatile and transparent )

- T. Rex Tremster ( very warm )

[DanRock101]

My Tremolo kicks ALL your Trems' butts!!!!! (wait, do Tremolos indeed have asses?!?!).....anyhow....for a gigging musician.....NO OTHER...but the GigFX Chopper.....yeah, just stop this thread now....move on..... KO! 10 count!

Again, if you're a GIGGING in the real world, you don't have the time to be adjusting your trem for each song. The Chopper speed/rate is controlled via it's pedal. This is a feature no one else has (The Fulltone does, but it's a vibrato, not a tremolo) and is SO necessary! To be able to change the speed per song makes this pedal indespensable! The ONLY adjust that you make with your hands are the different modes.

The "Chopper-Mode" is killer! Oh, did I mention you can use this in stereo!!!!!!! The GigFX Chopper IS the one! Check out their website for video & audio demos!

gig-fx Audio and Video Demos

OTHER TREMS I HAVE:
Now, having said that, the Demeter kicks butt for it's warmth & amp like "feel".

The Wiggler sounds tubey; sometimes it has a out of phasey overdriven sound when run hot! It's querkiness is what makes it cool!

The Empress is also awesome especially with it's accent-mode & tap feature.

WHAT I PLAN TO GET NEXT:
Red Witch! The lo-boosts seem like they would be very useful!

STAY AWAY FROM:
Boss Trem, YUCK!

[teleharmonium]

I'm not particularly fond of blackface Fender trem. My favorite amp trems are the complex circuits found on flagship amp designs in the early 60s and require at least two tubes and lots of parts; JMI Vox Vib-Trem, Fender Harmonic Vibrato (like on the larger brown face amps and on the blonde Bandmaster with the presence knob and no bright switch), and the trem on the bigger Ampeg and Gibson amps of that time. I also like some weird trems which aren't versatile but are perfect sometimes like the one in the Gibson later tweed and Crestline series.

As far as pedals, I tried a few and read about many more before getting a Catalinbread Semaphore. It sounds good and is versatile. The downside is that the knobs are very close together and they have such a huge range that a small bump makes a big difference in the results. So, I took all the knobs off the pots, which mostly took care of that issue. Sometimes I still move a pot with my foot when I'm trying to hit the switch. I think they do make a bigger version, which I would have gone with had I seen the small one in person before buying.