Xploration • Curation • Recommendation
Fairfield Circuitry's new Roger That FM Demodulating Distortion nicely underlines the current trend for Imperfection
Key Points
Fairfield Circuitry’s Roger That pedal recreates bad AM/FM radio reception and RFI/EMI modulation to add deliberate dissonance, noise, pop, crackle and squeal—part of a trend toward lo-fi, imperfect sounds.
Controls: Tune (scramble/distort, CV input), Shift (tracking accuracy/filter/interference), Drive (input gain), Wet, Dry, R (1 Standard / 2 Extended), F (voice filter On = 300Hz–3kHz / Off). Tune, Shift and Drive are highly interactive; Tune is very sensitive to micro-movements.
Features: FET pre-amp, FM/AM radio quality reducer, volatile/unpredictable distortion, true bypass. Listed at $389.00 CAD on Fairfield; As of the article, the price was £299.
As contemporary mainstream music output becomes ever more polished there is a growing trend towards dissonance and imperfections at the same time. We’ve seen a number of recent pedals with White Noise features and/or scramble type filters - that somewhat deliberately ’mess up’ your sound!
The recent Beautiful Noises Exploder is just one such example, and Fairfield Circuitry have somewhat carried that sort of thing forward with AM / FM Radio Frequency / RFI Modulation on their new Roger That pedal - so that it sounds like you’re getting a really bad reception of some faraway radio station.
Controls - Shift (Tracking Accuracy / Filter / Interference), Drive (Input Gain), Wet (Wet Level), Dry (Dry Level), R (Range) : 1 Standard / 2 Extended, F (Filter) : On (300Hz - 3kHz Voice Filter) / Off, T (Tune CV Input), Tune (Scramble / Distort).
The Tune, Shift and Drive controls are particularly interactive - and where the R gives you a slightly different register to play with.
You basically ’Tune’ in your dissonance, and further exaggerate that with the Shift and Drive controls - taking you from barely there artefacts and glitches to full-blown ’ugly’ distortion. Where ’ugly’ is the nature of the day really.
Supposedly the ’Tune’ knob in particular is incredibly sensitive - and micro-movements yield significant changes!
I’ve always referred to myself as a ’Noise Maker’ and this Roger That is exactly the sort of thing I go for.
It’s a touch pricy at $389.00 CAD on the Fairfield Circuitry Webstore - which translates to £299 at Andertons - where I will most likely get mine from - I have some loyalty points I can use to make it a little less painful on the wallet!
As always I would have preferred this in vertical orientation - but I’m actually pretty fine with it as is - and it is already earmarked for taking over the Goosoniqueworx Kult slot (#25). Will be cool to have that and the Beautiful Noises Exploder in the chain at the same time!
What about you dear readers - anyone else into imperfect and harsher sounds!?!
FEATURES :
- FET pre-amp
- CV on TUNE
RFI/EMI approximator - FM/AM radio quality reducer
- Volatile and unpredictable distortion
- Noise, pop, crackle and squeal generator
- True Bypass
Demos
