Marc Christiansen's Tark Audio has perfected the PLL Format courtesy of its wondrous new Squidink Analog Octave Crusher pedal
I’ve been a significant fan of the PLL format over the years, and have compiled a couple of significant roundups over that time - Large PLL Devices originally, as well as more practical Compact and Medium PLL editions in a later selection.
Not mentioned in those articles are the monster Glou Glou Moutarde Four Voice PLL Synth, Acorn Amps ADHD, and Fjord Fuzz’s recent Lillebjørn. Some PLL pedals have a tendency to be extremely unruly and overly complicated - and it’s often tough to get proper usable musical output, while a number of the recent editions have innovated the format and simplified the circuit in several smart and useful ways.
Before the Squidink - I had acquired the Mantic FX Flex Pro, PedalPCB Mini Heterodyne Receiver, Beetronics Swarm, Mantic FX Jack White Flex, Acorn Amps ADHD, and Fjord Fuzz Lillebjørn, which makes my soon to arrive Squidink the 7th in that capsule collection. There’s a few more on my wishlist - including the Glowfly Glitchwave, and Idiotbox Lost Ark - I will probably park it for a while once I get to 10. There’s undoubtedly a few more out there that are still evading me - where Marc’s and my mutual friend Phil of Pedal Experiments - who did the excellent below demo - has suggested it’s probably time for another one of my PLL roundups!
In any case and onto the main subject matter - where Phil’s demo of the Squidink won me over in about 30 seconds flat. I immediately checked out Marc’s Tark Audio site - and loved the elegance of his ’Panels’ variant of Squidink - which beautifully sets out via clever colour-coded layout - exactly how his pedal works.
The below Waves edition of the pedal shows just how typically complex these pedals can be without the appropriate signposts.
I thought the Beetronics Swarm was fairly revolutionary in its day, and the Acorn ADHD more recently - while the Squidink ascends to another even higher level - surely the high watermark for that genre to date! It's so much easier to deploy than most others and to get proper usable and musical tones out of it - and yes you can go totally crazy too with it if you want to - while that combination of 5 knobs, 4 x toggle-switches and dual footswitches - is exactly what this format needs. It's quite evident that Marc is a genius systems engineer and hardware designer as his CV indicates, and the Squidink finely and definitively illustrates.
Readers will know that I have more than 600 fuzzes in my collection to date - while I'm rarely as excited about a new pedal as I am about this next evolution of the PLL.
I pretty much like everything about this device, and it's actually really decent value at its current asking price of $199, note that the Waves edition is even better value at $20 less - and while I'm sure its minimalist design will appeal to many - I think the smart money is definitely on the Panels variety. Both are of course available for orders right now on the Tark Audio Webstore.
I'm including the two most salient paragraphs from the manual below - as they will give the more technically minded all the detailed understanding they need for this circuit :
"The analog Multi-Octave Generator uses a Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) circuit to output signals that are -2, -1, +1, and +2 octaves away from the input signal. The low and high octave selection switches - select between the -2/-1, and +1/+2 octave sources, respectively. The OCT BLEND knob controls the mix ratio between the high and low octave sources. The mixed / blended octave signal is then fed through a Voltage Controlled Amplifier (VCA) that is modulated by the envelope of the input signal. This amplitude shaping helps to add articulation to the octave signal."
"The analog Multi-Octave circuit has multiple tracking options. In NORMAL mode, the TRACK knob and SLOW/FAST switch control the speed and character of the octave tracking. In WIGGLE mode, the octave signal portamentos to the target output frequency. The portamento time is controlled by the TRACK knob and SLOW/FAST switch. The octave signal can be enabled and disabled with the OCT footswitch. When the octave circuity is disabled, the MIX knob has no effect on the fuzz signal."
I've tried to include all those essential details in my infograph style of visual above and below - you should be able to understand most of what you need to from that visual.
In any case props to Marc for the superb engineering and overall pedal design, and to Phil at Pedal Experiments for the demo - those combined elements won me over in record time!
I think my friend Henry Kaiser is going to want one of these too - this will be right up his street!
Demos
12 Degrees of Saturation 2023 Compact Edition
