Aimish of Diamond agreed to answer a few Questions for the Gang here at Tonefactor, We got some great answers and some FIRST EVER HEARD INFO…thats right Tonefactor brethren YOU WILL HERE IT HERE FIRST,
Also we got some cool pictures and a shot of the new Germanium boost Prototype and the MEMORY LANE JR.!!!! A GREAT time was had by all and again we find out that its just a bunch of guys looking for tone!!!
Catalinbread Formula No. 5 Released
Dateline: April 9th, 2010 Portland, OR
Announcing the release of the Catalinbread “Formula No. 5”!
If you’ve got the sickness for the tweed, we’ve got your cure!
The Catalinbread Formula No. 5 is our take on the vintage tweed sound – that clear buttery top end, stringy but slightly spongy and growly bottom, and greasy sizzling midrange.
The Formula No. 5 is extremely input sensitive, so you can grok a variety of gain flavors just by using your guitar’s volume control – set the Gain as high as you’d like and roll back a little for chunky rhythm or further for chimey cleans, or just lighten up your picking attack – it’s that responsive. The controls are simple – Volume, Gain , and Tone – and like the amps, are interactive. The range of gain available goes from a gritty bark with some serious bite to the raging cooking output transformer-style spongy sag. Balancing the Gain control with the Volume allows you to dial in the low end picking response from chunky to loose. The Tone control adds some sparkle and more grit or fattens up a thin sounding pickup. This simple but effective arrangement makes dialing it in with a variety of guitars easy as pie. We don’t trust people who don’t like pie.
There are a number of reasons why those old tweeds are so sought after and chief among them is their harmonic complexity when they’re cranked up – smack a chord and it blooms and seems to get bigger as it sustains, bend a string and it decays into layers of rich harmonic feedback. Running the pedal at 18vDC you’ll notice even more volume and low end thump, and when the Gain control is maxed you’ll swear your output transformer is melting. We nailed those hard to recreate characteristics in pedal form with the Formula No. 5 and still managed to keep the amp-like dynamics intact. If you’re an old school slide player who uses their fingers instead of a pick this pedal will floor you – the compression level is perfect for single note legato stuff but it still breathes when chording. Like the Rev says – “MERCY!”
We at Catalinbread have a deep love and respect for the vintage amp designs of the past – for a bunch of old guys basically throwing war surplus radio parts together, they sure cobbled together some pretty incredible sounds. In trying to recreate those sounds in a modern day pedal by emulating vintage glowing glass, straining iron, and barking speakers we grew to appreciate them even more. We’d like to think we did them justice in the Formula No. 5 and hope it inspires you as much as the journey back in time did us!
We recently spoke with guitarist Laura Pleasants from Georgia’s genre-bending KYLESA, about her gear, influences and what the future holds for the band. See what she has to say after the jump. (more…)
Here’s a first look at the upcoming Catalinbread Formula #5!
The Formula #5 is inspired by glorious Tweed Style amp tones of days gone by. They’re expected to drop around the 12th of April. You can reserve yours now by emailing brad@tonefactor.com !
