Design Philosophy
When I set out to design the Manx Loaghtan I knew I didn't want to slavishly clone the topology. I especially
had no interest in choosing a specific example in the lineage and simply groking that - then calling it a day. As I
saw it, there were too many opportunities to push this pedal forward rather than merely limit it to dwelling in
the past! The first thing I wanted to address was the tone control. The classic tone circuit is a shared bass/treble
balance control that always functions as a compromise between bright & thin or dark & fat. Unfortunately,
when you find that right balance of bass and treble you wind up with a midrange deficit that results in your
instrument getting lost in the mix. So I asked myself, why not separate the bass and treble into two controls?!
Enter the Manx Loaghtan's tone stack, a meticulously tuned Baxandall tone control! Many years ago when I first
studied the behavior of the Baxandall tone controls I knew it could be tuned to replicate the useful bass/treble
balance tone control sounds EXACTLY… But not only that, it also could be dialed in to provide a flat tonal
response, a boosted midrange, more extreme scooped midrange and treble/bass responses independent of
one another. Later in this manual I will give setting examples illustrating how the Baxandall works and the ben-
efits & applications of each setting.
After the tone stack was squared away the next thing I tackled was the SUSTAIN knob behavior. I wanted it to
have extra saturation when cranked and when dialed back I wanted it to have a great lower gain overdriven
crunch sound without being hashed, spitty, and under biased sounding. I
took a twofold approach to achieve this. Careful gain staging and a bit of
treble/midrange bypass on the Sustain pot. I will spare you the nerdy
specifics here! Basically it boils down to a Sustain knob that is extraordi-
narily flexible and remarkably wide ranged. In other words the Manx
Loaghtan can do low gain to high gain and everything in-between with-
out compromise! No joke!
Finally, I made sure this thing sounds GIANT, plenty of low end on tap
without getting flabby regardless of what you put in front of it. Seriously,
I stacked tons of other pedals into the Manx Loaghtan, and it just took the
abuse and mockingly asked for more.
Quick Start Guide
At first, I encourage you to try your Manx Loaghtan straight into your
amplifier without any other pedals. This gives you the best read of the
pedal itself and makes sure your instrument/amplifier system is in tip top
shape. You can use the Manx into any amp, clean or cranked, solidstate or
tube. Personally, I'd start out with a clean tube amp that has a reasonable
amount of headroom on tap. This insures you're able to get the most out
of the low frequencies that the pedal can put out. (Of course later on you
may find that you appreciate the woolliness resulting from running the
Manx into a cranked amp!)
