4.
Resotron Back Story:
The voice of the Resotron is inspired by the Octave CAT synthesizer.
In 2012, I scored a vintage Octave CAT in mint condition on Craigslist
and was completely blown away by the bass tones I could get out of this
synth’s self-oscillating filter. Made in Long Island City, NY in the late
1970’s and powered by SSM2040 filter chips, the CAT’s low-pass filter
was capable of creating ultra-smooth sub bass tones when pushed into
self-oscillation. The CAT’s key-follow function allowed this powerful,
self-oscillating filter to be played in tune with the keyboard. It would
literally shake the entire Pigtronix factory, rivaling the sonic impact of
any instrument in my vast and evolving collection of vintage and new
synthesizers.
In 2017, when I began working with design engineer, Nick Cote we set
out to create the Resotron by utilizing the pitch-tracking technology
from our Mothership 2 pedal to control a network of currently avail-
able components arranged in a fashion that would effectively mimic
the sound and behavior of SSM2040 chip. We then added the Philoso-
pher’s Tone compressor in front of this 24db/octave multi-mode filter
engine to create a massive sounding pedal capable of musical envelope
filter effects that can be made to accurately follow single-note lines
played on any instrument, in real-time. The thoroughly bombastic
and out of control self-oscillation that can be achieved by turning the
PEAK knob up all the way was then tamed by adding a switchable
VCA which watches your input signal to set the output volume of the
synth. Mutron III inspired UP and DOWN modes were also added to
augment the signature pitch-following abilities found in the Pigtronix
Resotron.
I dreamed about making this pedal for years and I hope you
love it. David Koltai, 11/15/2018
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