Description
The Recycle Box is an analog distortion pedal, with digital delay built-in, housed in one of our asymmetrical custom enclosures!
The distortion circuit is the same as in our Break Box pedal - which itself is based on our favourite overdrive circuit, combined with the back half of the distortion circuit from our Tonebender collaboration (the Freakenbender) with Colorsound - from a while back.
The enclosure is from our last Break Box pedal production run - hence the name!
The idea behind…
… the Recycle box was, to have a wild rattle-y echo momentarily available, easy to feedback - with a hard switch back to dry distortion when the big PAD was released... All broad strokes drama! The delay is actually a triple-tap delay, each ‘tap’ specifically timed - together to give exciting echo chaos!... The Recycle Box is not a shy pedal.
Recycling the Break Box enclosure meant we were constricted to that same number of controls we had before.
There are the usual three distortion section knobs, then two delay controls. Usually a delay has three; ‘Amount’, ‘Time’, and ‘Feedback’….
Which one to do without then?
We decided that feedback and delay time were the most important, so there’s no ‘amount’ knob here. On the Recycle Box this is fixed to ‘LOTS of echo’ - in line with the maximum attitude of this edgy pedal!
CONTROLS
Vol; This knob adjusts the overall volume of the pedal.
Tone; This knob adjusts the overall tone.
Gain; This knob adjusts the gain of the distortion.
Feedback; This large knob controls the amount of echo repeats when the echo is in use, going from three single multi-tap repeats up to runaway wild feedback.
Time; This changes the length of the delay - up to a 770ms maximum repeat length.
PAD FLIP; This pushbutton switch on the top end panel inverts the function of the big PAD - changing it from dry distortion with momentary delayed distortion, to delayed distortion with no delay when the PAD is pressed - so you can latch the delay on if you want.
The PAD; Use this non-latching switch to change the program from dry distortion, to echo distortion (or vice versa).
Main footswitch; This turns the pedal on and off. The Recycle Box is true bypass.
White LED; This shows the overall status of the pedal.
NOTE
The echo effect comes after the distortion… Clean digital repeats of a chunky clipped guitar sound.
The Recycle Box doesn’t have the chorus effect fade-in that the Break Box has.
The delayed distortion program actually includes a noise gate; Huge amounts of gain in an analog circuit right next to a clean echo effect can easily result in unwanted oscillation, so this is to combat that problem.
At Rainger FX we often use an attenuation ‘pad’ - to step down (decrease) a signal level. To stop confusion between that, and the big rubber pad that we also often use, we refer to the big rubber one in upper case letters… ‘PAD’
The pedal draws about 65mA.