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Catalinbread Valcoder

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Mid 60’s Valco-style dirty garage tremolo.

A tremolo with driveability

The Valco company of Chicago made amplifiers under their own name in addition to building amps for other companies such as Supro®, National, and Gretsch, to name a few. Most of these were lower powered amps with a great sounding natural tube breakup and many models also featured a unique sounding tube driven tremolo. It had a hypnotic throb and was also capable of hard, choppy tremolo. Combined with the breakup overdriven characteristics of the amplifier, it created a percussive, rhythmic pulse that is very inspiring to play. The Catalinbread Valcoder was designed to recreate the tube tremolo as well as the amplifier breakup of these vintage amplifiers. Separate input and output controls allow you to get anything from a clean tremolo sound all the way up to a gritty tube like breakup driving the tremolo circuit.

The Valcoder features an all discrete analog LFO circuit inspired by 60’s Valco tube tremolo. With the depth and rate knobs set lower, the result is a smooth, bubbling modulation that is especially seductive when playing complex chords in the neck position. Crank the DEPTH and RATE knobs for haunting pulses to hard rhythmic chop that adds tension and attitude particularly to distorted passages.

The Valcoder has a dynamic and responsive audio path (JFET based) that adds a bit of vintage tube amp style grit and slight compression to your sound. Increasing the INPUT knob pushes the front side of the circuit harder adding grit and a bit of compression. You can set the OUTPUT knob to adjust for unity or boosted signal.

The Valcoder can also function as a great edge-of-breakup booster. With the DEPTH knob all the way down, and the INPUT & OUTPUT knobs turned all the way up, you will get a warm, gritty 10dB boost. This can be used as an always-on element to fill out your sound or can be used when you need it to help leads punch through the mix.

The Valcoder can be run from 9 -18 volts. 9 volts will allow for more compression and grit with a softer pick attack. 18 volts will increase the output level and will be slightly cleaner and less compressed with a more immediate pick attack. The tremolo effect will be stronger and choppier at 18 volts.

Warranty & Returns

All New products are covered by the manufacturers new warranty. Please check their website for the length of warranty and warranty conditions. If an item you receive is faulty get in touch with us ASAP. Second Hand products come with a 4 week warranty from us. If there is an issue let us know ASAP! This covers normal use and does not cover accidental damage, misuse, wrong power plugged into it, modding, water damage or any other damage caused by mistreatment. Just treat it nice and all will be good!

Shipping

We send A LOT of packages every week so don't worry about the shipping side of things!

We've never lost a thing and your awesome new gear will be packed up really well to avoid any damage in transit.

If your order comes in before 2pm we will ship it same day. Most of the time we pack things up all the way to 4pm so just call if you need it to leave same day after 2pm.

We ship mainly with Australia Post but may use a courier depending on location and size of the package.

Free Post ships with Australia Post standard and expected shipping times are between 4-6 business days depending on location. It will be longer to outside of metro and rural areas.

Express Post will usually be with you next business day in metro areas of QLD, NSW, SA, VIC and TAS. WA will take 2 days to metro and extra days after that to out side metro and rural areas.

Everything we ship has a tracking number with the exception of some power cables and smaller envelope packages. You will be emailed tracking once your order has been shipped!

Videos

Mid 60’s Valco-style dirty garage tremolo.

A tremolo with driveability

The Valco company of Chicago made amplifiers under their own name in addition to building amps for other companies such as Supro®, National, and Gretsch, to name a few. Most of these were lower powered amps with a great sounding natural tube breakup and many models also featured a unique sounding tube driven tremolo. It had a hypnotic throb and was also capable of hard, choppy tremolo. Combined with the breakup overdriven characteristics of the amplifier, it created a percussive, rhythmic pulse that is very inspiring to play. The Catalinbread Valcoder was designed to recreate the tube tremolo as well as the amplifier breakup of these vintage amplifiers. Separate input and output controls allow you to get anything from a clean tremolo sound all the way up to a gritty tube like breakup driving the tremolo circuit.

The Valcoder features an all discrete analog LFO circuit inspired by 60’s Valco tube tremolo. With the depth and rate knobs set lower, the result is a smooth, bubbling modulation that is especially seductive when playing complex chords in the neck position. Crank the DEPTH and RATE knobs for haunting pulses to hard rhythmic chop that adds tension and attitude particularly to distorted passages.

The Valcoder has a dynamic and responsive audio path (JFET based) that adds a bit of vintage tube amp style grit and slight compression to your sound. Increasing the INPUT knob pushes the front side of the circuit harder adding grit and a bit of compression. You can set the OUTPUT knob to adjust for unity or boosted signal.

The Valcoder can also function as a great edge-of-breakup booster. With the DEPTH knob all the way down, and the INPUT & OUTPUT knobs turned all the way up, you will get a warm, gritty 10dB boost. This can be used as an always-on element to fill out your sound or can be used when you need it to help leads punch through the mix.

The Valcoder can be run from 9 -18 volts. 9 volts will allow for more compression and grit with a softer pick attack. 18 volts will increase the output level and will be slightly cleaner and less compressed with a more immediate pick attack. The tremolo effect will be stronger and choppier at 18 volts.

Warranty & Returns

All New products are covered by the manufacturers new warranty. Please check their website for the length of warranty and warranty conditions. If an item you receive is faulty get in touch with us ASAP. Second Hand products come with a 4 week warranty from us. If there is an issue let us know ASAP! This covers normal use and does not cover accidental damage, misuse, wrong power plugged into it, modding, water damage or any other damage caused by mistreatment. Just treat it nice and all will be good!

Shipping

We send A LOT of packages every week so don't worry about the shipping side of things!

We've never lost a thing and your awesome new gear will be packed up really well to avoid any damage in transit.

If your order comes in before 2pm we will ship it same day. Most of the time we pack things up all the way to 4pm so just call if you need it to leave same day after 2pm.

We ship mainly with Australia Post but may use a courier depending on location and size of the package.

Free Post ships with Australia Post standard and expected shipping times are between 4-6 business days depending on location. It will be longer to outside of metro and rural areas.

Express Post will usually be with you next business day in metro areas of QLD, NSW, SA, VIC and TAS. WA will take 2 days to metro and extra days after that to out side metro and rural areas.

Everything we ship has a tracking number with the exception of some power cables and smaller envelope packages. You will be emailed tracking once your order has been shipped!