The Catalinbread Bitters Multi-Effects Modulation Pedal is areimagining of the hyper-deranged multi-fx processor, the Alesis Bitrman. Featuringknobs for Distortion, Phaser, and one of four choosable sound manglers, you candial in everything from a lush chorus to a crushing barrage of noise. A handyMix control reins in the mayhem, making for a unique soundscaping tool perfectfor the pedalboard or mixing desk. The Bitters distills the madness of theBitrman circuit, fixing up the original’s shortcomings and trimming the fat todeliver an infinitely more usable version. Occupying the darkest corner of thesoundscaping realm, the Bitters will give you lush, usable effects orcompletely render your signal into a puddle of digital mess. Just like theoriginal, the Bitters pairs just as well with synths, drum machines, and DAWsas it does with electric guitar and bass. And since the original didn’t have amix control of any kind, the Bitters is infinitely more usable than theoriginal ever was. The Bitters is essentially a multi-effects device onsteroids, giving you individual knobs for distortion and phaser, along with athird user-selectable program called ‘Bitters.’ This program can be one of fourdifferent effects: Decimator, Bitcrusher, Frequency Modulation, and RingModulation. These three effects are run in series, but you can reverse theorder such that Bitters comes first for some complete sonic mayhem.
Controls
Distort imparts a tastefully appointed and harmonically-rich digital distortionwhose gain increases as the knob is turned up. When down, the distortioncircuit is removed from the signal path. Sorely missed in the original, the Mixcontrol lets you blend your pre-Bitters signal in with the output of theBitters. Turn the control down to hear just your dry signal, and turn all theway up for full wet. The function of the Bitters knob is mode dependent, andyou can select one of four different programs, listed below. Turning this knobto zero removes it from the signal path. Each program is listed twice. Thislets you select the order in which these knobs occur in the signal path. The‘greater than’ symbol next to the program means that the order of the programsis ‘Distortion - Phaser - Bitters’, while ‘less than’ means that the order is‘Bitters - Phaser - Distortion’. Turning Dual up increases the speed of a deepsine-wave phase shifter. Like the original, this Phaser ranges from slow andsyrupy to a lightning-fast 20Hz, beyond the limits of most phasers. Turningthis knob down decreases the rate to 0Hz, which puts the phaser out of thecircuit.
Program Wheel
Every manufacturer that tapped into the Decimator effect type had their namefor sample rate reduction, and this is what Alesis called it. It samples yourinput signal and lowers that sample rate, which introduces Nyquist aliasing.Bitcrusher reduces the fidelity of the input signal down to one bit for sometrue digital destruction. Because this also introduces noise, Catalinbreadapplied a noise gate to keep it in check. Frequency Modulation, otherwise knownas pitch vibrato, can be dialed down to a subtle warble (and use the mixcontrol to get a killer chorus sound) or let ’er rip and tear the signal up asAlesis intended. Though it sounds like outer space noises, the humble ringmodulator is a tremolo with an extremely fast modulation. This introducesadditive and subtractive frequencies relative to the input signal and thecarrier frequency. The Bitters accepts a center-negative DC power supply from 9to 18 volts.