The Catalinbread Bitters Multi-Effects Modulation Pedal is a reimagining of the hyper-deranged multi-fx processor, the Alesis Bitrman. Featuring knobs for Distortion, Phaser, and one of four choosable sound manglers, you can dial in everything from a lush chorus to a crushing barrage of noise. A handy Mix control reins in the mayhem, making for a unique soundscaping tool perfect for the pedalboard or mixing desk. The Bitters distills the madness of the Bitrman circuit, fixing up the original’s shortcomings and trimming the fat to deliver an infinitely more usable version. Occupying the darkest corner of the soundscaping realm, the Bitters will give you lush, usable effects or completely render your signal into a puddle of digital mess. Just like the original, the Bitters pairs just as well with synths, drum machines, and DAWs as it does with electric guitar and bass. And since the original didn’t have a mix control of any kind, the Bitters is infinitely more usable than the original ever was. The Bitters is essentially a multi-effects device on steroids, giving you individual knobs for distortion and phaser, along with a third user-selectable program called ‘Bitters.’ This program can be one of four different effects: Decimator, Bitcrusher, Frequency Modulation, and Ring Modulation. These three effects are run in series, but you can reverse the order such that Bitters comes first for some complete sonic mayhem.
Controls
Distort imparts a tastefully appointed and harmonically-rich digital distortion whose gain increases as the knob is turned up. When down, the distortion circuit is removed from the signal path. Sorely missed in the original, the Mix control lets you blend your pre-Bitters signal in with the output of the Bitters. Turn the control down to hear just your dry signal, and turn all the way up for full wet. The function of the Bitters knob is mode dependent, and you can select one of four different programs, listed below. Turning this knob to zero removes it from the signal path. Each program is listed twice. This lets 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 programs is ‘Distortion - Phaser - Bitters’, while ‘less than’ means that the order is ‘Bitters - Phaser - Distortion’. Turning Dual up increases the speed of a deep sine-wave phase shifter. Like the original, this Phaser ranges from slow and syrupy to a lightning-fast 20Hz, beyond the limits of most phasers. Turning this knob down decreases the rate to 0Hz, which puts the phaser out of the circuit.
Program Wheel
Every manufacturer that tapped into the Decimator effect type had their name for sample rate reduction, and this is what Alesis called it. It samples your input signal and lowers that sample rate, which introduces Nyquist aliasing. Bitcrusher reduces the fidelity of the input signal down to one bit for some true digital destruction. Because this also introduces noise, Catalinbread applied a noise gate to keep it in check. Frequency Modulation, otherwise known as pitch vibrato, can be dialed down to a subtle warble (and use the mix control to get a killer chorus sound) or let ’er rip and tear the signal up as Alesis intended. Though it sounds like outer space noises, the humble ring modulator is a tremolo with an extremely fast modulation. This introduces additive and subtractive frequencies relative to the input signal and the carrier frequency. The Bitters accepts a center-negative DC power supply from 9 to 18 volts.