Quebec-based pedal maker Fairfield Circuitry has built a solid following thanks of a line of stompboxes that’s at once stylishly minimalistic and inspiringly creative.
Today the company released not one but two pedals! The Long Life is in its essence an analog, parametric, resonant EQ channel with extra controls to saturate and dirty-up your tone, including an extra Gain stage. Its CV compatibility betrays its filter nature and the manufacturer’s interest in targeting synth lovers (modular-heads in particular), but the Long Life is actually extremely useful also for more subtle tone sculpting and boosting operations, in particular when stacked before other gain devices.
The filter curve is variable and can go from lo-pass to band-pass to high-pass by turning the Tilt knob. Q controls the resonance, which is the amount of boost applied to the frequency, selected via the Freq knob. Two 1/8 inch CV In connections on the top of the case allow external control of these two parameters, while an Expression In will let you plug in external rocking pedal for some old school wah fun.
Deceptively simple, the Fairfield Circuitry Long Life is a device that can wear many hats.
Here are the videos of it. We added this stompbox to our list of Best Pedals for Synths.
A state-variable filter with wide range and application. Versatile. Combining tilt and notch/boost equalization around a 2nd-order (-12dB/octave) state-variable core.
Very much a one-band parametric equalizer with gritty extras:
- Shelving filter, from low-pass to high-pass
- CV inputs for resonance (Q) and frequency (F)
- V/octave scaling synthesizer interface
- Fully variable Q goes well into tasty sweet self-oscillations
- Soft clip zener zesty mordant
- Expression pedal input controls center frequency
USES
- Flexible tone stack allowing for careful tuning of desired response
- Stacking before/after other pedals for dramatic emphasis/deemphasis
- With an expression pedal for wah-type debaucherie
- Standalone channel strip EQ for outboard processing
- Integrated with a modular synthesizer mindset, can act as a VCF and a VCO
- With external CV control such as sequencers and keyboards
