Synth pedals are a very interesting niche market, in particular now that note tracking systems have become super reliable and almost latency free. Pigtronix just released the second version of their flagship synth pedal, the Mothership 2, and there’s a lot of curiosity around it. Thos who live in the NYC area will be able to try at the 4th Brooklyn Synth Expo at Main Drag Music this weekend (October 28-29).
A lot smaller than the original Mothership beast it updates, this version fits in a compact case and retains most features of its predecessor, with velocity-sensitive pitch-tracking, three-voice analog synthesizer with oscillator hard sync and pitch modulation via portamento and CV / Expression control.
Here’s a description of the various controls directly from the manufacturer’s website:
The dashboard of the Mothership 2 contains five, custom-made dual-concentric potentiometers and a pair of toggle switches. The top row of controls provides individual level knobs for VCO (triangle wave) and Square wave voices as well as the original Clean guitar sound and a gut-busting Sub-octave Sine wave voice that can be removed from the main mix bus and sent to its own dedicated bass amplifier when the SUB output jack is used.
The middle row of controls provides Master Volume, Glide, Fine Tune and an adjustable Dynamics function that allows the player to adjust the “feel” of the synth’s amplitude tracking.
The bottom row of controls contains the three-way tuning switch with Unison, Octave Up, and Interval (Maj 3rd, 4th, 5th) presets as well as a new Sync function that slaves the VCO’s triangle and square wave oscillators to the input signal, creating a pitch-locked, unison sound with complex harmonics and overtones that can be modulated.
The Sync effect found in the Mothership 2 can be dialed in to create a staggering array of unique sounds using the Sweep and Timbre controls as well the on-board Glide function to achieve modulation and pitch effects that sweep from one note to another with adjustable timing. An optional expression pedal / CV input can also be used to modulate the VCO in parallel with the on-board knobs and Glide function, creating “Sync Sweep” effects from another planet.
Check out the video by Mike Hermans:
