Montreal SolidGoldFX‘s fascination for Greek mythology is getting deeper with the release of the Athena Vibrophase – Athena being the daughter of Apollo, the god of Sun in ancient Greece and flagship phaser in SolidGoldFX’s world.
Athena was a kewl lady actually, goddess of war and wisdom but also handcraft, some kind of proto-feminist, nothing motherly about her!
The pedal inherited two stages from the Apollo for that “juicy, chewy swoosh with a little less brashness” and fine-tuned to sound more like a Uni-Vibe thanks to a certain dose of asymmetric tuning – hence the “vibraphase” subtitle.
Two toggle switches allow you to alter mode and color:
The Mode switch lets you change between different levels of blending to let a little or a lot of wet signal through. One mode position sets Athena to manual mode, where an optional expression pedal lets you manipulate the sweep of Athena without having to bow.
Color gives you three levels of oomph that push the Uni-Vibe character into overdrive, essentially giving you a high, medium and low amount of throb for some truly inspiring textures. Adding Athena to any of your solos or chordal work is an excellent idea, dredging up rich harmonics while generating serious spatial movement. It’s time to pay tribute to your tone.
Several videos of this pedal were published today, check them out below!
Athena; daughter of Zeus. She’s recognized as strong, yet merciful, she has at least some roots in music, having invented the aulos, a double-reeded flute-like instrument. She’s the goddess of wisdom, war, and in our case, handicraft. She’s also the half-sister of Apollo, which coincidentally shares its name with an awesome phaser we make.
Our Athena vibra-phase unit fittingly contains two of the four stages of the Apollo, giving you the juicy, chewy swoosh of our full-featured with a little less brashness and with tons of character to spare. However, like the goddess herself, Athena is much more than a simple feature set and design parameters.
Stop us if you’ve heard this one: A Uni-Vibe is essentially a souped up phaser. Well, yes and no. While they are topologically similar, the Uni-Vibe requires a little more fine tuning—asymmetric tuning in this case. Athena has all that. It’s perfectly voiced to hold court with the rest of your effects and your instrument’s natural tone. In short: It’s highly musical and dynamic, just like your playing.
Speed, depth, level—these come standard. But where the Athena really earns its keep is in its mode and color switches. The mode switch lets you change between different levels of blending to let a little or a lot of wet signal through. One mode position sets Athena to manual mode, where an optional expression pedal lets you manipulate the sweep of Athena without having to bow.
Color gives you three levels of oomph that push the Uni-Vibe character into overdrive, essentially giving you a high, medium and low amount of throb for some truly inspiring textures. Adding Athena to any of your solos or chordal work is an excellent idea, dredging up rich harmonics while generating serious spatial movement. It’s time to pay tribute to your tone.
