Updated review
It's come to the end of my time with the Artifakt, I want to thank @Quatschmacher for the kind loan and ability to try it for couple of weeks. It's been fun trying it and I've been left wondering how I can justify buying one!I'm going to try and compare it to other stuff I've had and own and, possibly because I'm not personally financially invested in the pedal will hopefully be objective and not overly positive and gushing about every single thing!
Summary
This pedal is brilliant and really fun. But for us bass players you need to realise that the "low-fi" tag is true, but also a way to make it easy to understand for guitar players. For us it's part multi-fx and part modular synth. The filter is worth the price of admission alone.Using the Pedal - what they've done right
I've owned a source audio C4 before, and while the sounds were killer it annoyed me slightly, with access to only 3 presets and 4 controls on the front face it felt so limited into what you could do. Basically I had it that it was set up and there was no adjustments in use, and I built a little midi switcher on a Adafruit trinket m0 which let me switch presets.With the Artifakt they have solved a lot of these issues for me - the extra controls, and ability to decide what they are make things flexible and tweakable, and the 16 presets plus 7 engines gives you 33 presets available from the front of the pedal. Enough for me.
It's made a massively usable pedal that's fun to use.
Fun
It's fun to use, that's the first thing as you're reading to take out of this.I work in design/marketing so allow me to put into my world.... The source audio brand feels more technical audio engineers and musicians making great effects pedals that sound great and try and squeeze the most out the technology. It's often easy to use initially but allows you to get increadibly complex if you want. There's a seriousness to what they do and feel more like tools than toys.
The Artifakt is kinda different, it's doing quirky sounds, it's accessiblity and it invites you to play and have fun. I can't imagine the SA would have done a humourous launch video dressed up like they were in the 1950s and mucking about - but they could have done.
As a multifx
So back to my suggestion - don't think this as a lo-fi pedal for bass, think of it as a multifx with a fixed order of bloack and then things that join it up.Will it replace your HX stomp's functionality? No. Can it do everything a H9 can? No. Will it do synth stuff like a C4? No. Is it freeform creativity (and hardwork) like a Zoia? No. Does it let you run 4 reverbs into each other like a MS70-cdr? No.
So what's the point?
It sounds great. Really really good, it might be my taste but I like the SA sound. I think all digital modellers have a sound, and recorded they sound great, but live you can feel the difference. Compared to it (all my very subjective opinion) the HX stuff sounds a little compressed, the H9 sounds extremely processed and polished and the MS70-cdr has tone sucking flatness (not tried the newer unit). All usable and good - but the Artifakt (and C4) feels raw and unapologetic.
So what are the blocks then? and for me they sit towards the end of a pedal train, after my preamp I use for an amp sound.
The blocks
lets get this out the way.I don't think I would ever use the Noise, Signal failure or Vinyl noise. If this is a failure of my creative imagination so be it, but for bass sending the sound of a cable randomly and periodically failing through the subs of a venue is a quick way of being asked to go do something else!
EQ - it works and EQs what you're doing
Glitch - was fun in presets but didn't play loads with it to form an opinion. It would be cool to work out a musical way to use it. There's some good presets of predictable glitches.
Destruction - nice, I like the way it didn't run away with gain levels, distortions were a nice thing, sample rate and quantiser too. Ring mod is an acquired taste I've not acquired but some patches sounded like bells which was cool. I mostly sat in the distortion section...
Delay/reverb/timebased had some lovely chorus in it, and flange and decent reverb. Reverb and delay can get really low fi and reflectiony. Everything is really tweakable and usable for bass. Only slight negative is if you use delay much there's only a short delay available. (I've seen somewhere 300ms quoted which would be about what a Bucket Brigade chip would do?)
Tremolo sounded like a tremolo
Ladder filter is killer and the main thing you will want to get this pedal for, it just sounds good.
Compressor worked and compressed, I didn't play much with it but the ability to but it before or after the blocks was nice
Old gear - if you want your bass to sound like it's coming through a vintage radio it will do this. But I imagine the times you would want to create "what did electric bass via my grans old phonogram sound" is fairly limited. For us this is a High Pass and Low pass filters block, and then multi band graphic EQ - I used to have a HX stomp and playing live didn't love the cab sims, and didn't love IRs as it all felt less immediate, so used to use a HF/LP filter and a bit of eq to make it sound a bit like a bass cab. This can do that. Subtractive EQ seemed to sound better than additive. But it's good.(and you might be able to set up the footswitch to change to your grans radio if you need that... )
Things that join it up - LFO and envelope
So my first play I switch the Ladder filter on and it filters and doesn't envelope... role my eyes "typical SA they stuck the envelope somewhere else" I think ... and scroll down and... there's loads of options. Find the filter control and the filter envelopes like you would expect.But then there's loads of places you can send the filter... and LFO - and this is where the Artifakt starts to get super interesting - that you can route things to change according to input signal and LFO - which opens up to all sorts of things in a really fun and accessible experimental type thing... last night I had some kind of pulsing fuzz thing that only became apparent it was pulsing when the filter (not envelope) closed. very cool.
Setting the controls
Making a patch is a two stage process.1 - what do I want it to sound like.
2- how do I want to interact with the controls to control this. A good example of this is there MuTron factory patch where the bandwidth sets the range in high low and medium like you would with a real mutron.
This is where the multifx comparison falls down as it's more like setting a new compact pedal per preset.... (though I think you can switch blocks off via midi if you wanted)
Comparisons to other things
This is where it gets super subjective and compares to what I own...I recently bought a PastFX PF101 filter - compared to that it's close tonally. Quatschmacher borrowed mine for a bit and there's his equivalent in the Neuro library. The Artifakt is obviously way way more flexible and can do multiple filter type sounds (and down) but lacks some of the analogue warmth of the PF101 and subtle musicality I've been dealing the PF101 for.
I've had a few chorus pedals, and a year or so ago Switched from a Tech21 bass boost chorus to a Providence Anadime - the Artifakt is an equal to both (without the detune chorus of the bass boost chorus), can do the low end filter of the Anadime, and because it doesnt' need to have the BBD low pass filtering out the clock noise it sounds brighter and more airy. There's also two versions of chorus which sound differnet. It's very nice. Anadime simpler to use...
Compared to the H9 I've currently got - I prefer the modulation and drive distortion sounds to it, H9 has more verb options but for a basic reverb for bass the Artifakt can do that in a low fi style, and delay the H9 can just do more. (plus pitch stuff)
Conclusion (AKA will I be buying one?)
If I hadn't bought the PF101 then defiantly - as it is I'm not sure - it would need to push something off my boardI moved away from my old HX stomp to a collection of analogue and DIY made pedals and one digital one doing the reverb type things - currently this is a H9. I find the H9 is be good but not perfect for bass and clearly designed for guitar, and for everything but the pitch stuff could replace it with the Artifakt... with the additional end of chain "cab style" eq which I used to use a Schalltechnik Vong for .... hmmm
Overall - ignore the Lo-fi tag us bass players should check the Artifakt out - it's fun.
