NPD: Human Gear Animato by the Giglawer

gregmon79

gregmon79

Dec 20, 2012
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Chicago IL
#1
Hey all. So a while back, my buddy @giglawyer inquired and asked me if I would be interested in anything he was building. I said, sure!!! He named off a few builds he was doing, and I chose the human gear animato. I know this is nothing really new to most, but to me, it's new. Crowella and JohnK have both built clones, very nice ones too btw, as well as a few others.

Anyway, I remember wanting one but simply didn't time it right or have the money at the time. My eyes were set to other things too, I'll admit it ;) but when I had the chance to grab the animato from giglawyer, I figured I'd jump on it!

So, the animato he built is the stock pedal but with a blend. I don't usually go for blends, but I dig this one. It's sort darkglass'ish in nature. It does a really good job at blending the dist into the bass signal IMO. Of what I've heard of the demos of the other animatos, as well as the original, this thing is spot on. And it a beast of a pedal! I only got it a couple days ago and still need to field test it a bit. I'm at a gig right now actually and did sound check with it. It's pretty bad ass. Well, it's an animato, y'all know it. I'll be back later with more on performance. But so far, so gooooooooooo.....

On build quality, he did a fine job. He included an internal trim to control the gain so that's a plus. The blend probably saved this pedal (not the giglawyers rendition but the original circuit). Its gets very harsh (which I like) so having my bass signal in there it really adds that special something to the circuit IMO. But it's a solid pedal. And he followed the asthetic of the orginal which I really like as well. I dig the look. It's a little large but not that bad. Top mount jacks and power make that a little better. But this is a monster of a pedal!! It's so harsh and abrasive and nasty and lovely!!! But I'll have more to come y'all, stay tuned.

Overall, giglawyer did a phenomenal job on this pedal. Both aesthetically and build wise. For a guy who is a hobbyist, he does fine fine work. Props to the giglawyer :)

Here is the beauty

image.jpeg


Effected effect ;)

image.jpeg


So how are you animato users rockin yours!?!
 
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#4
So here's a little more. Trial by fire tonight. No practice first. No loud volumes first. Not played through my main rig at all. Just finished a gig. This thing KILLS and maims and slays. This is a serious dist box. It kept my low end tight as hell and it ripped straight through the mix. I can't wait to melt faces with it again next week. Dang.
 
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#8
I may need to find a way to fit this bad boy on my mother board. It's on my sister board at the moment. I think I'm gonna swap around the SUF son of bee and the animato tomorrow. I think I'll use the animato more often than the bee. But man that bee is pretty awesome too. I think I'm still gonna do it though.
 
#10
giglawyer said:
Glad to hear that you like it. It is really quite a unique pedal.
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It really is. It has this like stale kinda dry dist sound. Which isn't bad. It's just unique.


Anyway, here is a demo of the pedal. I apologize ahead of time for the quality of the recording. It's not horrible IMO but it's not anywhere near top of the line. I'm still planning on getting some kind of decent iPhone mic to record with. I don't want pro quality, just something that'll sound decent. Until then though, here it is all!!



This is really just me fiddling around with it. I didn't deviate too much on settings. I thought I'd get a nice sounding dist going so you guys could hear what it does with that blend.
 
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#17
JimmyM said:
Man, am I sorry I sold mine now!
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I'm glad I got to test this puppy in the fire. First day I plugged it in and really played it it was at a gig. I knew I liked it from that. But in the few days since, I've been playing it more and more, dialing it in, and I REALLY like this dirt box. I've said this before so take it for what it's worth, but I could see losing a couple other dirt pedals because of it. I mean, I've got 7 all together. Yeah, it's overkill. But I like dirt and like using it. I feel I can cover just about anything with what I have. But I don't use a couple of them enough and I may need to make room. Because I'm def getting that peavey dist. So when that happens I may have to shake things up a little and dump one at least. Maybe two. We'll see.


But man, the animato is ruthlessly awesome!! Thanks again @giglawyer, you sure do know how to build a raunch machine!
 
#18
So I've a little more to report on the animato.

I was worried about it feeding back like mad given its nature. Well, it really doesn't. I was quite surprised. I had the blend around 1 clock, dist around 230 or so and tone about 11. With all those set there, I cranked the output to almost noon and I didn't have any issues with it feeding back. I mean, I had to stand away from my amp and mute the strings of course, but it performs quite well at high volumes. The pedal is loud. I expected that though, tis the nature with high gain dist.

I wonder how this puppy would react to a gate built in to it.......hhmmmmmm
 
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