Red Panda Tensor Questions/Discussion

ansonsti

ansonsti

Nov 16, 2015
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#1
Hey TalkBass Effects Discussion,

Firstly, heres a link for your perusal Red Panda: Tensor

I'm about to pull the trigger on the Red Panda Tensor and have some questions. There's not much material out on this bad boy yet, and most of it is in the form of a sales pitch. Apparently its working pretty well because I'm pretty much sold on it. Thought I would toss this up into the TalkBass world. My board is mainly for bass but I also play banjo through the board (to great effect, no pun intended) and I'll likely be running some guitar and God knows what else through the board.

Assuming the reader has a baseline knowledge of the pedal, I'll jump in to my questions/concerns.

The pitch shifting effect is of great interest to me. Using an expression pedal, do you think this could take the place of a Whammy Pedal? I have been eyeing the Bass Whammy for awhile because of Wooten, etc, but am down to try something else. The tensor is much smaller and can do other things as well. I also follow Janek G, and his "baby elephant" tone. I wonder if I could approximate that with this bad boy as well. (can't remember his exact settings he uses with the Boss PS-3).

I also like the idea of tape stopping, or slowing things down/speeding things up. Juan from Pedals and Effects seemed to have some nice tricks up his sleeve when it came to using that live. He mentioned killing time between Mars Volta songs by using some sampler or something and doing a similar thing, that apparently the Tensor excels at.

Finally, the little looper (4 seconds or something I think, don't quote me on that) is of interest to me as well. I generally am avoidant of loopers for live use because by the time you lay out a part its liable to be off by just a little bit. But, with a functionality like that I feel like using it musically might be more achievable by using short phrases, and layering/modulating them.

So, now that it's in my cart and probably in the mail by the end of the day, where do I put it in my signal chain? I'll include a picture of my board in its (give or take) current state for reference. Pretty sure I can squeeze it in there in its current form but I may have to remove one of my higher draw pedals in order to sufficiently power, anyway, until I can get my act together on that front. (Walrus Phoenix only has a limited number of 300ma outs).

I'm thinking I'll want to put it at the end, for the time based stuff. But I generally have pitch shifting up towards the front of the signal chain.

What are your thoughts? Powerful and unique effect, or totally useless on bass?!

Any cool uses I'm leaving out you might care to enlighten me on?

IMG_0967.JPG
 
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#2
I know that this is an old thread, but there is not much on the Tensor here at TB and this seemed like the right thread to bring back for a discussion. I got a tensor a few weeks ago and have mixed feelings about it because I am not sure how I want to use it. I'd rather not be bending down twiddling knobs to change settings, but as of now there are a few things this pedal does that I'd like to use it for - many of which the OP describes. @ansonsti did you ever end up getting the Tensor? If so, how are you using it these days?

If you didn't or are not the OP but curious to the answers of OP's questions:
1. Pitch shifting is pretty cool. The way it works with the expression pedal is that when heel down it is largely unaffected and as you push the expression to toe down, the sound shifts towards the effect as you set it. I do not have a bass whammy or a pitch shifter, but was planning to get one (yep, I'm a Janek fan and I loop too and love the idea of high pitched voices to play over loops) and now I see that the Tensor does this just fine, but you have to have the pedal knobs set to support this pitch shift and that means if you use the other functions of the pedal, they too will have the pitch shift incorporated.

2. Tape stopping, slow down, reverse etc - again SUPER cool and with an expression pedal you can keep heel down and play and then push toe down to create a real time slow down even push it into reverse depending on how you have the pedal set. However you set it though...is how all functions will work so if you like being able to use an expression to get to reverse then your loops will be reverse. If you like using the expression for tape stop then loops won't play since they will be in the stopped position.

3. The looper is also cool, but again, depending on how you have the pedal set...your loops will be affected by all the other settings. I have found it is great fun to leverage it with the momentary side of the pedal to create chirping ambient tricklings where you record a loop and it is played back fast and at a high pitch (this also supports the pitch shift settings). I don't think that this is the right pedal to leverage if you are looking at looping what you just played since your loops are so affected. If you use it as a straight up looper, you are essentially paying $300 for something that can be had for less than $100 in a ditto looper.

4. As far as signal chain, I have it towards the end of mine for now as I want it to be applied to my entire signal.

*** One bad thing I noticed about the pedal in general is that when twiddling knobs and having an expression pedal plugged in, the pedal does not just re-adapt itself to the new settings. Depending on how you had things set and what might be in the buffer you may occasionally get a slight chorus of a detune when you should be in perfect normal position, having the heel down w the expression pedal. The sonic mayhem really depends on how the pedal was set and what you changed the settings to. I haven't fully gotten my head around it all yet and am still learning.

To other Tensor owners out there, how are you using it? I mostly got it for the slow down and real time reverse playing, but now have fallen in love with the pitch shift. My main issue is that I want to use the pedal for several applications which requires knob twiddling since a pitch shift is essentially the opposite settings as being able to play in reverse. Twiddling knobs on the fly has lead to unexpected sonic results (as seen in the various demos), but I'd like to be able to switch settings without having those unexpected results. More experimentation is required. I have found that watching the various video demos and trying out what they do has been a really helpful way to learn the pedal.
 
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#5
I have one preordered and just waiting on a new batch. I’m very excited about it and plan on getting weird for a long while when it arrives. I’m also unsure of how practical and useful it will be, but excited nonetheless. If I like what I hear, I plan on getting the remote switch as well. Apparently it will have several functions, including a more traditional DL4 style looper mode that may toggle back between a neutral setting and current knob settings (I think that is how I understood it).
I have a Count to 5 and I’m just guessing the tensor has some of that mojo but also way more.
 
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#6
BigBoyPete said:
I have one preordered and just waiting on a new batch. I’m very excited about it and plan on getting weird for a long while when it arrives. I’m also unsure of how practical and useful it will be, but excited nonetheless. If I like what I hear, I plan on getting the remote switch as well. Apparently it will have several functions, including a more traditional DL4 style looper mode that may toggle back between a neutral setting and current knob settings (I think that is how I understood it).
I have a Count to 5 and I’m just guessing the tensor has some of that mojo but also way more.
Click to expand...

GAS'ing hard for a count to 5. Do you know anyone that is selling the footswitch? I just found out about it. Having presets would be game changer.
 
#7
No, I don’t, I contacted Red Panda a week or 2 ago. They said they are busy with the new Particle MK2. But more Tensors are coming out in a few weeks and the footswitch may take a month or 2.
 
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#11
ugly_bassplayer said:
Only downside to those pedals is that you can't play bass and tweak them at the same time. I got some insane sounds with the particle
Click to expand...

I have long been waiting for something onboard that I can access while playing. I am not opposed to bending down and twiddling knobs in a live performance to achieve an end goal, but agreed...way less elegant. Expression pedals help and the promise of presets from a foot switch really opens this one up to be way more than a stomp box.
 
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#12
cosmicevan said:
I have long been waiting for something onboard that I can access while playing. I am not opposed to bending down and twiddling knobs in a live performance to achieve an end goal, but agreed...way less elegant. Expression pedals help and the promise of presets from a foot switch really opens this one up to be way more than a stomp box.
Click to expand...
Maybe raise it off the floor on a table qhile you play so it's easily accessible to tweak?

I REALLY want to check this pedal out (and the count to 5!!)
 
#13
emjazz said:
Maybe raise it off the floor on a table qhile you play so it's easily accessible to tweak?

I REALLY want to check this pedal out (and the count to 5!!)
Click to expand...

The remote switch should open things up for this. The manual has some great options but alas everything is out of stock everywhere. I feel fortunate to have grabbed this one when I did. Desperately ISO remote switch.
 
#16
Swimming Bird said:
V1.1 firmware update = fire. I wanted one of these badly before that dropped, now I need one.
Click to expand...

It changed how the pedal worked and now I have NO IDEA what I'm doing. At the moment, I have it doing some sort of weird high pitched backwards things. They also just posted a user manual with the update. Before that there was just the quickstart guide. I need to invest more time with it.
 
#17
So, it was a major update? Does it change the way you feel about the pedal? Hopefully it just expands on functionality and you can still get the same sounds and effects as before.
 
#18
BigBoyPete said:
So, it was a major update? Does it change the way you feel about the pedal? Hopefully it just expands on functionality and you can still get the same sounds and effects as before.
Click to expand...

Need more time with it. Basically it makes the pedal more reliable and do what it's supposed to do. Before, I'd click it on and it'd be in "normal" mode which should be the same as just dry and there would be a slight detuned chorus. That's gone, but the way I had learned the pedal to work, it now works differently.

It's a challenging pedal. When I first got it, I almost sold it immediately. I saw one sell at a discount and got nervous...and then I saw one sell for $100 above list so I decided to hold onto it and give it more time and fell in love.
This is going to be a journey. There will be updates and improvements and I'm down for the ride. At the very least, I'm down to wait until I can get that footswitch. That will really make this thing more of a key tool as opposed to a fun noise maker. Patience will be key as Red Panda is a pretty small operation and this is not necessarily their only priority. So far, so good...well worth the price of admission. I printed out the 30 page manual. After I read that over and spend some time, I'll report back.
 
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