Malekko Heavy Industry: Downer
/Summer is right around the corner, but you know things are heating up with Pedals and Effects! I've got nothing but mad love for Malekko, but young blood Nick has never played anything by them! I had Malekko send him their latest "Downer" pedal to see if he might get hooked on Malekko. The Diabolik (shouts out to Justin Meldal-Johnsen), the Scrutator, B:Assmaster, and now Eurorack stuff? Malekko is full of mad scientists that know their stuff, and they're all homies.
Photo credit: Malekko
The Malekko Downer is just as much a dirt/distortion type pedal as it is a synth, octave or filter pedal. The pedal itself is built onto three functions, "Wavefolding," Saturation, and pitch shifting. Without getting too much into the science of it, Wavefolding manipulates the type of waveform that your signal is generating, square/wave and effectively "folding" them onto each other. Controlled by a high and low pass filter, and the ability to pitch shift it down an octave (for subs!) and even a preamp for gain and you have a swiss army knife of experimental weirdness. There's an option for an expression pedal if you're into that too.
I absolutely love how on bass the Downer makes it sound like you're de-tuning your string. Shout out to Nordstrand audio and the Nordy mute! Throw that on your bass, instant Motown, throw the Downer on, and you got a bass synth. Despite being new to Malekko, Nick dives right in and even combines an Earthquaker Devices Rainbow Machine for extra craziness.
