Show & Tell: PigtroniX Mothership

This is the first pedal I’ve ever spent a lot of time with that was labeled ‘synthesizer’. I’ve come away from the experience wondering if it’s something I should just avoid. That said, I also had the chance to play around with it on guitar, and I felt it was much easier to get usable sounds out of it.

The pedal is really three parts, that can be used together or separately (to some extent). In order to use the ring mod or sub-octave solo, the VCO needs to either be turned down or have the wave set to the ‘off’ position. Some quick comments about each.

VCO
- The VCO by itself seems to be a little limited on bass with only a few sweet spots on the ‘tune’ knob.
- Glide is a little odd, and sometimes there seems to be no movement on anything other than the lowest settings
- Square wave seemed to track the instrument better.

Intelligent Ring Mod
- Works across the range
- Blend volumes (ring/clean/master) really make it super-usable
- Follows appropriately

Sub Octave
- Marginal bass tracking
- No note decay… it’s on or off.
- Not something to try and use by itself, but sounds pretty good when blended with VCO

I really like the idea and function of the intelligent ring mod, I dare-say if this was offered as a separate pedal I would buy it, because I love to add the atonal moo’ing without the hassle of tuning it in each time.

There are a lot of things going on in the PigtroniX Mothership, and anyone that dismisses it out-of-hand is being negligent. I’ve made a couple of statements about this pedal (of course now documented forever on the interwebs) that were harsh and dismissive. This pedal is not a toy, because it lacks the necessary simplify, those looking for one will find themselves disappointed. There are amazing sounds in here on bass, but finding them may take awhile… and then finding a place for them in your music.

The Muff:
Options
Intelligent ring mod
Separate volume for everything AND a master volume

The Rest:
VCO range somewhat limited on bass.
Sub-octave tracking & decay
Complicated (duh!)
Unique Power-Supply