Schumann
PLL

Brian Hamilton, smallsound/bigsound
Schumann Electronics PLL

One thing I appreciate about Brian Hamilton’s work at smallsound/bigsound is his capacity to surprise: In an industry where it seems five new effects companies appear each week with a new overdrive clone, Hamilton’s work—including his pitch-bending No Memory delay and Team Awesome Fuzz Machine—can delight and vex players looking for something different and unexpected. Because of this, I presumed the gear that has inspired Brian would be a bit wilder, with a broader scope of control than most traditional guitar effects.

While the Schumann Electronics PLL is described on the company’s website as an analog harmonizer that turns the input signal into a square wave with a multiplier and divider that adds intervals to your note, most players who play through one would describe it as the ultimate signal mangler and mutator—one where the dangerous textures of something like a Fuzz Factory might serve as a starting point. From there it can devolve into square waves completely devoid of pick attack—stuff that resembles a programmed Nine Inch Nails sequence—or into the kind of ragged polyphony and noisy collapse you’d hear in an ’80s arcade game like Missile Command, with descending laser-beam pitch glides and vocal roars as notes decay.

“Most players who play through one would describe it as the ultimate signal mangler and mutator—one where the dangerous textures of something like a Fuzz Factory might serve as a starting point.” — smallsound/bigsound’s Brian Hamilton

“I think we’re all used to certain effects where there’s a certain expectation of what’s going to happen when you play, and the controls seem to operate independently,” Brian begins. “Gain—that gives you more. Tone makes it bright or dark. Volume? That’s pretty self-explanatory. But with the PLL, everything seems interdependent and connected. You mess with the preamp, and that changes what you’ll want to do with the lag time, the tracking, or the multiplier. You have to figure out how things are connected and the balancing act involved in getting it right.”

While chatting about the PLL and how it influenced the way he thinks of sounds and his own designs, Brian said something that really stuck with me. “The PLL might have been the first effect I ever played that made me really consider what can happen after you play a note. I think before that—even with a lot of wild effects—there’s stuff you take for granted about how stuff will respond. The PLL kind of turns that on its head.”

Notes: The Schumann PLL Fuzz is a delightful concoction of vintage vibes and modern eccentricity, expertly blending square-wave fuzz with the octave madness and whimsicality of a phase-locked loop. Crafted in very small numbers in the back rooms of Main Drag Music in Brooklyn by an the eccentric innovator John Schumann this rare pedal eluded cloning for years even after he stopped making new pedals.

This is the pedal that got me rolling on PLL pedals (first on bass, then on guitar) and inspired a variety of clones and variations since then and eventually this very website.

The layout seems overwhelming but does a really solid job of providing meaningful and appropriate controls (not you CON switch) when working from the left to right. The left side starts with input volume and tracking details and moving right through the octave controls and finishing up with mixing controls that allow you to manage the fuzz wave shape and the ratio of outputs between fuzz, divide(octave down, multiplier(octave up) and finishing with a master volume.

The pedal also provides connectivity for three external ‘extension boxes’

• Momentary Switch - allowed turning on/off of selected octave signal.

• Drone - Instead of stopping when you stop playing, the DRONE oscillates at a note that you play, with a foot switch to turn it on and off. The drone function is a continuous sound generator that you can set to a specific pitch.

• Arpeggiator - No proof this ever existed.