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EarthQuaker Devices Arpanoid Polyphonic Pitch Arpeggiator Guitar Effects Pedal

17 ratings | read 2 reviews

The first dedicated, compact polyphonic pitch arpeggiator effect pedal for electric guitar!

The Arpanoid takes whatever you play and transforms it into an adjustable ascending or descending scale. It features 8 intuitive and expandable modes and ...

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22 Artists Use This
Albert Hammond Jr

The EarthQuaker Devices Arpanoid is shown in this Tweet from Albert.
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Junkie XL

This pedal is also seen at 0:44 seconds
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Jonathan Hischke

at 1:40 you can see the EarthQuaker Devices Arpanoid
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Isaac Brock

Seen here on Isaac's board
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Greg Edwards

Greg with his recording pedals pictured featuring lots of Earthquaker pedals.
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Andy Summers

According to the Premier Guitar's interview, one of the pedals Summers is using is the Earthquaker Arpanoid.
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Jim Fairchild

Listed under "Currently Using" on Jim's official EQD artist page.
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Duncan Lloyd

Listed on Duncan's official EQD artist page.
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Neal Casal

In this photo on Catalinbread's instagram an Earthquaker Devices Arpanoid can be seen on Neal Casal's board.
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Andrew Whiteman

"[Earthquaker] also excel in the realm of the bizarre sound sculpting - the Bit Commander, Arpanoid, and Depths are personal faves."
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Gregg Foreman

Listed on Gregg's official EQD artist page.
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marissa paternoster

"Finally found out what all the fuss is about @earthquakerdev and it's a good fuss ????"
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Andy Othling

"I only played one note. Used the Micro POG to add an octave down to the signal, then froze it with the Superego. Then the Arpanoid gave us the slow, random arpeggiation (in mode 4, which is a major scale). Dry and wet signal were blended pretty equally. Then we used the Chase Bliss Warped Vinyl to warm up the signal (get rid of some of the harshness from the Superego) and add a little warble. And then the final touch is a 100% wet reverse reverb from the BigSky. I think it sounds pretty awesome. Could probably sit and listen for a while."
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Nick Reinhart

Nick has an EarthQuaker Devices Arpanoid facing sideways on this board for dates with Portugal, The Man
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Buzz Osborne

The Arpanoid has made its way onto King Buzzo's pedalboard
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Chelsea Wolfe

Seen on the photo
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Erick Hansel

For modulation, Erick uses the Depths, Sea Machine, Night Wire, and his secret weapon, the Arpanoid. “This is one of the craziest pedals,” he says. “I hit this on noise parts, and it does crazy sweeps with just one note. It’s pretty cool.”
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The GOASTT

"I sometimes throw other things on the board too, like the [EarthQuaker Devices] Arpanoid pedal, although that fucked everything up because I’d always switch it on by accident [laughs]."
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Sean Lennon

According to this article on Premier Guitar where all the gear he mentioned in the interview are written, this is one of his effects.
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Tim Lefebvre

Seen on his video
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Sarah Lipstate

In this photo uploaded by Sarah of his pedals forming a heart, you can see the EQD Arpanoid
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Geordie Greep

Can be seen in the photo of Geordie's pedalboard
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Details

Description

The first dedicated, compact polyphonic pitch arpeggiator effect pedal for electric guitar!

The Arpanoid takes whatever you play and transforms it into an adjustable ascending or descending scale. It features 8 intuitive and expandable modes and will work on complex chords as well as single notes in any key. The Arpanoid has an all analog dry signal, all digital wet signal and true-bypass switching.

Controls
Wet- Level control for the effect signal. Unity is around noon.
Dry- Level control for the dry signal. Unity is around noon.
Rate- Adjusts the speed of the sequence.
Step- Selects how many notes there are in the sequence which determines the overall feel and timing.
Toggle Switch- Controls the direction of the sequence. All the way left is up, the sequence will continually repeat going up. In the middle is up/down, the sequence will continually repeat going up then back down. All the way right is down, the signal will continually repeat going down.

Mode: 8-position selector switch to choose the octave and key:

1: Major: -1 octave to root.
2: Major: root to +1 octave.
3: Major: -1 octave through +1
4: Major: Random pattern
5: Minor: -1 octave to root.
6: Minor: root to +1 octave.
7: Minor: -1 octave through +1
8: Minor: Random pattern

Specifications

Transforms what you play into an adjustable ascending or descending scale
8 Intuitive and expandable modes
All analog dry signal
All digital wet signal
True-bypass switching

2 Reviews

cos_mozz

288

Craziness

Its weird but there's so much you can do just requires time and patience

+2

over 4 years ago
- 0 Comments
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moogbadger

1553

If I was a better guitarist...it'd get four or five stars!

Aside from the more famous Rainbow Machine, this is Earthquaker's weirdest pedal. It's a pitch arpeggiator capable of tracking chords. It takes whatever note you play into it and transforms it into an adjustable ascending or descending scale. That's right; you play a single 'C', and if you're in Mode 1, it will play a C major scale from -1 octave to the note you've played. If you're in Mode 6, it will play a C minor scale from the note you've played to one octave above. There are wet-dry controls, a rate knob for adjusting the speed through which the scale plays, a step knob for adjusting how many 'steps' of the scale are played, from 'one' to all of them, and a toggle switch for adjusting whether the scale plays up, down, or does a palindrome.

Now, this is all very well and it's totally amazing! The pitch tracking and the smoothness of the scale interpolations are very good indeed.

But...

Well, to be honest, this is a pedal for those of us who are really shit-hot at music theory. The sort of people who know which Phyrigian or Locrian mode goes with which diminished 19th or whatever. Most of us will want to play chords on our guitars, and things are pretty involved playing just one single note on this thing. Things get even more complex throwing in a fifth. Add a third and you'd better be pretty sure whether that's a minor or major third you've got there! And then...your song changes key...argghh....

So, I'm not saying this is a bad pedal. It isn't. It's extremely clever and it sounds good. But to get the most out of it, don't expect instant gratification. It's one for really just sitting down and experimenting with, and you might find that it only fits with one passage of one verse or whatever. It's similar to a frequency shifter in that respect; you could spend years trying to master this pedal!

One thing which could be better: I wish it had MIDI or CV inputs, or even just a tap tempo, so that you could lock the speed of the arp to a beat. So far, I've found that it gives a pleasing effect when the number of steps of the arp are low (say, 2), and the rate of stepping through fairly high. Used like this, the pedal can give you a really quirky and unusual sort of 'pitched tremolo' effect, especially when used with a delay to smear the pitch changes a bit. Also, when there's only one step, it becomes a good-quality octave pedal or simple pitch-shifter.

Andy from Pro Shop guitars makes it sound amazing in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-N_Ar3xfak

But he knows what he's doing, of course!

+1

about 2 years ago
- 0 Comments
- edited about 2 years ago
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