2NBTPD

Keefy

Two New Budget Tremolo Pedals Day!

After a couple of boutique-pedal-related disappointments, I decided to chance my arm (and a total of £70) on a pair of decidedly non-boutique pedals, namely a Marshall VT-1 Vibratrem and a Biyang TR-8 'Tonefancier' Tremolo.

Construction and circuitry

Both pedals come in substantial metal boxes with traditional stomp switches and chassis-mounted control knobs. The Marshall has similar footprint to a Boss compact pedal, whereas the Biyang is about 50% wider. On the inside, the Marshall's circuit is built on 3 circuit boards with a lot of connecting wires, and all the components are old-school through-board, albeit quite small. Normally this would make me wonder what mods I could do, but since no-one has published a schematic, I'll leave well alone. The Biyang has a mixture of through-board (electrolytic caps) and surface-mount (resistors and ICs). It is reputed to be a clone of the Boss TR-2, but having removed 8 screws and 2 jack socket nuts to get a look at the innards, I couldn't be bothered to undo 3 pots and a footswitch to try and confirm this.

Controls

Both pedals have knobs for speed/rate, depth, and wave/shape, the latter allowing the LFO to morph from sine wave to square wave. The Marshall also has a rotary switch to select VIB or TREM - more on this below.

Sounds

Both pedals lose a little clarity when engaged, but considering the radical alteration they bring about to the overall sound, that's not a minor issue. If you listen carefully you can also hear a tiny bit of clock noise from the Marshall, otherwise neither pedal adds much background noise, certainly not enough to be a problem live or when recording.

The Marshall's tremolo is initially rather over-intrusive, and it takes a while to dial in some pleasing sounds. The Vibe is quite different. Marshall's bumf claims they were trying to simulate a certain kind of amp tremolo, by which I think they mean the harmonic tremolo found on brown-face Fender amps. I can't hear any pitch-shifting such as you would get from the vibe option on a chorus pedal, or even on a Univibe clone. The effect is not as strong as some of the harmonic tremolo pedals that are now available, but it creates an effect ranging from a subtle shimmer to a pronounced vibe. Things seem quite dull when you turn it off. There are some unusable extremes, but plenty of usable sounds. It's worth noting that once you have a nice trem sound set up, switching to vibe won't necessarily sound good without adjusting the other controls.

The Biyang, on the other hand, instantly rewards with a lovely musical tremolo, pretty much however you set the controls. There is a small perceived volume drop, but not enough to be a problem.

Conclusion

I am putting both of these pedals onto boards. The Biyang is filling a hole in my 'country' board, and the Marshall (in vibe mode) on my battery-powered 'jam' board will be replacing a home-built Orange Squeezer clone. Whether they stand the test of time is another matter entirely!