Slow Life
SLOW LIFE
You asked for it, you got it. My take on one of the rarest and most sought after Boss pedals - the Slow Gear.
The Slow Gear is an automatic volume swell effect. It mutes the signal normally, and once the signal level crosses a certain threshold it fades it in at a set rate.The resulting effect is similar to using a volume pedal, providing a violin-like “attackless” onset of the notes.
It takes some adjusting of both the attack and sensitivity controls to dial it in for the strength of your pickups, pick/finger attack, compression level, and other pedals in front of it. These two controls are highly interactive.
It’s a bit of a quirky circuit and may not have the range of more modern digital swell effects, but it’s a total classic and highly sought after for a reason. An all-analog pedal that can be a really useful tool in your toolbox, and just a lot of fun to play around with! Combine it with delay and reverb for huge ambient swells. Or create quick violin like staccato swells.
Modifications from original Boss Slow Gear:
- The biggest mod is that I put in a complete compressor circuit added in before the swell circuit. I stumbled across this idea by trying a compressor pedal in front of my Boss Slow Gear and noticed that it increased the sustain and smoothness of the swell. I also figured since you might not use the swell effect all the time, this gives you an excellent compressor to use on your pedalboard when not using the swell effect. Just turn up the sensitivity control all the way to disable the swell effect, and adjust the compression and volume knobs to use the Slow Life like a normal compressor pedal. I’m SUPER happy with the compressor circuit I put in here. It’s a diode compressor, inspired by the Rothwell Love Squeeze, a compressor designed simply to sound right with guitars, without any bizarre “pumping” effects and without much added noise. Low level signals can be raised by as much as 20dB without boosting high level signals, so when used in front of distortion - either in a pedal or an amp - leads lines can be fattened up without chords sending the distortion into mush.
- Range control added to increase the length of the attack over the original. The short swell speed is a common complaint from users and this is a fix that gives you a little longer swell times if desired. It works in combination with the Attack knob.
- Volume knob added to attenuate the volume added by turning up the compression.
- True Bypass switching. The original had BOSS’ buffered bypass that can affect your tone when the pedal is off.
Compress fully down, Range fully down and Volume fully up is a “stock” original vintage BOSS Slow Gear circuit.
Tip: using your fingers instead of a pick can really strengthen the intensity and smoothness of the auto swell effect.
- Uses a standard BOSS style 9V centre-negative power supply (no battery clip). Do not run any higher than 9V to prevent damage. Standard 100ma power supply will be more than enough.
- A silent relay switch system has been deployed. Quieter and longer lasting than standard mechanical pedal foot switches.
- Designed and built with love and attention in Vancouver Canada in small batches.
