Analog Heat for as a guitar pedal

Elektron Gear Analog Heat
#1

hi folks

I’ve been thinking about buying Analog Drive pedal and almost bought one yesterday. But then I remembered that there’s also Heat and I’m now much more interested in it. I need the pedal for my proggy band to play live. My existing setup is laptop/and various guitar soft (guitar rig,helix,bias, helix etc) + Eventide H9. All software controlled via Behringer FCB1010 with UNO chip. For live gigs I to use my Analog Keys as an interface and I realized that I could replace it with much more portable Heat . I searched online for possible videos of humans playing guitars with Heat and found absolutely f@%k all. I know Heat is not a stomp box, but I hoped there’s at least one human who got the same idea. I searched here too, but somehow every time I hit the search button I get that “too many requests” error.

So my questions are;
1/ is anyone here who uses Heat as a guitar FX?
2/ are the distortion circuits absolutely identical to the ones on DRIVE?
3/ would I be able to control the Heat with my FCB1010?
4/ is it reliable as interface for live gigs?

Thanks!

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#2

I tried AH with guitar straight in. Interesting but AD is better for overdrives/distorsions.
EDIT : tried again, AH is less noisy, cleaner, and you can have really good distortions with it.
Different circuits apparently.
It can be used as a wah, total midi control (except Trigger).
Buy both!

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#3

I have the heat and have had the same thoughts, but I’m not in need of a guitar rig with varied distortion options so I haven’t pushed forward with it. I did go so far as to plug a guitar or two straight into the inputs and was very pleasantly surprised by the good sounds, enough so that I made a mental note that I’d push forward with a pedal board based on AH dirt in the future. Again, it being irrelevant for the stuff I’m working on currently, i didn’t spend much time on it and discover any potential limitations or problems…

I imagine going thru a good direct box first would be a good idea. But yeah - you’d have an amazingly flexible rig with the AH. And fully controllable with midi, your FCB just being the beginning. Think filter sweeps and crazy lfos on any number of parameters if you ever get into controlling things with ableton on your lap top. And yes, the AH should be virtually the same audio interface as your AKeys.

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#4

thanks… I’m surprised that those circuits are different. I thought if the distortions were decent for guitar use, it would be really cool to have the filter/lfo modulated via the FCB.

#5

I’m afraid that I might have to just buy AH and test it… and return it if it doesn’t suit my setup. Thanks

#6

Let us know how it works out. I’m probably 6 months behind you but I’m going to explore this in the future too. Please share your findings if you go this route!

#7

will do mate!

#8

re /4 – I found the Heat’s total latency to be too high for live gigging (guitar or keyboard) used as a USB interface. (I don’t remember what it was tho) So, I use a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 and run the Heat’s audio outputs into that, then into the computer, then out of the Scarlett and into the mixer for the times I’ve done this and get ~10ms latency with that setup which is fine to me.

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#9

that’s bad news… my AK’s latency is pretty bad too. thanks!

#10

thanks for the feedback.
It’s hard to find informations on circuits differences
Did you use a DI with the Analog Heat?
AH input are not designed for guitar impedance.

#11

Not at all, straight in heat, Max input. :slight_smile:
Better than AD for certain circuits, in same conditions. I prefer AH’s Round Fuzz than AD’s harmonic Fuzz.
I tried a booster LPB1, it was worse.
I’ll try with an Art Tube DI, not sure if it’s much better !

#12

I have used the Heat as a guitar pedal but not direct, I ran my guitar into a Vox Tonelab pedal first as it has stereo outs, then ran the output into the Heat to boost the signal and so I could use it in stereo. I had the Vox set to clean and used the distortion circuits on the Heat. It sounds awesome, I’ve very happy with it.

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#13

Frequency response of the signal can be very diffrent if the input impedance is not significantly higher than the source impedance.
thanks for the feedback, i think i’ll go for the AH very soon :slight_smile:

#14

thanks for the feedback :slight_smile:

#15

Guitar in AH only, processed by Octatrack.
No samples.

6 Likes
#16

Man that is some awesome sounding guitar. Just into the heat . Can you give me more details about what the Octatrack was doing … Did you have a thru track ? What effects?

#17

Much more delails here :

Don’t hesite to ask more question on the above topic. :wink:

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#18

What kind of guitr is that?

#19

Lapstick - the ultimate travel guitar

https://www.lapstick.com/travel-guitar.php

#20

Love what you’re playing. So damn funky :rofl:

1 Like