Finegear’s Dust Collector — analog effects, part of the Arkive Effects series

Tell me this:

Is there a better form factor effects unit to work with the multiple outs of a proper drum machine?

If the saturation was more gnarly, this thing would be a pedalboard destroyer.

Is there a better form factor effects unit to work with the multiple outs of a proper drum machine?

Yeah that what Im trying to find out also :slight_smile:

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I’d much rather have an SSL Six with some OTO FX boxes than this, which still needs a mixer.

Not really a fair compassion imo, I got the SiX but that beast alone is 1400€ Those OTO aren’t cheap either, I refunded my pré-order of the Dust Collector, I rather get the Analog Heat mkII

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I was replying to this

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My dust collector just arrived! I will be able to test it out this evening and hopefully give a few first impressions here.

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So I had an hour or two to get acquainted with The Dust Collector last night. These are my initial impressions.

  • Folks (including myself) were curious about the tape saturation circuits and whether they were more of a subtle or overt variety. From my limited experience so far it feels very source dependent. Certain sounds, frequencies, and input levels really seemed to activate the saturation more than others. Some sources sounded virtually unchanged at the most extreme settings while others could scarcely handle the lowest setting.
    -The interaction between the effects is where it gets really interesting. Some real saturation magic can happen when routing the tape saturation into the delay. The delay effect is so gritty but highly usable.
    -The spring reverb can be subtle or go full on sproing and twisting the tone knob can create this shifting perspective effect. It will be really easy to create transitions in songs where it sounds like something is really far away but the character of the sound keeps getting altered.

Overall, I really like it. I thought it was a bit of marketing hyperbole, but it really does invite you to experiment. It’s fun to just twist knobs and have the sound morph in reaction.

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gosh I do like how vintage this thing looks :heart_eyes:

How susceptible is the spring tank to picking up desk and room vibration? Needs a pillow?

I decided to cancel my pre-order last week, because I realised for around the same price I could get easily an Analog Heat witch I wanted so really really bad. (To use it as an audio destroyer, it can emulate worn out tapes pretty good imo) The lack of not being a stereo FX unit was for me personally a the biggest pitfall. Maybe if there are some more convincing demo’s I might buy it later.

From my limited experience so far it doesn’t seem to susceptible to picking up external sounds. I do not currently have monitors so the room itself is pretty quiet but I experimented with tapping directly on The Dust Collector (with the spring cover closed) and was surprised how little the springs picked up.

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I hear you about the stereo aspect. For me, that is somewhat resolved by having the two tape saturation circuits because I can send tape saturation 1 to the phaser and delay and send tape saturation 2 to the spring reverb for example. I am a fan of having stereo outputs of the same source go into different effects chains which was a big appeal of the Dust Collector for me.

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I just saw this listing for a used Dust Collector on Reverb for about £1900! I know that Reverb is full of people high-balling rare items to test the market and there’s no guarantee anyone would ever bite at that price, but has anyone seen one sell for anything like that, or has anyone seen a second-hand one sell at all for that matter? Also, the seller says that there were only 200 made - is this true? I also have one in mint condition. I use it so much that I’ve no plans to sell but it would be nice to have an idea of the resale value :slight_smile:

https://reverb.com/uk/item/41935932-fine-gear-the-dust-collector

Finegear’s website says they have “200 units in production”… which could mean they had 200 back-ordered, or that 200 were made and sent out. it’s not clear. There’s no “buy now” button, only a “sold out”, but they’re inviting contacts, so perhaps the pre-order list is still open.

Plus the original intention was this was to be a series, with other configurations to follow.

I emailed them to find out what the current availability is. Here’s their reply:

We are producing 200 units, so in September it will be in stock in the web-store with immediate shipping.
We don’t have a waiting list but, if you subscribe to the newsletter, you will be notified when it is in stock.

Hope that helps. I’m fairly interested, but I’m keeping a grip on the wallet at the moment, so I probably wont get one.

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Perfect Circuit says I can pre-order one… so tempted.

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Ricky shared his opinions on it:

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That review is a pretty good indicator of what it would be like to record with. I took all of Ricky’s “cons” as positives, TBH. His style of music is much more tame than what I’m doing, so it was interesting to see him futz about and complain about the bleed noises, Etc.

I still have reservations about the tape saturation units, but he seemed to utilize them and showcase their usefulness very well in his particular set up.

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Yeah this joker on SOS too…