Trickfish releases Signal Filter, VCA Compressor, External Pre Amp and Overdrive Preamp pedals

May 30, 2024 · 2 sources

Trickfish Amplification announced a new line of stompbox pedals in March 2024, comprising the VCA Compressor, Overdrive Preamp, External Preamp (EPA) and Signal Filter¹. Bass Gear Mag published a review of all four on May 30, 2024².

The four pedals share a steel chassis, top-mounted input, output and 9V DC jacks, and latching footswitches with blue status LEDs²¹. Trickfish says they are designed and manufactured in the USA and run on standard 9V DC pedalboard power supplies¹. The Signal Filter has separate high-pass and low-pass sections, each with its own footswitch and status LED, a frequency selector covering 38-310Hz for the HPF and 330Hz-15kHz for the LPF, and HPF output gain². The VCA Compressor has Threshold, Ratio, Blend and Level controls plus a 10-segment LED for gain reduction; Trickfish gives the attack as around 40ms and the release around 200ms². The External Pre Amp is a pedal version of Trickfish's in-house IPA onboard preamp, with internal dip switches setting the bass shelving frequency from 40Hz to 80Hz, the mid frequency from 330Hz to 375Hz, 430Hz or 500Hz, and the treble shelving from 4kHz to 8kHz². The Overdrive Preamp keeps a dry signal set by a Blend knob and adds a separate overdriven channel with 3-band EQ, Gain and Output level controls².

Prices differ between the two announcements. Bass Musician Magazine listed retail pricing of $249 for the VCA Compressor, $229 for the Overdrive Preamp, $219 for the Signal Filter and $219 for the External Preamp¹. Bass Gear Mag's specifications give $219 for the Signal Filter and $249 for the VCA Compressor².

Signal Filter specifications from Bass Gear Mag: analog circuit, 1M Ohm input and 100k Ohm output impedance, 7 mA current draw, 1.0 lb (0.45 kg) weight and a one-year warranty². The VCA Compressor is listed at 186 mA current draw with the same dimensions, weight and warranty².