ezhi&aka Polarized Flutter Lofi Tapestop

The ezhi&aka Polarized Flutter Lofi Tapestop is a force sensor controlled lofi tapestop pedal: instead of footswitches or knobs doing the work, a pressure sensor reads how hard you press and turns that pressure into pitch and modulation effects. Pedal of the Day describes it as providing upwards tapestop, downwards tapestop, slight vibrato, touch-controlled chorus and percussive, touch-controlled swell, all from one sensor¹.

What it does

The pedal's two modes set the direction of the tapestop. In Downward mode, with Smooth engaged, pressing the sensor quite hard and holding it there engages what Pedal of the Day calls "a slow but inevitable tapestop," the pitch winding down like a tape machine losing power¹. Upward mode runs the effect the other way. Between the extremes, lighter touches give slight vibrato, touch-controlled chorus and percussive, touch-controlled swells, so the pedal sits close to Vibrato Pedals and Chorus Pedals territory as well as the tapestop effect.

Built-in fuzz

Alongside the sensor effects, the ezhi&aka Signature fuzz is built in, now featuring a dedicated volume control to save your vintage amps, according to Pedal of the Day¹. That puts a Fuzz Pedals circuit in the same box, so the lofi and tapestop effects can be fed from a distorted signal without a separate pedal.

How it compares

ezhi&aka later released the Polarized Flutter + Echo, which Pedal of the Day describes as one that is specifically designed for all the experimenters out there, adding a Feedback control with its own knob that allows for two opposite sensor controlled modes: press harder for more feedback/echo, or press harder for less feedback/echo². The Lofi Tapestop covered here is the earlier, fuzz-equipped version of the force sensor concept.

Reviewing a later pedal in the same family, Pedal of the Day's reviewer summed up the series this way³:

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