Moonquake
Tremolo tweaker's paradise
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The Moonquake tremolo rack effect module compares to the 4ms Pedals Tremulus Lune tremolo pedal. The Tremulus Lune was designed to provide a great deal of control over the waveform that controls the volume changes. Additional modifications and options offer even more controls.
Description
The GT Moonquake compares to the 4ms Tremulus Lune optical tremolo.
The Tremulus Lune appears to be discontinued from 4ms Pedals, although you may still find a new one here or there. 3ms and Commonsound are earlier names for 4ms Pedals, and some early Tremulus Lune builds show those brands. The pedal was also sold in kit form and became popular in the DIY pedal-building community, leading to many other "brands" and versions of the circuit, from builders of all skill levels. Kit builds are sometimes available but may be of widely varying quality. Even the production builds vary in quality, some of which perhaps shouldn't have been released due to build quality issues. We've only seen a few of these pedals, all of which had dodgy construction. The brand new one we purchased for testing is noisy enough to not really be usable, probably from layout and construction issues.
So how did the GT version turn out?
First, tremolo is probably the simplest effect there is. You can do much the same thing by just turning the volume up and down, which is really all tremolo is. Even in the GT world of customizations, this circuit goes well into tweaker paradise, with 6 controls instead of the normal 1 or 2. That's pushing it for regular use, but convenient for when you're searching for "your tremolo". We like our tremolo simple, so we're a bit at odds with the purpose of this circuit. Many, many players enjoy this tremolo, so our opinion is just one.
Setting aside the amazing array of controls, how is it? Well, to us it is still a noisy circuit. However, there is a Gain control that lets you dial down the gain AND the noise. To get to quiet you have to dial the Gain to barely on, which might get you below unity volume, or pretty close to it. Once you dial back the Gain to unity volume or minimal boost, the circuit becomes much more manageable. We won't attempt to describe the huge variety of tones you can get by adjusting those other 5 knobs to the millions of potential settings. It's hard to imagine that you can't find your tremolo sound in there somewhere. Can you find it twice is maybe the more interesting question.
Most tremolo circuits have only a couple of controls, but the Tremulus Lune has half a dozen, most rarely found on any other tremolo circuit. It's odd to think of that many ways to control volume changes, but they are there. The Tremulus Lune circuit has some popular modifications that are included. The first is that external Gain control, instead of the normal internal trimmer. This makes it easier to adjust for unity volume, or other volume settings for that matter. The Gain gets pretty high and can lead to distortion if you crank it up. Cleaner settings are in the "barely on" range of the Gain control. It is also key to controlling the noise in the circuit.
The Tilt control adjusts from a fast rise/slow fall, to normal/symmetric, to slow rise/fast fall.
Rate and Depth are what you would expect for a tremolo circuit. On the original, there were two controls for the Rate, sort of coarse and fine tuning. These have been changed to a different type of control internally that provides nice control of the Rate with a single knob.
The Shape control lets you adjust from triangle to sine to square waves.
Delay lets you control the amount of time between the oscillations, but doesn't change the Shape, Tilt, or Depth. This control is unique among tremolo circuits. If you like tremolo but want to make it a bit different, this might be just the ticket.
The Moonquake also adds an input buffer to the circuit. This makes the effect perform more consistently, with less interaction with other effects before it. It may also help reduce the noise a bit.
All those controls are a tweaker's paradise, providing options that we haven't seen in other tremolo circuits. It can take a while to find settings you like, but maybe also the wide variety of unusual settings will provide you with some unique effects that you enjoy.
And with all those controls, it seems obvious to include a blinking rate LED - but only one of them!
Configurations
- Moonquake - Compares to the 4ms Pedals Tremulus Lune tremolo
Options
- No Buffer - Leaves off the input buffer, like the original
- Kit Specs - The kit version of the pedal used some slightly different parts than the production version. The result seems about the same. However, if one of the kit builds is what you're used to, you can specify this option for familiarity.
- No Delay - Some versions perhaps did not include the Delay control. We can leave it off if you prefer.
- No Tilt - Some versions perhaps did not include the Tilt control. We can leave it off if you prefer.
- No Blinking Rate LED - Leave off the flashing Rate LED
- Speed Footswitch - Some tremolo pedals have a second footswitch so you can switch between two different speeds on the fly. We can add that second footswitch to the Moonquake. Only the Rate is different on the two settings. All the other controls are shared.
Front Panel
- On/Off indicator LED
- Rate control
- Depth control
- Gain control
- Delay control
- Shape control
- Tilt control
- Rate LED
- (optional) second Rate control
Rear Panel
- Audio In
- Audio Out
- On/Off Footswitch
- On/Off Override
- (optional) Rate Footswitch
- (optional) Rate Override
- DC Power
- DC Power LED
Module Width
- 2" for standard configuration or any configuration with the Speed Footswitch option
- 1.5" possible with options to remove Delay, Tilt, and probably the blinking Rate LED, and no Speed Footswitch option
- Wing configs may be available for some configurations, but not available for configurations with more than one footswitch
Power Consumption (aprox)
18 - 25mA
Base Configurations
| Part # | Description | List Price |
| MOD-MOONQUAKE | Moonquake module | $255 |
Options
| Part # | Description | List Price |
| MOPT-MOONQUAKE-NOBUFFER | No Buffer Option | $0 |
| MOPT-MOONQUAKE-KIT | Kit Specs Option | $0 |
| MOPT-MOONQUAKE-NODELAY | No Delay Option | -$9 |
| MOPT-MOONQUAKE-NOTILT | No Tilt Option | -$9 |
| MOPT-MOONQUAKE-NOLED | No Blinking Rate LED Option | -$9 |
| MOPT-MOONQUAKE-SPEEDFSW | Speed Footswitch Option | $49 |