29 Pedals FLWR

[i love sharin foo]

As an extension of my preamp/ boost/ Overdrive thread, do any of you guys have any experience with the 29 Pedals FLWR. The videos I’ve watched make it seem really great. It appears to have a lot of versatility for different situations. At the high end, there’s definitely a nice fuzziness to it, but at more mild settings, it appears to be very organic and amp like. It’s not just booster, but adds grit and some tonal shift even at lower settings. Seems interesting. It reminds me a lot of my Lehle Sunday Driver but with some sculpting capabilities.

[zhivago]

It definitely looks cool...I see it can boost up to 45db?!?

Talk about powerful!

FLWR is, I guess, an overdrive! It makes gain, about 45dB, and can get up into fuzz territory at max settings. It’s designed to help you find your own breakup point, where pushing with the guitar breaks up nice and amp-y, but pulling back cleans up. The “SHAPE” controls affect the first gain stage, while the “GAIN” control affects the second gain stage. The clipping diodes are a modular sub-assembly, you can experiment and find your own magic arrangement. FLWR has a medium input impedance, so plugging right in will be a little warmer than when FLWR is following an input driver like EUNA. The output impedance is slightly higher to allow for interactions with other pedals. The WHATEVER power port accepts 7.5 to 35 volts of AC or DC in either polarity. FLWR is True-Bypass when switched off.

[GreenKnee]

I didn't need to see that, looks really interesting and right up my street. I can already picture it's spot on my board.
Customisable clipping boards is a cool touch, I have some spare 'klon' germanium diodes somewhere that I would love to try in there.

[zhivago]

I didn't need to see that, looks really interesting and right up my street. I can already picture it's spot on my board.

My thoughts exactly!! I've been trying to fend off the GAS attack this has unleashed upon me on a quiet Sunday!

[fuzzjunkie]

It definitely looks cool...I see it can boost up to 45db?!?

Talk about powerful!

FLWR is, I guess, an overdrive! It makes gain, about 45dB, and can get up into fuzz territory at max settings. It’s designed to help you find your own breakup point, where pushing with the guitar breaks up nice and amp-y, but pulling back cleans up. The “SHAPE” controls affect the first gain stage, while the “GAIN” control affects the second gain stage. The clipping diodes are a modular sub-assembly, you can experiment and find your own magic arrangement. FLWR has a medium input impedance, so plugging right in will be a little warmer than when FLWR is following an input driver like EUNA. The output impedance is slightly higher to allow for interactions with other pedals. The WHATEVER power port accepts 7.5 to 35 volts of AC or DC in either polarity. FLWR is True-Bypass when switched off.

I like the overall aesthetic too. The tiny knobs fit the look, but I think I would rather have something bigger? The box is almost Strymon sized, and the jacks placement bothers me a bit too. Why so close?

Solasound ODBs and clones like mine are capable of 45dbB boost too. I wonder if it’s based off that circuit? ODBs are famous for being able to go from a clean sparkling boost to fuzzy drive with enough gain to slam any amplifier. They also have clipping diodes. Mine can switch between germanium and silicon. This device has them on a modular board. That’s a cool touch. All pros there.

It seems like a con is the price. Around $270, but this is a very versatile pedal, high quality, and would look good on a pedal board. And if it is even loosely based off the ODB, it’s cheaper than the boutique clones available by $50-100.

[i love sharin foo]

I just bought one on Reverb for $200. Can’t wait to see how it compares to what I am already using.

[sal paradise]

It definitely looks cool...I see it can boost up to 45db?!?

Talk about powerful!

FLWR is, I guess, an overdrive! It makes gain, about 45dB, and can get up into fuzz territory at max settings. It’s designed to help you find your own breakup point, where pushing with the guitar breaks up nice and amp-y, but pulling back cleans up. The “SHAPE” controls affect the first gain stage, while the “GAIN” control affects the second gain stage. The clipping diodes are a modular sub-assembly, you can experiment and find your own magic arrangement. FLWR has a medium input impedance, so plugging right in will be a little warmer than when FLWR is following an input driver like EUNA. The output impedance is slightly higher to allow for interactions with other pedals. The WHATEVER power port accepts 7.5 to 35 volts of AC or DC in either polarity. FLWR is True-Bypass when switched off.

I like the overall aesthetic too. The tiny knobs fit the look, but I think I would rather have something bigger? The box is almost Strymon sized, and the jacks placement bothers me a bit too. Why so close?

Solasound ODBs and clones like mine are capable of 45dbB boost too. I wonder if it’s based off that circuit? ODBs are famous for being able to go from a clean sparkling boost to fuzzy drive with enough gain to slam any amplifier. They also have clipping diodes. Mine can switch between germanium and silicon. This device has them on a modular board. That’s a cool touch. All pros there.

It seems like a con is the price. Around $270, but this is a very versatile pedal, high quality, and would look good on a pedal board. And if it is even loosely based off the ODB, it’s cheaper than the boutique clones available by $50-100.

Small knobs, jacks too close together & not aligned to the controls below are all a bit of shame. Oh, yes and the price.

But it sounds incredible from the videos I watched earlier. The minimal design & pastel colour are really challenging the negatives above, though.

[GreenKnee]

I just bought one on Reverb for $200. Can’t wait to see how it compares to what I am already using.

Sweet, let us know how you get on with it.
I listened to a few demos and it does sound really good. I've managed to talk myself out of it though, I would only really want the boost out of it so the rest is surplus to requirements.

This caught my eye as a very expensive clean boost though

[BoringPostcards]

Looks like a piece of hospital equipment. Especially in that green.

[fuzzjunkie]

Looks like a piece of hospital equipment. Especially in that green.

Definitely hospital green, but the other is battleship grey. I wonder if he has a military background? I remember the walls in some of those places being “smoker’s yellow” or something like a pale custard yellow.

I just bought one on Reverb for $200. Can’t wait to see how it compares to what I am already using.

Sweet, let us know how you get on with it.
I listened to a few demos and it does sound really good. I've managed to talk myself out of it though, I would only really want the boost out of it so the rest is surplus to requirements.

This caught my eye as a very expensive clean boost though

I wonder if this has a buffered output? That might push the price up since he’s known for his buffers.

[i love sharin foo]

I like the colors. They’re a nice contrast to most of the other stuff out there. The enclosure design seems pretty neat, too. I like the sloped design and the compact foot print. I use Hammond (and their clones) for TONS of my own builds, but it’s always cool to see someone come up with their own designs.

[i love sharin foo]

I just received it today. So far, I have about a 1.5-2 hours with it, using my Les Paul Jr (with a Wolfetone Meaner 90) and Telecaster (with Duncan '55s) into the little Fender 5F2 Princeton that I built. It is a very interesting pedal. As advertised, there is a healthy amount of boost if you need it. Certainly enough to overdrive just about anything that is capable of overdriving. The gain control is very gradual and goes from basically no grit all the way up to a pretty saturated, almost fuzz like sound. Since there is so much volume available, you can basically set it up for any amount of grit that you want. That is where the straight forward part kind of ends. The little slider/ toggle switches aren't as cut and dry and they are interactive. Different combinations yield different results. The first one on the left is gain on the first stage per the instructions, but in addition to the gain, it also affects the tone structure. All the way up is pretty neutral with minimal volume change, the middle seemingly brings out some mids and a lot of clarity along with a good volume boost. Furthest down is a big low end boost while rounding off all the high end. It turned my Jr and the Telecaster's bridge pickup into a fat, rolled off tone, neck pick up-ish tones. Very cool. The others help further modify those basic sounds. I need some more time with it and different guitars and amps to get a better feel for it.

Overall, I really like it. The tones are very uncompressed and nuanced. Some dirt and boost pedals feel stiff and unnatural. Not this one. It's like an extension of the amp. With the little Princeton run on 10 (out of 12) on the volume, it's impossible to tell where it ends and the FLWR begins. Just what I wanted. My Lehle Sunday Driver has the same kind of feel, but it is more subdued. The FLWR has the ability to be much more present and in your face. The FLWR won't be replacing it. I'll keep both on there. What the FLWR will replace though is the Plumes. I had the Plumes set for a really low gain, minimal volume boost, and just a bit of presence over the amps base tone. The FLWR easily does that and more while being more natural. It sounds less like an effect.

I don't own a Klon, nor have I ever used one, but after using the FLWR just this little bit, I can't help but feel like it does some of what Klon users like. Making a good amp better. Adding a little something that is hard to put into words.

[marqueemoon]

Sounds like there are some good sounds in there.

Does it allow fine tuning of the level? 45 dB is a lot.

I haven’t found the Plumes all that useful. It’s just so bright.

[i love sharin foo]

Does it allow fine tuning of the level? 45 dB is a lot.

Yeah. One of the mini knobs is level. It's possible to set it at near unity with pretty much every setting on account of how much range of output that there is. I have the tone on my Plumes at about 9-10:00. Its definitely bright. I was thinking about trying out one of the new Plumes to see how it compared. Now that I have the FLWR, I'm thinking it's going to fill that sound perfectly for me.

[marqueemoon]

Does it allow fine tuning of the level? 45 dB is a lot.

Yeah. One of the mini knobs is level. It's possible to set it at near unity with pretty much every setting on account of how much range of output that there is. I have the tone on my Plumes at about 9-10:00. Its definitely bright. I was thinking about trying out one of the new Plumes to see how it compared. Now that I have the FLWR, I'm thinking it's going to fill that sound perfectly for me.

Cool. My Kokoboost shit the bed which I am annoyed about, but I will probably have Suhr repair it as what they quoted me seems reasonable.

I gave the EM-Drive a shot in that spot at practice tonight, and it was not bad at all, but it gets a little too mushy with my Rat and phaser. I think it sounds great on its own though, so I might make a micro-board with just that and a tuner for my 3 piece band.

It’s nice to have so many options with this stuff.