HORIZONT
A Phaser From The Future
“He who does not expect the unexpected, will not find it” - Heraklit
Jump into spaceship Horizont and begin your trek into star-filled galaxies, all while discovering the incredible vastness of the sounds created by this inter-dimensional multi-spatial stereo JFET Phaser. The unexpected is waiting for you behind the far away horizon and it will be a journey you'll never forget!
The Horizont’s mission is to push way beyond the classic phasing sounds of yesteryear, and take you to uncharted phaser worlds the second you plug in. By combining lush analog JFET phasing with digitally controlled dynamics, Horizont creates a vivid and expressive modulation experience, all while providing experimental and creative features that’ll kick phasing well into the 21st century.
Besides the more common phaser controls, the Horizont offers a plethora of new and exciting options for all the interstellar tone chasers out there. To greatly broaden the range of phasing tones available, we implemented a digital LFO with no less than eight different waveforms: Ramp Up/Down, Sine/Triangle/Square wave, a sweeping waveform, Sample & Hold and a random slope waveform going from 20s down to 40ms.
The implemented envelope generator is one of Horizont's absolute key features. It transforms your input signal into a control source to modulate the speed of the digitally controlled LFO or lets you manually phase for a resonant touch wah-like sound, depending on the state of the SWP- and SPURTCONTROL-Switch.
Set the SPURTCONTROL switch to LFO to let the SPURT knob adjust the internal phasing speed. However, by flicking the switch to ENV (Envelope) mode, it allows you to dynamically modulate the speed along the full LFO speed range, based on your touch (e.g. when you attack the strings hard etc.). You can also combine the SPURT knob and the envelope by flicking the toggle to LFO+ENV where SPURT then sets the minimum speed. For even more control, you can even plug in an external expression pedal/CV-source (0-5V) to alter the phasing speed on-the-fly or you can use the TAP TEMPO switch to set the speed to fit in with the tempo of your music. The EXP-Mode switch also lets you choose between a manual phasing mode, controlled by an expression-pedal or an external CV source. Setting the EXP-Mode switch to the middle position will disable any external expression control.
The SWP (Sweep) switch lets you decide to use either the LFO or the envelope of your instrument signal to control the phasing.
The envelope can be set to upwards or downwards operation via the ENV switch, seeing the LFO either slowing down or speeding up, or flipping the orientation when phasing manually from lows to highs and vice versa. In conjunction with the FUEL (Sensitivity) and the DECAY controls, the envelope can be tailored perfectly to your needs.
We kept the EMPH (Emphasis) mode from our original Astrospurt Phaser, but have reworked and refined it extensively for the Horizont. The four toggle-switches determine the stage in which the phase-shifted signal is fed back into itself, while the REG (Regeneration) control sets the feedback amount. We also smoothed out the overall sound of the EMPH mode for a more pronounced, and crisp vocal-like tone. Each of the different switch variations and turn of the REG control will yield different results, seeing you discover new wild, fuzzy and noisy galaxies as you travel deeper down this sonic wormhole.
In order for you to levitate through spacetime, we’ve also added a stereo output to the Horizont. You can switch between a standard stereo output or a panning output, via the STEREOPAN switch. Synchronized with the LFO speed, the upper cycle of the LFO sends the signal to the OUT1 and the bottom cycle to the OUT2. This is without a shadow of a doubt the most liquid and astonishing phasing experience you’ll ever embark upon. But wait, there’s more! Stop and take a deep breath, set the MIX control to fully clean and the Horizont is transformed into a Tremolo on-the-spot, with all the other aforementioned features.
Last but by no means least, we equipped the Horizont with an FX-Loop right in front of the phase-shifting line. This enables you to add your own secret sonic weapons to this spaceship, seeing you create your very own unique phasing sounds. We’ve also increased the pedal’s headroom drastically by boosting the internal circuit voltage to 18V, from the regular 9V input, to give the cleanest phasing possible no matter what instrument or line source you use.
But don’t be fooled by all of these seemingly complex features, the Horizont is a super intuitive next generation phaser that’ll see your tone take flight in seconds flat. Whether you are looking for traditional phasing sounds, experimental synthetic soundscapes or super dynamical sonic endeavours, the Horizont will have you covered to infinity and beyond.
Controls:
Pots:
SIGNAL: Determines the overall level of the outgoing signal
MIX: Blends between fully Phase-Shifted (Vibrato) (ccw) and the clean signal (cw). 12 o'clock gives you that lush well-known phasing sound
DEPTH: Sweep between low frequency, full spectrum or high frequency phasing
SPURT: Sets your phasing speed from 0.05Hz (20s) up to 2Hz (40ms)
REG: Controls the amount of feedback when in EMPH mode
FUEL: Sets the sensitivity of the envelope trigger from Low (ccw) to High (cw)
DECAY: Dial in your preferred envelope decay time from Fast (40ms) to Very Slow (6s)
WAVEFORM: Full control of eight different waveforms:
Ramp Up/Down
Square wave
Triangle
Sinus
Sweep
Random Steps
Random slopes
Switches:
EMPH-MODE: Activates a master feedback loop to generate new tones by using the REGENERATE (REG) Control and the EMPH-Stage Switches
EMPH-STAGES (1-4): Time for total control of the feedback loop. Decide which stage you want to feed back the phase shifted signal. Different stages yield different sounds. Combining switches will bring you total oscillation and crazy weirdness
ATTENTION: Some combinations have a huge boost in output level. Best to dial it back and then adjust it to your needs afterwards
SWP: Choose between two modes for the phase sweep. Either LFO-controlled (LFO) or dynamically controlled by your attack and the resulting envelope (ENV). Change the SPURTCONTROL to either LFO or ENV for the full envelope-controlled sweep range.
ENV: Defines the direction of the envelope. Either an upwards (UP) or downwards (DWN) going envelope
SPURTCONTROL: Sets the method to control the LFO-Spurt-Rate. Either dynamically by the envelope itself (e.g. harder picking means slower/faster rate), the pure LFO or combining the envelope control and the SPURT knob. When combining both controls, SPURT sets the minimum speed
STEREOPAN: Activates/deactivates the panning mode for the stereo-output. The panning is synchronized with the LFO speed. Dialling back the MIX control gives you pure panning tremolo sounds. Activating the stereo panning mode while using the mono output turns the Horizont into a phasing tremolo
EXP-MODE: Plug in your Expression-Pedal/CV source and choose between controlling the speed of the phasing (left) or manual sweeping (right), which gives you resonant and wah-like sounds. The middle position deactivates the expression-mode
