lastgasp art laboratories rattle crow restive filter

by 44ofjuly

I cannot really remember when or where and who it was that mentioned that there are no bad or good effects, only lousy players. So how true is that? Amidst the huge numbers of effects pedals available nowadays, more often than not, you might hear all sorts of over hyped information about how great, how sweet and how warm that distortion is, or how beautifully, how dark and how analog sounding that delay tone is and so on and so forth. And after all the expectation and the money saved up over months, when you finally get the effect that you have been dreaming of...it doesn't really live up to your expectations. You think it sucks so badly that you really wonder what the hell the others were thinking about when they were raving about it!! So, now, is it the player or the effects pedal???

Let's move back in time to the 1960s. The story was that down at a certain studio in Nashville, there was a mixer having a buzzing problem in one of its channels, and while any form of buzzing or distortion was frowned upon in those days, someone actually thought the buzzing sound was cool enough to design a circuit to mimic it. And from it, the Maestro fuzz tone was born and some of the greatest bands from that era brought it to great heights.

The point that I want to make is that while some sounds might sound really bad to some, others might find it very musical. And from here, let's fast forward to 2005 August!

For this month's gear gawk, we will be looking at a certain pedal that comes from the land of the Rising Sun, the LAL (Lastgasp Art Laboratories) Rattle Crow Restive Filter (Last I heard, they were shifting operations to Australia and continuing the creation of these lovely little devils.). For those who are familiar with the offerings from LAL, you will definitely notice a common trait among the pedals. They are not your typical sweet, warm or pretty-sounding stuff. In fact, these series of pedals are meant for making noise, for creating something out of the ordinary. For a taste of some LAL effects in action, you might like to check this site out, http://www.lalweb.com/defektro-e.html. Members from the Japanese noise band featured are the ones behind the series of LAL effects.

For now, let's just concentrate on the Rattle Crow Restive Filter! This pedal is pretty straightforward: one stomp switch and 3 knobs, namely level, frequency and sensitivity. Although there is an operating manual, I doubt there's a need for it. With just 3 knobs, it isn't going to be rocket science!

On the front panel, there is a logo of a tiny crow and seriously, I think this logo sums up the characteristics of this pedal. Plugging either guitar or bass into this tiny pedal is going to give the player a wild and sorrowful tone, just like the description of the pedal on LAL's site. Like other filter type effects, dynamics matters. However, from this pedal, the filter tone is not going to sound funky or smooth. In fact, if you tried this pedal out for the first time, you might think that 1) the amp is fried or the speakers are on its deathbed...2) the pedal is faulty...3) there must be something wrong with my hearing.

On to the controls, the 3 knobs on the pedal are pretty self-explanatory.

Level: Adjustment of effect volume against bypassed volume

Frequency: Adjustment of the range of filtering effect, from a loud stuttering to thin mosquito buzzing

Sensitivity: Adjustment of the tonal quality of filtering effect, from muddy and compressed to wide, open sounding but with a great deal of splattering fuzz sound.

After getting past all these, let's go right into what the Rattle Crow Restive Filter does. Basically, this pedal does one thing and it does it well. Just like its wacky name, the tone from the pedal can be really bizarre. Sick, splattering, stuttering, shrill, loud, obnoxious, rude and harsh...broken sounding auto wah, anyone??

At certain settings, this pedal is capable of sounding like a gated fuzz, constipated-sounding and with the notes trailing off in a really funky but splattering and stuttering way. Coincidently, I thought it sounded similar to some settings from the Electro Harmonix Microsynth, except that the Microsynth sound much more polite than the Restive Filter and without all the splatters and stutters.

Besides sounding like a demented gated fuzz, when turning down the frequency knob with the sensitivity knob turned up, it has a more lo-fi crow rattling fuzz tone, with the trailing tone sounding like a wet fart...disgusting? Well, it sounds like heaven to me, from an effects pedal point of view. It's really kind of unique, and bound to grab the attention of anyone listening.

At some settings, playing notes or chords will result in having the tone go into stuttering/splattering mode, resembling nothing like how a normal guitar should sound like. At some point, just brushing the hand briefly on the strings will lead to some unexpected squealing and buzzing. Startling it can be, but lots of fun! Combining this pedal with delay, reverb etc, you will get a wall of noise going on and on.

The Restive Filter comes as a sturdy little black box, true bypassed, uses a 9V battery or the usual 9V adaptor (Boss PSA, Onespot adaptor etc) and with a special stomp switch that I have seen only on LAL pedals. If you are the type that stomps hard on the pedals, I don't think it will last too long as it looks rather fragile to me. Other than that, I have encountered a popping sound when engaging the stomp switch. It can be kind of irritating.

Overall, the LALRattle Crow Restive Filter should be among one of the wackier pedals that I have come across. It did what it promised, creating that wild and sorrowful sound. Combined with other effects in line, there are countless possibilities for making all sorts of weird noises, bad fuzz and even bird rattling tones. One thing for sure, this pedal is definitely not for everyone. As you might have realised by now, this pedal does nothing but being weird or bad sounding. And if you think that this is a review on a bad sounding pedal, I would rather say I am a lousy player that can't bring the best out of this pedal!