Old Stutterer Vintage Tremolo – Electric guitar pedal

Old Stutterer is a full-analog tremolo simulating the tremolo effect found in 60s Vox amplifiers.

2 controls give access to multiple possibilities: from a very slow tremolo to an invasive stuttering effect.

How does tremolo work?

From a theoretical point of view the tremolo, not to be confused with the improperly defined “tremolo arm” (vibrato arm or whammy bar are the correct terms) is a classic effect. By definition, we can also make it manually by raising and lowering the volume of the guitar rhythmically. The effect in its simplest formulation in fact does nothing but modulate the output volume at a certain speed and intensity.

Old Stutterer generates this effect in a percussive way, reminiscent of the old tube tremolo circuits built into amplifiers of the past.

The controls

Speed: controls the cyclical lowering speed of the signal.

Intensity: determines the intensity of the tremolo. At the minimum value there will be no signal lowering, at the maximum the signal will be silenced cyclically.

A bit of history…

The first use of guitar effects is usually associated with psychedelia, with its germinal phase of the two-year period 1965-1966, with the floral explosion of 1967 and with the branching into sub-genres of the following years. In the 1950s, albeit sporadically, some similar devices were used. Among the first effects, the tremolo plays an important role between echo and reverb in the period of the birth of rock’n’roll, thanks to its inclusion in some amplifiers and the creation of external devices. From the late 1940s onwards, companies such as Premier, Magnatone, Silvertone, Gretsch or Supro as well as Fender, Gibson and Vox have made tremolo effects available in the body of the amp, which can be easily operated with the knobs. In the same years DeArmond put on the market a series of self-adjustable tremolo effect models also manually adjustable, such as the DeArmond 601 Tremolo Control, and subsequently the pedal version, DeArmond 800 Trem-Trol, operated with footswtich as the most famous and lucky stomp boxes like fuzz or wah.