6APPEAL? What the heck is that?
This is an analog hexaphonic distortion guitar pedal. Means separate distortion channel for every string. String signals coming from hexaphonic pickup, like Roland GK-3. In other words, this is an analog polyfuzz. It sounds entirely different to monophonic distortion, it sounds tonal. Plus many complementary features, like modulations, string panning, mixing in monophonic distortion, stereo output filtering, etc.
A product from a small Estonian company. Currently the only product from us. And we believe the only polyfuzz currently on the market.
A picture tells more than thousand words,. We hope this 1 min video does even more. Does it sound familiar?
6APPEAL is a complex digitally controlled analog distortion module. It has a lot of features, most important ones listed in the following video. The video soundtrack is “Hit It”, composed by Fairlights (courtesy of Mr Enda Bates, www.endabates.net). 6APPEAL has been routed to DAW and synced to a drum track with MIDI from computer.
Why does an analog signal path matter for hexaphonic guitar?
Other hexaphonic products break up the natural guitar sound and process it digitally. This robs the overtones, dynamics, and “feel” of your guitar. The result of our analog signal path is that the 6APPEAL pedal feels and sounds more organic, with a natural touch sensitivity to your guitar playing, with zero latency, that you miss from digital products.
How can I use it with the Roland GK-3 or other hexaphonic pickup?
It’s easy. Plug your 13 pin guitar right in to the 6APPEAL and you are ready to go! 6APPEAL can be used a standalone analog processing unit, as a hexaphonic gateway for your pedal board, in parallel with Roland’s digital devices, or as a starting point for in-DAW processing using the sound of your hexaphonic guitar.
It is important that your guitar has an hexaphonic pickup, connected to 6APPEAL by 13pin DIN cable. You can find more information about hex equipment from dedicated website hexaphonic.org, maintained by Matthias Grob. There is a list of guitars with 13pin DIN output and a list of hex pickups, you may fit your guitar with. More or less every guitar can be fitted with Roland GK-3 hex (also called divided) pickup:
You may buy the 13pin DIN cable from us or from music shops:
Who did we design the 6Appeal analog guitar pedal for?
Our gear is built with the innovative guitar player in mind. Hexaphonic string processing gives you an incredible new universe of effect options, and 6APPEAL is the ONLY fully analog signal path hexaphonic signal processing pedal on the market.
What does 6Appeal give you as a guitar player?
Our 6APPEAL pedal gives your hexaphonic guitar an entirely new palette of tones and sounds. From percussive and sustained clean tones through singing harmonious distortion, 6Appeal offers you a whole new sonic ground.
Whether your style is complex jazz, fusion, progressive rock or even fingerstyle guitar you can explore complex and varied guitar tonalities that are quite simply unavailable from any other pedal on the market.
What really matters, is what users say about the device. User shawnb at vguitarforums.com has written an excellent and very deep review of the device – please take a look. We just replicate his feeling from first jam: “I’ve been playing with my friends for years, using various gear & software, including a GR-55, a VG-99, tube amps, Amplitube, etc… This was the first time my drummer said, “THAT thing is BADASS!” You can’t really get a feel for this unit until you *feel* it live, at playing volume. ”
What does a hexaphonic distortion sound like?
You can set it to sound like a high-end boutique distortion pedal if you wish, but that is only the beginning. Beyond the established universe of overdrive/fuzz/distortion sounds you can easily adjust the 6APPEAL to sound like no other device you have ever heard.
You can create incredible sustained distortion sounds without any harmonic interference between notes at all. At first it may remind you of polyphonic analog synthesizers, but it’s still your own guitar’s real sound.
You can play harmonically complex jazz chords and pick out every note – on a regular distortion pedal such exotic voicing would sound like audio mud.
You can go stereo, or blend distortion with the clean sound. And, even the clean sound is harmonically much richer than artificially processed digital interfaces . There is really no other product like the 6APPEAL.
What’s inside of it?
Unlike digital devices that can cheaply sample your guitar sound and quickly rebuild the sound (mostly) accurately for processing, real analog components are costly. Think of high-end boutique guitar amplifiers using all analog signal paths as an example.
There are over 1000 components and seven high quality distortion channels in the 6Appeal. We like to believe we are building a pedal that is equal in quality to the finest boutique amplifiers, original Moog synthesizers, or a vintage Roland GR-300. Our 6APPEAL pedal is an instrument crafted by us for years of playing enjoyment by you.
If this guitar effect pedal can make so many complex sounds, is it complicated to use?
Not really. You can just browse 12+12 presets, which cover the whole range of light to heavy hexaphonic distortion and modulation effects. That being said, 6APPEAL is an advanced device and you can modify almost anything. We also have a free standalone controller application (Editor) for 6APPEAL (Win / Mac).
If Bob Dylan had one of these when he went all electric?
Nigel Cassidy (BBC News Business correspondent) speculated the idea, when he visited our office in early 2014. We had just a prototype of 6APPEAL available at that point, but it already sounded quite authentic. Please check the video, starting from 02:15.
Buying a 6APPEAL, you will support development of new analog hexaphonic devices. We appreciate your support.