Gemini III

[pp.sounddesign]

Hello,

does anyone have the Gemini pedal for sale or a schematic of it?

I would be very pleased to receive a reply.

Best regards
Peter

[dave robinson]

I have a Gemini III that I am willing to part with, as my pedal board is now redundant.

[leddo]

Dave,
Can I ask what you used the Gemini III pedal for. What did it do for your sound?
And if you don't use it now, what has replaced what it gave you?

[dave robinson]

Th Gemini pedal gave me the early recorded sound of Hank's tone on tunes such as Gonzales, Frightened City, as well as FBI and Apache on the second setting, at the press of a button.
I had a circuit built into my guitars that shapes the tone in a similar fashion.

[roger bayliss]

I have a few eq pedals now that feature a high pass and low pass (low cut and high cut) filters, and also Shelving style filters that do a great job of shaping the sound and have these eq pedals on my pedal boards. They are easier to set up than graphic type eq and they also have parametric style bands as well which I typically boost low mids with.

The Boss Katana has similar eqs built in that also work very well.

If you cut the low end , you generally need to boost low mids around 250hz a few dB to thicken the tone up a little in the right area. This was often done in old style recordings to carve out tye low frequencies to enable the bass and drums to stand out well in the mix. Cutting top end has the effect with cutting low end of boosting the mid range hump that results. The guitar lives in the mid range generally, but sometimes a cut around 600- 800hz can create a scooped sound such as the burns vox sound. You can do this best with a parametric eq band on some amps to get the burns type of sound (nasal).



Additional, the early brilliance circuit (pre top boost) boosted upper mids and treble by cutting bass lower mids up to as much as 1270hz I believe, which is the sound we hear on several of the early tunes. I think the cutting edge filter was made to emulate that. You need to use the tone cut with that to remove some high end.

[hiffclall]

Watch this space... it's possible that Gemini III may be reincarnated... I've tried all the pedals mentioned above. Gemini III is definitely the best....

Any more news on this?

[JimN]

As far as I am aware, the original 2005 passive ARiAB and the 2006 improved active version are still available from Roberto Boldrini in Santa Croce sull'Arno.

[hiffclall]

As far as I am aware, the original 2005 passive ARiAB and the 2006 improved active version are still available from Roberto Boldrini in Santa Croce sull'Arno.

Thanks Jim. Are these successor to the Gemini or just a similar thing?

[JimN]

As far as I am aware, the original 2005 passive ARiAB and the 2006 improved active version are still available from Roberto Boldrini in Santa Croce sull'Arno.

Thanks Jim. Are these successor to the Gemini or just a similar thing?

The history is important.

The ARiAB was the original small-box tone-conditioner unit, available from mid-2005. I was there (in Italy, with designer Roberto Pistolesi) when the passive design was finalised and suggested that the device could not only be sold commercially, but also that "Abbey Road In A Box" would be a good name for it. After all, it emulated the sound of the studio's pre-amps and was just as relevant to those seeking the recorded sound of The Beatles. Two prototypes were made in ex-aircraft transformer boxes. The commercial product was packaged in the same distinctive green used by Roberto for his distortion units and amplifiers. I was given one of the prototypes (the one with the circuit settled on for the production run).

It was never meant as a stomp-box, so the basic model was fitted with normal tumbler switches for response level and on/off. But it was recognised that many players would see it as a floor unit, so a version was produced with a footswitch for on/off. Released for sale in the late summer of 2005, it was an instant success - selling well over three hundred hand-made units within a few months.

A few months later, someone else started selling a rival product, with a different name and a different colour scheme. I don't want to make any particular comment on that manoeuvre. It was a long time ago.

Roberto died in the spring of 2006, but just before that, he had designed a Mark II ARiAB, with an active circuit which allowed gain to be balanced between the "on" and "off" positions. He gave me serial number Number 01. He also gave me serial number 02 to use a demonstration example. I eventually passed that second unit to a mutual friend in the USA. Roberts’s colleagues continued to produce the active, Mk II, ARiAB to order from the same workshop.

A couple of years later, David Mitchell created the Gemini unit, which was an active battery-powered device aimed at the same market. I have heard nothing but good reports of that unit, though again, it is some time since it was in production, and I haven't heard anything from David for some years now.

But be under no illusion: the ARiAB was first.

[leddo]

Are the ARiAB pedals still in production and available to buy?
There was also talk of the Gemini pedal being produced again but nothing seems to have come of that. Does anyone know if it will be produced again?