Welcome back Gearheads! Today I have a very cool pedal to showcase for you all. I first found out about Atomic Tone from one of my gearhead pals who works in the television music sync world and he said you NEED to check one of these crazy pedals out… it’s perfect for guys like us. With most things coming from my buddy John “Flan”, I took him seriously and immediately got in touch with Brian from Atomic Tone.
Atomic Tone was founded by Brian Heunergardt in 2023 with a firm vision to offer really well built circuits that give the end user much more than what’s typically available in the market. The bespoke pedal I’m showcasing today absolutely is that and so much more. There is much depth at the heart of Atomic Tone… getting into the rabbit hole as it were with poise, great promise and a firm scientific perspective… indeed, there’s much to be rewarded with their pedals.
The Triptych Twins is one of those of pedals that rides the unique line of being so simple to operate but once you dig a bit deeper you realize how far down the tunnel of tone you can go. Most often pedals that are… shall we say “option oriented” tend to really not offer that much in the end. That usually comes down to either the feature set being too confusing, ill fated or just plain non musical. Absolutely not the case with the Triptych Twins… it’s a proverbial cornucopia of tones that rewards experimentation.
At it’s heart the Triptych Twins is two pedals (the Saturation Triptych) from their line put in one enclosure. In keeping with the honest scientific method and being that all twins, unless identical are not 100% the same, the blue (right) side of the pedal is voiced slightly different to offer some versatility but to my ears it just makes the whole pedal work better within itself. I found that to be a nice touch to add that little detail and it showcases Brian’s interesting ethos behind Atomic Tone.
So what does this pedal do!? What does it sound like!? Come on man… enough carrying on and do the review thing! I know… you want me to tell you it sounds like a Tube Screamer, a Timmy, a Fuzz Face, a Nobels ODR-1, a Klon, a “insert your current favorite drive pedal”…. Honestly, TLDR/ it sounds like you. Yep! Like it or not the Triptych Twins ascends above the delicate clouds of transparent buzz words and straight up sounds like you. Remember when my buddy Flan said “it’s perfect for guys like us”? Well, it’s true and he was right. I LOVE this thing. It works how I wish most boost and drive pedals would work. Simple, small movements on the knobs make immediate and fruitful changes to your tone. When I’m working on a track either for myself or for someone else and if I need to have a part sit better in the mix, I want to exercise the least amount of effort to get it right. The Twins are that in spades. It’s sensitive without being touchy, it’s uber musical without overshadowing the other gear your using in the chain. It’s a high end “do-it-all” tool that I think any recording or performing professional musician should own. I’m completely blown away by it and have already used it prior, during and after compiling this feature on other works. The Triptych Twins sneak up on you and I found I kept using it because it just works so damn well.
So what can it do? Other than the most important aspect of any gear in my opinion… to sound like yourself? It can be a simple boost for your amp or other pedals. It can be a medium gain with variable amounts of compression. It can be a higher gain fuzzy drive with variable amounts of compression. It can be singing solo tone when you stack both red and blue sides of the Twins…. most importantly it sounds, functions and FEELS fantastic.
The Twins can be run on either 9v or 18v and you do absolutely get different pedals with each choice of voltage. I personally preferred running it 18v as it offered more headroom and while it doesn’t get into the fuzzier side of things as 9v would offer, I really liked the bigness and tonal response.
“The design is an analog circuit. The Bass is a HPF (pre-distortion) and the Treble LPF (post-distortion). Clock-wise, the Bass will also add sag and more saturation in a very amp like way, the Treble will tighten/clean up sag and more, Sat/does that thing. These three knobs have a very high level of tone shaping power, and a small adjustment makes a difference. The pedal/circuit offers pristine clarity to thick saturation.
(Pos-1) Boost to Overdrive that goes a little past mild, will do a “little” modern to thick vintage tone that can also get compressed, all depending on how you set it.
(Pos-2) Boost to OD with fuzz, knobs maxed w/volume @11 can get close to the TB MKII pro tone, and it covers a lot of great tone options in-between!
(Pos-3) Boost to Distortion to fuzz, the Dirt will go a little past mild before the fuzz begins to enter and then proceeds into variations of fuzz, it will not do heavy fuzz.
Note: “If” you do not like fuzz, run it at 18v, it then becomes a variations of Distortion/OD Saturation.”
In the video demo below, I used the Triptych Twins on all the stringed instruments including the bass guitar. I ended up using two borrowed amplifiers (Divided By 13 FTR37 & a Bad Cat Lynx) partly out of curiosity but also to act as an experiment in using the pedal in unfamiliar territory to find the best results. It wins and in the end we all win. I’m very impressed by the Triptych Twins and really look forward to using it on a ton of work in the future. I’m excited to see Atomic Tone continue to grow and can’t wait see what’s next.
Thanks for checking this Gearheads Feature on the Triptych Twins from Atomic Tone. If you’d like to learn more about Atomic Tone please do check out these sites for more information.
https://www.facebook.com/people/Atomic-Tone-LLC/61550665712618/
https://www.instagram.com/atomic_tone_llc/
Until next time Gearheads, please take a moment to Like, Subscribe & Share this Feature and I’ll see you all very soon!