Zebra-Trem Rhythmic Tremolo

If you feel your song calls for tremolo a bit out of the ordinary, we've got you covered. We give you creative control over your tremolo waveform.

Say "hello" to a new dimension of rhythmic expression. Long, ringing chords can be overlaid with a funky tremolo beat. Instant groove!

Check out the video by Tri Pedal Reviews on YouTube (scroll back to May 2023), plus more videos on the RounderSounds website, or message us if you have a question or you'd like a demo video or waveform specially made for you.

Traditional tremolo pedals let you pick from a handful of waveforms - usually sine, square and triangle. Oftentimes that tried and trusted formula is perfect.

But we felt there was still room for more...

Rhythmic waveforms look different, and they feel different.  You don't have to take our word for that - check out the demos See the pedal's display in the photos and check out the demos at https://roundersounds.com/zebra-trem/videos.

It's like the difference between a metronome and a drummer. With varying emphasis and meter, rhythm can reach straight into your limbic system and make you move.

And because people's songs are different, we realised that whatever waveforms we might design, you'd always need to be able to roll your own.

You hum it, we'll play it

For immediacy, you can't beat onboard control. You can design waveforms on the pedal itself. Hear how they sound while you're shaping them. To give you an idea of how that works, we've built a mock-up on the website .

Out of the box, Zebra-Trem comes loaded with a bunch of traditional waveform presets: squares, sines, triangles, forward and reverse sawteeth. It also packs waveforms with more complex rhythmic structure. For example, one waveform pulses on the eighth notes in a 4:4 bar, except for the third note,  so you get "one and ... and three and four and". We named it "Sine1aa3a4a". Another is shaped a bit like the letter M followed by

You can change them however you like, add more, or get rid of the ones you don't like. All on the pedal itself.

It's a normal tremolo too...

You'll also find all the traditional waveforms on the pedal.  The crazy waveform flexibility comes courtesy of a digital brain, but the signal path is purely analogue.

The controls

We figured that the foot controls should not have to do lots of different things depending on how you kick 'em. The reason you're working them with your feet is because your hands are already busy. And if your hands are busy, chances are your brain is pretty busy too. So the bypass switch just does bypass, and the tap switch is only for tempo.

As a bonus, the tap switch also synchronises the waveform with your music. If you're using a traditional waveform such as a regular sine wave, this might not make much difference. But with bar-long or multi-bar waveforms, the ability to sync becomes important.

The tempo is set by whichever you used last - the tap footswitch or the tempo dial. There's another dial for depth (which works like a normal depth control), and one for level (also self explanatory).

You can select which waveform you want with the wave/edit dial. The display shows you a nice graphic of each waveform as you select them. Pushing the knob in gets you into edit mode so you can shape the waveforms.

Because the waveforms you create are worth looking after, we've made it easy to create a backup using a USB cable.

Firmware updates

We've got some cool ideas for updates to the firmware, like ways to randomly switch between selected waveforms, ways to simplify waveform editing. Your ideas are welcome too.

When a firmware update becomes available on our website, you can load it onto the pedal using a USB cable.

Refunds - your happiness is our happiness

We appreciate that buying online is a risk, especially with a new-to-market product. So while you can't yet find our products in your local shop, you _can_ try them at home, at band practice and gigs.

If it's just not as good as you thought it'd be, and it's still recondition-able, get in touch within a month of delivery and we'll sort out some kind of a refund. Obviously, a mint return will get a full refund (excluding shipping). Scuffed and beer-stained, but still working - well, get in touch and we'll talk about it.

Note: We're having difficulty getting the Ebay website to understand that we REALLY DO offer returns.

More information

You can read more about this product and watch more demos at roundersounds.com.  

About RounderSounds

We're a small family business based in Aotearoa New Zealand.  The founder, Bill Neal, is a software developer by day and a guitarist in his dreams.

Shipping

We're based in beautiful Aotearoa New Zealand.  It costs about US$30 to ship this unique product from here to the US, Canada, the UK or Europe.  If you're based somewhere else, or if you can think of a more economical way to ship it to you, please let us know and we will gladly modify the shipping costs accordingly.

Note: Further problems with the Ebay website - we can't get it to remember any shipping info.  We have shipped a few to the US, and one to the UK.