Happy Holidays, everybody! Say hello to Ross Hoekman, our Featured Neuro Artist for the month of December 2020! If you frequent the Neuro Editor Community tab or Talkbass you probably know this guy as "fivestringgecko," the maker of many, many killer presets for his C4 Synth and Spectrum Intelligent Filter. Ross' Source Audio enthusiasm dates back to the Soundblox 2 Manta Bass Filter. He explains, "My first Source Audio pedal was a Manta, and Will Cady’s videos totally inspired me to add a Hot Hand 3 to my setup. Not long after that, I added a Dimension Reverb and Orbital Modulator. When the One Series hit, I jumped at the chance to try out an Aftershock Bass Distortion and currently, the Source Audio C4 has really grabbed hold for me. I’d go so far as to say it’s probably my “If I Could Only Have One” pedal. Synth, envelope filter, some dirt, and a pretty convincing OC2 sounding octaver... All of my top favs in one box."

Ross is a master of the C4 Synth and Spectrum Intelligent Filter (modded with some fancy-schmancy gold & silver knobs).  We love his presets inspired by bass lines from songs by Primus, Depeche Mode, Dua Lipa, and Above and Beyond. He's also created some excellent presets inspired by classic envelope filter pedals like the EHX Bassballs, Emma Discombobulator, and a groovy little pedal called the Manta Bass Filter. We highly recommend that you read-on and check out these presets. Each one sounds equally fantastic on bass or guitar (with some minor tweaks). 

Sean Folk (a.k.a. "flip362") has been plugged into Source Audio for a long, long time. His relationship with our gear actually dates back to the Soundblox days. But it wasn't until we developed the One Series pedals and the Neuro Desktop Editor with its preset sharing technology that we were able to hear all the great things that he was doing with our gear. Before becoming a husband, dad, and  middle school theatre arts teacher in his home state of Texas, Sean studied Film Scoring at Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA (also the home of Source Audio). His film scoring chops are pretty evident in all the exceptional sound clips he recorded to demonstrate his presets. We love how Sean dials in tried and true, classic sounds like his "Simple Trem" or "Punk Rawk" presets, but also launches into the contemporary with ambient soundscapes like "Beyond Horizons" or "DreamSphere" for the Ventris Dual Reverb. He's also got a great ear for killer lo-fi sounds like "Bitcrush Square" for the C4 Synth and "Crushed Echos" for the Nemesis Delay. 

You can see that Sean already has a large collection of Source Audio pedals (including one of the original hand-painted C4 Synth beta pedals - #43 of 50!), but we still sent him a complementary pedal as we do with all of our Featured Neuro Artists. Sean requested the EQ2 Programmable Equalizer. And FYI, we are constantly on the lookout for the next Featured Artist, so please keep publishing your Neuro presets with accompanying sound clips (the sound clips are  crucial to reaping a Feature). We want to hear what y'all are doing with our gear!

We asked Sean to share his thoughts on some of the presets he created. He was more than happy to talk with us, so read on and check out some of Sean's presets and find out, in his own words, the inspiration behind each one. 

​We first became familiar with the work of Mark Neary (@markneary1) on the day he published the C4 Synth preset titled, “Chaka Chan.” Mark skillfully used the C4’s Neuro Editor to dial in the funky Moog bass sound from the classic Chaka Khan track, What Cha’ Gonna Do For Me. It was clear from the embedded video that Mark’s bass playing and audio production skills were a cut above. A quick Google search turned up the Mark Neary website and a draw-dropping list of bass and production credits that include the Rolling Stones, Sting, Noel Gallagher, and Adele. To be honest, this impressive resume was not a surprise based on what we heard in the Chaka Khan clip.

Congratulations to Jarrod Taylor (a.k.a. @jbt333). Because of all the awesome Neuro presets and sound clips he created, we sent Jarrod a free Ventris Dual Reverb and made him our Featured Nuero Artist for the month of August, 2020. Jarrod is one of two guitarists from an excellent psych rock out of Oakland, CA called The Chaw. We first noticed Jarrod's work back in April, 2020 during our Neuro Cover Song Challenge. His cover version of “Crying Lightning” by Arctic Monkeys was sensational. Since that time he recorded an outstanding original tune titled, “Down To The Leather,” which was adorned with a wonderful collection of Nemesis Delay drenched guitar lines - each track has a Nemesis preset available in the Neuro Editor. 

We will be picking a new Featured Neuro Artist every month for the foreseeable future, so we urge all of you to keep publishing those cool presets with embedded YouTube or SoundCloud clips! We love hearing what all of y’all are doing with our One Series pedals. Let's check out Jarrod's presets and feel free to hit the download buttons and try any of these sounds in your Nemesis Delay...

​The next few sound clips are the isolated guitar tracks from Jarrod's song "Down To The Leather." Jarrod was cool enough to talk with us about the inspiration and building process of the Nemesis Delay presets he created for each tracks:

@jbt333's Comments on "Vibroctave Carnival": "When I’m working on a recording and something doesn’t feel quite right, sometimes it’s not a part that’s missing, it’s a frequency. In the case of the tune "Down to the Leather" the music felt like it was missing some higher frequencies. Adding an octave up on the Compound Shifter, and giving the effect a Vibrato like quality with Mod and Wow & Flutter, seemed to do the trick. When I first put it on the track it reminded me of an overdriven calliope with an octave on it (hence name "Vibroctave Carnival"). After going back and listening to an actual calliope, I realized it  sounded nothing like the preset. Nonetheless, it’s a super fun patch."

This is not the first time @Quatschmacher (a.k.a Peter Kenney) has been featured on our website or social media pages - he has been making fantastic presets for the C4 Synth for months now. Peter could easily teach a class on how to dive into the C4 Synth's Neuro Editor. We love how he incorporates all aspects of the C4's Editing possibilities into his presets: the sequencers, the harmonization module, polyphonic pitch shifting, monophonic synth oscillators, and more. Here are just a few of our favorite @quatschmacher presets along with his thoughts on the inspiration and creation of each one.