NPD: Poly Effects Josh Smith Flat V

allen · June 2023

Apparently pronounced 'flat five' not 'flat v'.

You may well have seen a couple of youtubes, and it's quite a complicated pedal which is hard to explain.

In summary:
Side A - just 4 types of diode and nothing (literally) nothing else
Side B - a FET blackface style preamp

Rather than try to explain all of the features I will just say what my experience has been with it in the last couple of days at home.

Side A - the diode side is surprisingly enjoyable. It's taken me a bit of time to get to know the different flavours of diode, but sounds surprisingly good. It's a bit like 'your amp, but with a bit of juice on top'. Nice effect. One problem though is that the Germanium diode is much lower output than the other 3 so this doesn't let you easily flick between them - to bring the Ge diode up to volume you need to stack it with side B and that is a slight faff.

Side B - I haven't explored it too much, but it definitely sounds good. The filters are just that - they set a cut off for a shelving filter (I think that's the right term) but there is also a resonance setting so you can increase the peak at that frequency. You can get some really nice sounds if you up the resonance a bit and then move the filter to taste (you can hear it clearly if you increase the resonance).

You can also stack them either way A--> B or B --> A. All quite different to a normal drive pedal.

I am planning on using the envelope follower to add gain to pick attack etc. (yes, there is quite a lot here)

I would also say that if you want to get a half dozen good sounds on this then you will have to use presets as the UI is too fiddly for easy on the fly changes. It's not so much the touch interface, works fairly well, but more the fact that getting a certain level/setting is tricky when sliding your finger up and down the dials.

The UI is responsive although you need to be firmer with it than with a smartphone.

Overall, I think that this is a really interesting pedal with plenty of character. I am mainly using it as a low gain boost kind of thing, but it will go all the way to whacky fuzz territory if you want.

Might do a video demo at some point.

Image: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60122936c5de08104ff37507/1673587008825-MFC7RXVD39ULZUD2CY4Y/joshnov_angle_2-edit.JPG?format=1000w

Wazmeister · July 2023

Hows it working out for you mate ?

allen · July 2023

I haven't had much time on it to be honest. When I do use it I am just using the A side - which oddly enough sounds really good without any tweaking. I have it on the desk next to an automatone and a kernom ridge and believe it or not just hitting one of those diode buttons is much more immediately satisfying.

One problem that I've had is a lack of volume, or more accurately a lack of fine adjustment at the top of the volume range. I would like to clean boost the diode side, but there isn't enough volume without increasing the gain a fair bit. That seems a bit odd to me so I keep meaning to get in touch with Poly to see what they think.

allen · July 2023

Here's a quick demo of one of the diodes. Just having a dabble before doing a bit more of a demo.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CuzRKpIA_SM/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

allen · July 2023

@Wazmeister ;
I can't embed instagram here so here's a different clip from youtube, this time it's the germanium diode.

Wazmeister · July 2023

allen said:

@Wazmeister ;
I can't embed instagram here so here's a different clip from youtube, this time it's the germanium diode.

Brilliant ! Thanks mate

allen · July 2023

Here's 30 seconds of the silicon diode.

allen · July 2023

And finally….

All four diode modes back to back

Poly Effects Josh Smith Flat V - all the diode modes demo

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NPD: Poly Effects Josh Smith Flat V

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