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NEUNABER AUDIO EFFECTS | MEDIA KIT

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WELCOME / CONTENTS

WELCOME

In this document you will find everything you need to know about Neunaber Audio Effects, including our history, mission statement, product details and Frequently Asked Questions.

Thank you for reaching out, and we look forward to working with you in the future.

Team Neunaber

CONTENTS

NEUNABER MEDIA ASSETS 03

MISSION STATEMENT 04

ABOUT US 05

THE PRODUCT RANGE 06

- ICONOCLAST 06

- IMMERSE REVERBERATOR 08

- EXPANSE COLLECTION 09

- ELEMENTS COLLECTION 11

FAQ 12


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MEDIA ASSETS

MEDIA ASSETS

The following media assets can be downloaded at neunaber.net/media-kit

• Neunaber Logo• Neunaber Icons• Product Images

http://neunaber.net/media-kit


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MISSION STATEMENT

MISSION STATEMENT

Design elegant and intelligently-engineered products for the musician in pursuit of unparalleled tone.


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ABOUT US

ABOUT US

Neunaber Audio Effects designs audio products for the discerning musician, emphasizing high-fidelity sound and balancing simplicity with functionality.

We operate under the following guiding principles:• The best solutions are simple and elegant. • While music is art, audio is a science that is understood. It is not black magic.• Digital processing is only a tool, like vacuum tubes or solid-state analog. It is how one uses the tool that makes

the result sound good or bad.

How are we different?

We are not a mass-producer, nor do we see ourselves as boutique. We prefer to remain small and agile while manufacturing our products using modern machinery and automated assembly techniques, which—when properly implemented—are far more reliable than hand-built. We pride ourselves in our intelligent, quality driven approach, utilising the latest technologies and insight to produce gear that performs flawlessly, sounds incredible and lasts. We design for maximum value—using the best parts and practices, but only when it results in a noticeable improvement in sound, appearance, or longevity.

Coming from an engineering background, Brian Neunaber—the company’s founder—has grounded our mission in modern, highly technical excellence. Our products are the result of research, development and intentional sonic engineering. We are not mad scientists hoping for a happy accident... we are audio effects professionals creating precisely what our ears want to hear.

We pursue sonic perfection, at the cost of breaking any industry ‘norms’. Our products deliver practical and intriguing sounds to a diverse range of musicians—from those whose desire is to effortlessly plug-in and play to those who need a more versatile platform to sculpt their ultimate tone. We believe that making great products is the best marketing strategy, and we rely on happy customers to spread the word. We continually look for new ways to improve. Life is change.

We care about the environment.

Our products are lead-free and RoHS compliant: no lead is used in the components that make up the products, and no lead is used in the assembly process itself. As much as possible, we recycle waste materials. We reuse packing materials for shipments. And whenever practical to do so, we use local suppliers.

Company Background

Neunaber Audio Effects is a brand name of Neunaber Technology LLC—a small family-run company started by Brian Neunaber in 2009. We are located near the Historic District in Orange, California.

Brian has been designing audio products professionally since 1994. He was previously the DSP Architect at QSC, where he helped to develop and implement several key processing technologies found in QSC’s K Series powered loudspeakers and other products. Prior to this, Brian designed effects processors and a digital modelling guitar amplifier for St. Louis Music, who marketed products under the Crate and Ampeg brands. Brian has two patents and a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering.


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ICONOCLAST PARAMETRIC SPEAKER EMULATOR

ICONOCLAST

Iconoclast dynamically shapes your tone as a speaker cabinet would yet outputs directly to headphones, powered speakers, a mixer or recording interface. When paired with the drive pedal or preamp of your choice, Iconoclast delivers consistent amp tone at any volume—and in virtually any setting—often without needing to bring anything more than your pedal board.

Intuitive controls make it easy to dial in a wide range of tones on-the-fly, whether or not you know anything about how different speaker cabs sound. The Low, Mid and High controls work pretty much like they appear. It doesn’t need to get any more complicated than this.

For you tone nerds, however, there’s a lot more going on under the hood:• Low adjusts the virtual cabinet type and size• Mid captures the speaker’s dynamic interaction with

the amplifier• High shifts the frequency cut off, reproducing a wide

range of speaker types

On top of this, Iconoclast Software for Windows/Mac lets you dig deep into the inner workings, visualize how your tone is being shaped, and change the response to your heart’s content. The software also adds a mono-compatible stereo enhancer for your listening pleasure.

Iconoclast was designed to be the only thing you need after your pedal board or preamp, so we also added a studio-quality noise gate to clean up your dirty signal chain. Flexible ins & outs may be used mono or stereo, and the outputs can be used balanced or unbalanced. Or just plug in your headphones—with its built-in headphone amp, Iconoclast can handle that too.

At only 4.6” × 2.8” (116 mm × 68 mm), Iconoclast can fit almost anywhere and is powered by your existing 9V or 12V pedal board power supply (not included).

PRODUCT RANGE / ICONOCLAST


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ICONOCLAST SOFTWARE

Iconoclast Software works exclusively with the Iconoclast hardware platform and accesses response visualization, deep editing, additional EQ filters, stereo enhancement processing, and file storage of settings. Iconoclast Software requires MacOS 10.7+ (64-bit Intel processors only) or Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10.

• View real-time changes • Change the virtual loudspeaker impedance, thereby

changing the character of midrange cut• Filter Type control changes the type of low-pass filter,

which mainly changes the cutoff slope of the filter • Fizz Enable and Level controls allow you to dial in

more “fizz”—frequencies above the filter’s cutoff• Power Compression controls to adjust both the sensi-

tivity to (or amount of) and response time of power compression

• Two additional bands of EQ–which can be configured as parametric or shelf–have adjustable gain, frequen-cy and slope

• Adjust attack time, hold time, release time, hysteresis, and attenuation of studio-quality noise gate

• Stereo Enhancer will create a pseudo-stereo signal from a mono input

• A Master Output section consists of controls for digital bypass, gain, and polarity

• Current settings may be saved to and opened from any number of files

• View a third-party impulse response superimposed with that of Iconoclast (for comparison purposes only)


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IMMERSE REVERBERATOR

IMMERSE REVERBERATOR

The Immerse Reverberator houses eight stellar stereo reverbs —

• Wet• Hall• Plate Reverb• Spring Reverbs• Two Shimmers • Wet+echo• Wet+detune

Each effect has been painstakingly crafted: there are no fillers here. Delivering unrivaled sound quality and no-nonsense flexibility in a compact footprint, the Immerse can be used with instruments of all stripes.

• Five controls: Effect Select, Effect Level, Reverb Depth, Tone (or Echo Time), Effect Adjust (depends on effect)

• High-quality buffered bypass with external Trails switch

• External Kill Dry switch for parallel effect loops• Inputs/outputs can be used mono or stereo• Analog dry signal for low noise and zero latency• Small footprint• Requires standard 9V or 12V pedal power supply (not

included, but you may add one.)

PRODUCT RANGE / IMMERSE REVERBERATOR


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PRODUCT RANGE / EXPANSE COLLECTION

EXPANSE COLLECTION

EXPANSE SERIES

Previously known as our v2 Stereo Pedals, all the pedals in the Expanse Series can be programmed as any effect using Expanse software:

• Reverb (Wet, hall, plate, spring, modulated) • Shimmer• Echo, with/without reverb• Chorus or Detune, with/without reverb• Flanging• Phasing, Phased Doubling• Tremolo• Infinity Hold, with or without reverb

All graphic options come pre-programmed as the Wet Reverb except Seraphim (shimmer), Chroma (chorus) and Echelon (echo).

FEATURES• Stereo or mono input and output• Three controls, function depending on effect• Access 4 programmable effects with 2 presets each via the ExP Controller (sold separately)• Mix knob goes to 100% effect• Buffered trails bypass (optional true bypass available)with soft-switching• Selectable footswitch behavior, independent of effect (see User Guide)• Very high input impedance: no “tone suck”• Analog dry signal for low noise and zero latency• Small footprint• Requires standard 9V or 12V pedal power supply (not included)


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PRODUCT RANGE / EXPANSE COLLECTION

EXP CONTROLLER

Simply connect the ExP to any Expanse-series pedal with the included cable. No power supply is needed. Select the effect and program it with Expanse software. The footswitch behavior is also configurable per effect (see the Expanse Advanced Setup Guide). For example, you can configure a tap-tempo Echelon Echo as one effect and a Seraphim with long-press for shimmer as another effect.

Using Preset Morph with an expression pedal, you can smoothly transition between two presets, resulting in nearly infinite variation.

• Effect footswitch cycles through 4 programmable effects

• Preset footswitch toggles between 2 presets for each effect

• Three expression inputs—one for each knob

• Preset Morph expression input• 12” cable included• Powered by Expanse Pedal—no

power supply required• Control multiple pedals

simultaneously (see the User Guide)

• Small footprint

FEATURES

• Updates effect in seconds• Virtual Trim Pots for increased

customization• Mac OS X 10.7+, 64-bit Intel

processors only• Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10

EXPANSE SOFTWARE

Expanse™ software can transform your Neunaber Expanse-Series Pedal into ANY available effect!

Expanse is compatible with all v1 and v2/Expanse Pedals, although a few effects require 100% wet-signal and cannot therefore be loaded onto a v1 pedal.

REVERB

• Wet Stock • Wet Reboot • Grand Hall • Studio Plate • Spring • Wet Modulation Knob

ECHO/DELAY

• Echelon Stock • Echelon Scatter • Echelon Soft Scatter • Digital Delay• Echo + Reverb • Neu Tape Echo

CHORUS

• Chroma Tone Knob • Chroma Regen Knob • Standard Chorus• Quad Choruse• Wet + Chorus • Wet + Detune

FLANGER/PHASER

• Through-Zero Flanger • Phaser • Phased Doubler SHIMMER

• Seraphim Shimmer A • Seraphim Shimmer B

MORE EFFECTS

• Infinity Hold • Infinity Hold w/ Reverb• Tremolo

CURRENT VERSION EFFECTS

The ExP™ Controller unleashes the full functionality of your Neunaber Expanse-series pedal—four programmable effects with two presets each, three expression inputs (one for each knob), and a Preset Morph expression input. Multi-color LEDs uniquely identify effects/presets and are easily seen from a distance.


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PRODUCT RANGE / ELEMENTS COLLECTION

ELEMENTS COLLECTION

WET REVERB

Simple yet surprisingly versatile, the Wet Reverb has been described as “organic”, “haunting”, and a “choir of angels”—seriously, we can’t make this stuff up.

• v4: now with tone control and soft switch

• Optional true-bypass available • Selectable trails, normal or two-

stage bypass: trails while switch down, switches to normal/true-bypass on release

• Fine Mix knob adjustment from 0% to 100% wet

• Analog dry signal for low noise and zero latency

• Mono input & output• Small footprint• Requires standard 9V pedal power

supply (not included)

ECHELON ECHO

Imagine a glistening modulated delay fused with the warm high-frequency saturation of a tape echo, then add tap tempo and easy-to-use controls—that’s what we did with the Echelon Echo. Tone Report Weekly calls the Echelon “a lovely, lively pedal... a gorgeous sound all its own... Beautiful tone and traditional tap tempo option in a small, affordable package.”

Bypass and Tap Tempo combine seamlessly on a single footswitch, maintaining a compact form-factor. Cross-fading Time Change™ allows tempo changes in real-time without audio artifacts (no muting, zipper noise or pitch change).

• Tap tempo with intuitive tap divide• 1 second maximum delay time• Trails or normal bypass, optional

true-bypass available • Mix knob adjustment from 0% to

100% wet• Analog dry signal for low noise

and zero latency• Mono input & output• Small footprint• Requires standard 9V pedal power


SERAPHIM SHIMMER

Seraphim Shimmer combines the Wet Reverb with our celebrated shimmer effect, taking the “choir of angels” sound to a new level! Simple, versatile controls allow you to quickly dial in your ideal celestial sound.

Even better—you can switch on-the-fly between shimmer and reverb-only with a long-press of the footswitch. It’s like two pedals in one! Kick in the shimmer only when you need it—to add a little sparkle, or for a full keyboard pad effect.

A long press of the footswitch is just like setting the Shim knob to 0, and a second long press sets it back to the knob position. This results in a seamless transition between shimmer and reverb-only with no break in the effect.

• Trails or normal bypass, optional true-bypass available

• Mix knob adjustment from 0% to 100% wet

• Analog dry signal for low noise and zero latency

• Mono input & output• Compact footprint• Requires standard 9V pedal power



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FAQ

How are your products assembled?We use modern assembly techniques. We do not use “hand-wiring,” because it is prone to human error. We produce consistent, reliable results using automation and strict procedures.

All manufacturing labor is performed locally in Orange County, California. Why are your pedals so light-weight compared to some others?Many people confuse weight with quality; a heavier object somehow feels more durable or valuable. Some pedal builders take advantage of this psychological trick by using a heavier enclosure. For example, some use die-cast zinc instead of aluminum. There is little difference between the material properties of these two metals (at least for their use in pedal enclosures), but zinc weighs twice as much.

We think that if you are carrying a pedal board around, especially a large one, you might not like this. So, we don’t artificially weight our pedals. What is the sample rate / bit depth / processor speed? There are certain specifications we do not publish, because they have little-to-no bearing on sound quality or performance. Some manufacturers tout these numbers, but we know from vast experience that bigger numbers rarely translate to better sound. Publishing these numbers serves no purpose other than to mislead or confuse the customer:

• Sample Rate — bigger is not necessarily better unless latency is a concern, especially once you go beyond the frequency bandwidth of the input signal or of human hearing

• Bit Depth — nearly all digital gear is at least 24-bit these days• Processor Speed means little, because most modern digital signal processors can do several parallel operations

simultaneously. In addition, an elegant, optimized algorithm will often perform more efficiently than a poorly-coded, inelegant algorithm on a faster processor.

The specifications that do matter are published in our User Guides:

• Frequency Response• Latency: note that an analog dry path means no latency• Total Harmonic Distortion• Signal-to-Noise Ratio And of course the most important “specification” is how it sounds. Only you can be the judge of this.

Do your pedals digitize the dry signal?No. The dry signal remains analog.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS


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Elements / Expanse / Immerse Pedal Comparison

Elements Expanse Immerse

Simple 3-knob layout Y Y

Flexible 5-knob layout Y

High-quality components and contruction Y Y Y

100% effect level at full mix Y Y

Second switch function on select effects Y Y

True bypass option available Y Y

Mono input/output Y Y Y

Stereo inputs/outputs Y Y

Effect can be changed with Expanse software Y

Expansion port for accessing multiple effects, presets & expression inputs (works with ExP)

Y

Select multiple effects on the pedal itself Y

*This comparison applies only to current-version pedals.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS


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