Flower Pedals has a bit of a reputation when it comes to eyebrow-raising effects pedals. Case in point is its Hosta foot rocker-free wah pedal, which ditched the widely used design template entirely.
Now, the brand’s latest offering looks to continue its fine pedal-making form, with the all-new Sunflower Deluxe Tremolo promising to provide users with a bouquet of seriously impressive specs.
The compact, pedalboard-friendly unit is marketed as the brand’s pre-existing Dandelion Tremolo pedal “on steroids”, and it’s pretty clear why. Not only has it amped up the control set, Flower Pedals has also made the harmonic tremolo stereo and introduced an extensive internal overhaul.
At first glance, the stand out functional appointments include preset-saving powers, MIDI compatibility and the ability to pair the Sunflower Deluxe with an expression pedal for hands-on modulation control.
But first, the controls. On the face, standard Dandelion controls of Boost, Depth, Shape and Speed are joined by Tap Division and Width parameters, the latter of which lets you adjust the time difference between the treble and bass harmonic frequencies.
The first four, meanwhile, control the boost level for the output of the pedal, the depth and primary speed of the tremolo and the shape of the tremolo waveform, respectively.
If that wasn’t enough, each control knob also serves a secondary function. Ramp Speed sets the rate at which the wave ramping occurs, while Drift Depth and Secondary Speed dictate how far the speed drifts from the primary speed and how fast the pedal ramps into ramping modes.
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One final speed parameter, Drift Speed, is pretty self explanatory, and is joined by Harmonic Division and Stereo Width knobs.
There are three available ramping modes that are all at the mercy of the above controls – Latch, Moment and Drift – which can be accessed via one of the two toggle switches. The other switch, labeled “Shape”, is in charge of flicking between a trio of variable shape options for the coinciding Shape knob.
Two footswitches complete the control set. The first doubles as an on/off switch and a secondary parameter trigger, while the second serves as a multi-functional tap tempo/ramp control.
As alluded to above, the Sunflower Deluxe can store five presets, each of which can recall primary and secondary parameters and tap tempo settings. The power LED will cycle through a quintet of colors to show which preset is engaged.
Likewise, the presence of a 1/4” MIDI jack also lets users control any parameter via a third party controller, while the expression pedal compatibility means separate pedals can be used to cycle through two pre-determined extremities of any Sunflower parameter, save Division.
All things considered, it looks to be an incredibly powerful and versatile tremolo pedal, which is made even more impressive by its humble size. Even without all the bells and whistles of the MIDI, preset and expression pedal bonuses, the catalog of controls make the Sunflower Deluxe super tweakable.
As you can imagine, it's capable of an array of wacky and wonderful tones, which you can check out in any one of the above demo videos.
The Sunflower Deluxe Tremolo pedal is available now for $349.
To find out more, head over to Flower Pedals.
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Matt is a Senior Staff Writer, writing for Guitar World, Guitarist and Total Guitar. He has a Masters in the guitar, a degree in history, and has spent the last 16 years playing everything from blues and jazz to indie and pop. When he’s not combining his passion for writing and music during his day job, Matt records for a number of UK-based bands and songwriters as a session musician.
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