The Death By Audio Deep Animation is an analogue envelope filter. This is a dynamic filter whose cutoff frequency responds to your playing, so play it harder and the filter opens up. Play softer and it closes down.
Stop Press: DBA are no longer making the Deep Animation. We have one brand new pedal left
The result is an effect that feels connected to your picking dynamics in a way that static filter effects don’t. It is quite sensitive to pickups, so experiment with playing style, and output ( be it from pickup type, volume, or style),
The Intensity control blends resonance and grit together, so pushing it adds bite and distortion along with the resonance.
That’s a big part of why the Deep Animation sounds different from a “normal” auto-wah. There is no expression pedal input everything is controlled from the front panel. There is , however a trigger input for external sources.
Controls
- Sensitivity: Sets the threshold where the filter starts responding and how strongly it tracks your playing.
- Intensity: This blends resonance, filter amount and overdrive. Clockwise increases both resonance and distortion.
- Frequency Selector: Select between six tuned frequency ranges. Smooth, organic sweeps through to heavy distortion.
- Up/Down: Filter sweep is reverse using footswitch
- Trig input: Trigger the filter from an external source
Key Features
- Analogue envelope filter — responds to playing dynamics
- Intensity control blends resonance and grit for a mangled, overdriven filter tone
- Works well on guitar and bass
- True bypass
- 9V DC centre negative, 18mA. Can run on battery
- Lifetime warranty
- Handmade in Brooklyn, New York, USA
Power
9V DC centre negative at 18mA. Can be run using a battery.
Watch The Death By Audio Deep Animation In Action
FAQs
An envelope filter is a dynamic filter whose cutoff frequency responds to your input signal level. Play harder and the filter opens up; play softer and it closes down. The result is a wah like effect that responds to your picking dynamics rather than a foot pedal.
No.
Yes — true bypass throughout.
9V DC centre negative at 18mA. It can be run using a battery.
No. Intensity blends resonance and overdrive together, so they can’t be set separately. Sensitivity sets where the filter kicks in, and turning it right down takes the filter effect right out
Andrew E (verified owner) –
Having used it as a guitar pedal mainly (although I have plans to hook it up to my synth too), I am enjoying it on the whole. Its fair to say it uses are a bit niche, although you need to invest time in it – which I am only just doing. Build quality is amazing, no doubt. I run in in front of a pre-amp (mile end effects preamp 150) and into a 1960’s impact head amp, together they produce a nice noise. Turning the sensitivity and intensity down, frequency selector at 5 volume full and in down mode its a very nice distortion that is my go to mode of operation, acting like an extra knarl dimension to the slight distortion from the pre-amp on its own. There are so many combinations of sound you can get from it with slight tweaks, this has pros and cons for me, pro because its versatile but con because it makes it less easy to plug in and re-create the sound you had last practice (I take photos now of the settings). The dynamic sensors also can be a pro and con, pro in that you get some amazing sounds con in that it can be hard to control sometimes – again fiddling with the sensitivity and intensity and learning (and remembering the settings) is key I guess to getting the most out of it.