Red Panda Tensor
The Red Panda Tensor gives you live reverse and tape stop effects, pitch shifting, time stretching, and hold functions that you can combine in creative ways.
Slow down, speed up and rewind in real-time. Stretch or compress time with no pitch change. Loop, overdub, and randomly slice phrases.
Intelligent randomization adapts to the knob settings.
The results range from occasional CD skips, stutters, and rhythmic repeats to random slicing and erratic pitch shifts.
Both foot switches have momentary and latching modes to inject pitch jumps, glitches, or instantly rewind what you just played.
The Tensor is in a pedalboard-friendly enclosure with all jacks on top. All controls are immediately accessible with well-spaced knobs for live tweaking, and USB MIDI for recording and sequencing.
The Tensor performs real-time tape stop/slowdown/reverse, time stretching, and pitch shifting. The hold footswitch can loop and manipulate phrases up to 9.4 seconds (4.7 seconds in stereo). Both footswitch- es can be set to momentary or latching mode. The Tensor is always listening to what you play, so you can switch from bypass to effect with no gap or delay.
The Tensor maps between real time (as you play) and an alternate time based on the combination of control settings.
It takes some practice to play and hear in disjointed time bases, but in most cases, you can concentrate on what you are playing and let the Tensor stretch, shift, and warp the sound.
In addition to its front-panel knobs and switches, the Tensor supports USB MIDI to record, playback, and sequence sound changes.
The Tensor supports mono or stereo input and output.
Here is Mike Herman showing us what the Tensor is all about.
Controls:
SPEED:
-100% to +100%—Tape speed effect. Smoothly changes the playback speed, from forward (clockwise) to reverse (counter clockwise). In the middle, the sound is stopped. Reverse playback will play short segments of audio back- wards, simulating studio tricks where a tape is flipped over to create a reverse guitar solo.
TIME:
1:4 to 4:1—Time stretch/compression. Normal playback is in the middle position (12:00). To the left, playback is stretched without pitch shifting. To the right, playback is compressed without pitch shifting.
PITCH:
-2 to +2 octaves—Pitch shifting. No pitch shift in middle position (12:00).In live play mode, pitch shifting happens in realtime. In hold modes, the loop playback speed is changed to maintain the best fidelity.
BLEND:
Wet/dry blend, from 100% dry to 100% wet.
RAND:
Randomization. Rotating the knob clockwise will change the amount and type of randomization. Lower settings will add occasional stutters, in the middle it will randomly repeat short segments, and at maximum setting it shuffles short slices of sound.
HOLD:
Hold (looping) mode. See “Hold Modes” on page 9 for more information. OVR: Overdub (sound on sound)REC: Record (replace)NXT: Next (dual buffer)
DIR:
Hold loop direction. FWD—Loop plays forward.ALT—Loop alternates between forward and reverse. REV—Loop plays in reverse.
M/L (HOLD)—Sets HOLD footswitch to momentary or latching mode.
- Tape speed from reverse to stop to forward
- Realtime time stretch up to 4:1
- Loop time compression and stretch from 1:4 to 4:1
- Pitch shift from -2 to +2 octaves
- Intelligent randomization
- Overdub, replace, and dual buffer (next) loop modes
- Forward/alternate/reverse loop direction
- Momentary or latching foot switches
- CV-friendly expression pedal input (0-3.3V)
- +5.5 dBu maximum input level (adjustable to +7.2 dBu)
- USB MIDI
Requires 9V DC centre negative supply. current draw approx 220ma.
Blue B (verified owner) –
Product is excellent
Charlie J (verified owner) –
Excellent
Joe G B (verified owner) –
really happy with the product