WHAT ARE PASSIVE PEDALS?
Passive technology is nothing new. The volume and tone controls on your guitar or bass are passive. Some amplifiers are equipped with a passive “tone stack”, bass-middle-treble controls. The idea of passive overdrive has been with us for years. The concept of two diodes facing opposite directions, wired in parallel across the output terminals of an instrument creates a usable, but sometimes volume dropping, fuzz or “crunch” sound. Even a Ring Modulator effect that disrupts the signal to an unrecognisable bell like tone, is a passive device from the 1950’s.
So what makes Cave Passive Pedals so different?
We have taken vintage technology and improved its capabilities. We feel there was a “gap” left in time. When every electronics engineer focussed on creating smaller components, more efficient, portable power supplies and eventually, the digital revolution, the passive world took a massive step backward, plunging towards near extinction! If the human race had of realised that passive electronics had a long and exciting development ahead, that many things are possible without the use of a power source, would they still have given it up?
“Crystal sets” have long been forgotten. To receive radio transmissions without the need for 240 volts or a pack of 1.5 volt batteries would blow most people’s minds of today. Even more bizarre would be the concept of “wireless transmission of free energy” that Nikola Tesla was prevented from giving to the world! Imagine, never having to worry about finding a wall socket or changing flat batteries. Where ever you went, your radio could keep playing...indefinitely! All this is possible with vintage technology!
Here at Cave Passive Pedals, we are trying to fill the gaps. We have taken a step back in time to bring you, the musician, what should have been. We are the first to re-establish passive electronics in a world that refuses to believe that nothing can be achieved without a power supply.
Heath Cave – Chief Designer
