Meet Harold

This is my take on the Meet Maude by Fairfield Circuitry. A few fair warnings.
1. I do not own Meet Maude.
2. This is my first attempt at remaking any pedal.

The signal path follows the same structure as the diagram on Fairfield Circuitry’s website. They are kind enough to share that with the world, and that is pretty neat of them to do.
For those that do not know what Meet Maude is, it is a Analog Delay with a couple of added quirks with Compression, Modulation, and a VCF that gives it oodles of “mood”. Really nice stuff. I tried my best at emulating some of that feel, and feel like I have cobbled together something that people can get some nice sounds out of. Okay, and with that out of the way here is what it do.

The front page is setup similar to the Meet Maude layout.

Upper left – Volume
Upper Middle – Feedback (Left Footstomp maxes out feedback for funsies)
Upper Right – Compression Level 0-1-2 (More on that that below button layout).*

Middle Right – Modulation Pushbuttons (can also be triggered by Middle and Right footstomp).
– Middle stomp / Left-most pushbutton “Big Weirdo” A super slow Sine wave that controls Time on the delay. Makes some huge changes, and is frankly quite wacky.
– Right stomp / Right-most pushbutton “Lil Weirdo”. This one is on by default, and makes subtle but random modulation changes to time. More of the “hiccup” style of a change, and more true to Meet Maude form than the “Big Weirdo”.

Lower Left – Tone Section with both High and Low Shelf
Lower Middle – Mix
Lower Right – Time for Delay. (Default is set pretty tight, but can get really really long.)

*The compressor section is the one I have the least amount of faith in being true to form. I do not know as much about compression as I would like to. What I have done to recreate it within my knowledge is to have the compressor selector be a dial from 0 (off), 1 (light compression), and 2 (Heavy Compression). The further you turn the dial to 1.000 the more compression you will get. In terms of function – the dial is changing signal channels from bypass, to one compressor to another. I referenced the Fairfield Circuitry compression pedal “The Accountant”, as I believe the same chip is used within Meet Maude. In that diagram they list what they deem to be “Light” and “Heavy” compression. I set the ratios they list on The Accountant for the 1 and 2 compressor in this patch. However, where my knowledge is lacking, is in terms of what light and heavy compression Attack and Release should be. I fiddled around with it, and got them sounding how I like. I believe more could likely be harnessed out of this section. I think its alright for now though.

Tips to tweak this bad boy behind the front page –
1. Play around with the filter section on page 2. It is a lowpass filter that is controlled by an envelope follower. Tweaking the filter can change up your sound a lot.
2. Know more about compression than me and play around with that section on page 1.
3. Update the Modulation settings on page 3. Big Weirdo sure is something, but it most certainly not everyone’s cup of tea.
4. Ultimately do whatever the hell you please. There is still some decent room of CPU to throw in some more stuff.

3 comments on “Meet Harold”
  • Braden_Solt on said:

    This is cool, thanks

  • m4ni on said:

    I love it! Admittedly I removed the Big\Lil Weirdo because I was just more digging the base sound – you did a really good job of mimicking the Meet Maude, so kudos for that!

  • leafyruin on said:

    Standout UI and documentation. Good color – you catch the darkness of the Meet Maude nicely.

    The feedback stomp ramps a little too fast.

    BW is good for when you’re in the mood for evil though hella confusing at first. LW is quite cool but maybe should be off by default?

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    • Platform:
    • Category: Effect
    • Revision: 1.0
    • License: Do What The F*ck You Want To Public License
    • Modified: 6 years ago
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      Downloads: 1626
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