Cosmotronic Aphelion

Aphelion Stereo distortion and filter

Aphelion packs a stereo distortion and low/high pass filter into a compact 8HP design.
It features three unique stereo distortions in parallel with a continuous crossfade between them, controlled with the character knob or a cv input.

The first circuit is an overdrive that adds a lot of warmth and fattens up the sound without becoming too harsh. The second one is a saturating wavefolder, that can add interesting extra harmonics depending on the waveform of the material. The last distortion is inspired by the classic RAT guitar pedal. It adds an aggressive feel and grit to the sound..

A mix knob lets you blend the dry input signal with the distorted signal, before it hits the filter. Setting it fully dry bypasses the distortion effect.

If you need even more dirt, there's a handy +12dB gain switch, to really overdrive the circuits. If you want to keep your low-end undistorted, you can switch on the Low-cut filter.
The non resonant stereo filter combines a low pass and high pass stage, and uses an IC based on the classic SSM2040.

This filter is also overdriven, adding some warm distortion and extra harmonics to the original signal, and limiting the output level.
The cutoff knob becomes a a low pass filter when turned counter clockwise, and a high pass filter when turned clockwise. It's possible to control the low and high pass filter cores independently as well using CV.

The filter bypass switch can be used for instant reintroduction of all frequencies into the mix upon release—a great tool for live performers.
The level knob attenuates the output volume.