Alexander Marshmallow User manual

USER MANUAL

About AlexAnder PedAls
Alexander Pedals builds hand-crafted eects pedals in Garner, North Carolina. Each Alexander
Pedal is meticulously voiced and tweaked by our sonic scientists to achieve sounds that are
both instantly familiar yet completely unique.
Alexander Pedals are designed by Matthew Farrow and a group of trusted players, builders,
and friends. Matthew has been building guitar pedals since the late 1990s, rst with Pharaoh
Ampliers, and now with Disaster Area Designs. Matthew has designed some of the most
innovative eects units on the market, including some big names he’s not allowed to tell you
about.
Alexander Pedals was started for two reasons - to make great tones, and to do good. The
great tones part you probably have some idea about. As for doing good, Alexander Pedals
donates a portion of the prots from every pedal sold to charity, whether you buy from us
or our dealers. Matthew’s younger brother Alex passed away in 1987 of a form of cancer
called neuroblastoma. Alexander Pedals honors his memory by helping in the ght to end
childhood cancer.
2018 Garner Station Rd, Raleigh NC 27603 [phone] alexanderpedals.com
GREAT TONES. DOING GOOD.
Contents
IntroductIon ..........................................1
GettInG Started .....................................1
SoundS and controlS ...........................2
loadInG and SavInG PreSetS .................4
PItch lock...............................................5
WarP! ......................................................5
SettInG uPYour Pedal .........................6
exPreSSIon Pedal....................................7
neo FootSWItch .....................................8
MIdI conFIGuratIon..............................9
MIdI coMMandS ................................. 10
SPecIFIcatIonS....................................... 10

1
Marshmallow is pretty much like any other pedal. Plug in on the right side, then plug the
lower jack on the left side to your amp or next pedal. Power it up, hit the footswitch and see
what happens!
Want to hear some sounds that we like? Hold down the BYPASS footswitch to load in the
factory presets. We put four cool tones in the pedal for you to tweak.
Experiment. Turn the knobs. Push the buttons. We think you’ll nd something you like.
GettinG stArted
introduCtion
“Marshmallow?” That’s a silly name for a pedal, we know.
But it totally ts. Sweet, fun, and probably best consumed in small doses, our Marshmallow
makes weird gooey sounds with your favorite instruments.
At its heart, Marshmallow is a pair of pitch shifters that we combine and modulate in interest-
ing ways with a variety of magic tricks. Want smooth chorus? No problem. How about juicy
organ tones? Yup. Maybe you want your stu to sound like a cat on helium? Yes, we do that
too.
Basically, Marshmallow is a quick way to start at normal and end up at “what was that?!” We
hope you like it as much as we do.
GUITAR /
INSTRUMENT
INPUT
EFFECT
OUTPUT
MULTIJACK
WARP
FOOTSWITCH
BYPASS
FOOTSWITCH
SELECT
BUTTON
MODE LEDS
MAIN LED
USB PORT 9V DC POWER
WARP LED BYPASS LED
Messing with the knobs will get you a long way, but there is a lot to this pedal just under the
surface. When you’re ready to dive in to the advanced features of your new pedal, read on.

2
sounds And Controls
Marshmallow does a lot of stu, but that doesn’t mean that it’s hard to use! Generally you can
just turn the knobs on the pedal and explore new sounds, but we put a few extra controls on
the pedal that we think you can use.
Tap the center Select button to move to the next Eect Mode. You’ll notice that the small
LEDs in the center of the pedal change to show the current Eect Mode.
If you hold the center Select button, you can access the“Alt Functions”for the pedal knobs.
Here’s a run-down on what all of the knobs do in each Eect Mode of the pedal.
RING
RANDCLOUD
MOD
ARPY
DYNA
RING
RANDCLOUD
MOD
ARPY
DYNA
PITCH 1
MIX
PITCH 2
HOLD DOWN TO ADJUST
MOD
DEPTH
MOD
RATE
LEVEL
CLOCK
RATE
RAMP
RATE
ALT FUNCTIONSMAIN FUNCTIONS
MOD (upper blue) Combines twin pitch shifters with an adjustable pitch modulation.
Great for chorus, vibrato, and organ eects.
RAND (upper red) Twin pitch shifters with random modulation. VOICE and ALT set the
“home”pitches of each shifter and MOD sets how far they’re allowed to move.
ARPY (lower blue) Fully congurable arpeggiator. The rst pitch in the sequence is
always unison, and you set the other three pitches with the VOICE, TWO, and MOD knobs.
RING
RAND
CLOUD
MOD
ARPY
DYNA
RING
RAND
CLOUD
MOD
ARPY
DYNA
PITCH 1
MIX
PITCH 2
HOLD DOWN TO ADJUST
RANDOM
DEPTH
RANDOM
RATE
LEVEL
CLOCK
RATE
RAMP
RATE
ALT FUNCTIONSMAIN FUNCTIONS
RING
RAND
CLOUD
MOD
ARPY
DYNA
RING
RAND
CLOUD
MOD
ARPY
DYNA
INTERVAL
TWO
MIX
INTERVAL
THREE
HOLD DOWN TO ADJUST
INTERVAL
FOUR
ARP SPD /
DIRECTION
LEVEL
CLOCK
RATE
RAMP
RATE
ALT FUNCTIONSMAIN FUNCTIONS

3
sounds And Controls (Continued)
CLOUD (lower violet) Twin pitch shifters with an adjustable cascading delay / reverb eect.
Increase the MOD knob for more clouds, lower the CLOCK knob for longer delays.
RING (lower red) Twin pitch shifters with an adjustable fade / tremolo eect.
Low settings of MOD sound like tremolo or panning, higher settings sound like robot barf.
DYNA (upper violet) Dynamically controlled pitch shifter. VOICE sets the “quiet” interval
and TWO sets the “loud” interval. Adjust MOD to control the sensitivity of the envelope detec-
tor. ALT sets the shift behavior to either glide between pitches or smoothly fade.
RING
RAND
CLOUD
MOD
ARPY
DYNA
RING
RAND
CLOUD
MOD
ARPY
DYNA
PITCH 1
MIX
PITCH 2
HOLD DOWN TO ADJUST
FEED
BACK
PITCH 1/2
BLEND
LEVEL
CLOCK
RATE
RAMP
RATE
ALT FUNCTIONSMAIN FUNCTIONS
RING
RAND
CLOUD
MOD
ARPY
DYNA
RING
RAND
CLOUD
MOD
ARPY
DYNA
PITCH 1
MIX
PITCH 2
HOLD DOWN TO ADJUST
RING
MOD
PITCH 1/2
BLEND
LEVEL
CLOCK
RATE
RAMP
RATE
ALT FUNCTIONSMAIN FUNCTIONS
RING
RAND
CLOUD
MOD
ARPY
DYNA
RING
RAND
CLOUD
MOD
ARPY
DYNA
START
PITCH
MIX
END
PITCH
HOLD DOWN TO ADJUST
ENVELOPE
SENSITIVITY
GLIDE
ON / OFF
LEVEL
CLOCK
RATE
RAMP
RATE
ALT FUNCTIONSMAIN FUNCTIONS

4
loAdinG And sAvinG Presets
Have you ever spent a lot of time tweaking your gear to get the sounds you really love, only to
nd that your pedal knobs moved between your practice space and the gig? Or maybe you
need a lot of sounds but don’t have a ton of room on your board for multiple pedals?
Presets to the rescue!
Marshmallow and all of our other Neo Series pedals have built-in preset capability. That
means you can save and recall four sounds from a single pedal with no extra hardware or
funny business. If you do have a MIDI controller, the preset capability expands to 16!
1
2
3
4
To load a preset, simply hold down the BYPASS
footswitch for 1 second.
The upper LED will blink one, two, three, or
four times to indicate the current preset and
you’re all set!
ALL of the pedal settings are recalled as part
of the preset - knob positions, expression
settings, and eect modes.
HOLD
To save the current preset, press and hold the
center Select button, then hold the BYPASS
footswitch down.
The upper LED will blink to indicate the preset that
was saved.
1
2
HOLD
HOLD
1
2
3
4
If you’re using a MIDI controller to access presets
on your Neo Series pedal, just send a program
change (PC) message to load a preset.
You can access an additional 12 presets using MIDI
for a total of 16.
To save presets 5-16, load in the preset by sending
a MIDI program change then edit its settings.
Once satised, save as normal. The current
settings will save in the current preset.
SAVE
LOAD

5
WArP!
Marshmallow features an advanced expression functionality we
call WARP! This allows you to seamlessly morph between two
dierent pedal settings with a single tap of your toe.
Tap the left footswitch on the pedal to begin the WARP eect - you
will see the WARP LED light up and the main LED will fade from
white to blue if the pedal is engaged. You will then hear the pedal
slide from its current settings to the WARP settings.
If you want to engage WARP for a short time, for example to
accentuate a phrase, you can hold the left footswitch to engage
then release to go back to normal.
PitCh loCk
While it is fun to pitch shift to random intervals, it’s also cool to
lock in to musical pitches. To help you get the most out of your
Marshmallow, we’ve added in Pitch Lock, which “snaps” the range
of the pitch shifters to dierent tuned intervals.
To change the Pitch Lock setting, hold down the center Select
button and then hold the RAMP footswitch. The upper LED will
change to indicate the current Pitch Lock setting.
The four settings are:
UNLOCK (violet) No lock, pitch is fully variable.
CHROMATIC (yellow) Pitch locks to semitone / half-step intervals.
MAJOR (cyan) Pitch locks to the major scale intervals.
MINOR (green) Pitch locks to the minor scale intervals.
The Pitch Lock settings are saved as part of your presets.
1
2
HOLD
HOLD
UNLOCK
CHROM
MAJOR
MINOR
To set the normal and WARP sounds on Marshmallow, rst tap the
left footswitch until the WARP LED is o.
Next, turn the knobs to set the sound you want for the normal
setting. Please note that the alternate knob functions may also be
set at this time!
Finally, tap the left footswitch until the WARP LED is on and set the
knob positions as desired for your WARP sound!
TAP TO TOGGLE
WARP!
HOLD FOR
MOMENTARY
OFF
SET NORMAL
POSITIONS
ON
SET WARP
POSITIONS
TAP
You can set the WARP to activate instantly or slowly - hold the Select button and
turn the RAMP knob to set.

6
settinG uPYour PedAl
Your Neo Series pedal has a few user settings
stored in memory. These settings include the
function of the MultiJack on the left side of the
pedal, LED brightness, and others.
To enter setup, power on the pedal and then
hold down the center Select button. Release
the button when you see the center LED turn
violet.
RING
RAND
CLOUD
MOD
ARPY
DYNA
HOLD TO ENTER SETUP
RELEASE WHEN LED TURNS VIOLET
TAP TO SELECT MULTIJACK FUNCTION
UPPER PROGRAM LED WILL SHOW
BLUE = EXPRESSION PEDAL
VIOLET = FOOT SWITCH
RED = MIDI
TURN TO SET
FOOTSWITCH
FUNCTION
RING
CLOUD
RAND
MOD
ARPY
DYNA
GREEN = RAMP
CYAN = PRESET
HOLD TO SAVE AND EXIT
HOLD
HOLD
TAP
Tap the center Select button to assign the
MultiJack function. The upper small LED will
change to show this function.
Blue: Expression Pedal Input
Violet: Footswitch Input
Red: MIDI Input
Turn the upper left knob to set the function
of the external footswitch, if congured. The
upper large LED will change to show this
function.
Green: Trigger Ramp
Cyan: Advance One Preset
Turn the lower right knob to set the brightness
of the main and lower LEDs.
The lower left knob sets the dry signal routing
in eect mode.
Blue: Analog dry signal, clean signal at all
times.
Red: DSP dry signal, better phase response
but the dry signal gets darker at lower clock
rates.
Hold the center Select button to save and exit
setup.
If you have changed the function of the
MultiJack, we recommend you power the Neo
Series pedal o and back on in order to ensure
the jack is congured properly.
LED
BRIGHT
DRY SIGNAL
SELECT
BLUE =
ANALOG
RED = DSP
RING
CLOUD
RAND
MOD
ARPY
DYNA

7
exPression PedAl
Marshmallow supports most types of expression pedals for performance control.
We recommend the Roland EV-5 and Moog EP-3, but just about any expression pedal that
uses a TRS cable should work. The supported expression wiring is SLEEVE = 0V, RING = 3.3V,
TIP = 0-3.3V.
Before connecting your expression pedal, make sure that you have set up the MultiJack to
read expression! The instructions are covered in the Setting Up Your Pedal section on page
6.
The expression pedal can control all of the pedal knobs, just like the WARP footswitch. The big
dierence is that the WARP footswitch always ramps between settings at the rate you set with
the RAMP knob, and the expression pedal ramps as you move the pedal.
You can use the WARP footswitch to set the expression pedal values, and vice versa. This
allows you to connect an expression pedal when you have room on your board or use the
WARP footswitch when you don’t!
SET HEEL DOWN
POSITIONS
SET TOE DOWN
POSITIONS
Connect your expression pedal to the MultiJack with a TRS cable. Engage the pedal and
sweep the pedal - you should see the upper LED change colors and the sound should change.
Set the expression pedal to its
HEEL DOWN position.
Turn the pedal knobs to set the
sound you want for the HEEL
DOWN position.
Next, set the expression pedal to
its TOE DOWN position.
Move the knobs to the desired
settings for TOE DOWN.
That’s it!
Just like with the WARP footswitch, all of the knobs on the pedal can be controlled with the
expression pedal except RAMP RATE, PITCH LOCK, and the mode selection.
Once you have set the sounds you like, don’t forget to save your preset! Changes you make to
a preset are lost if you power o the pedal or load another preset without saving!

8
neo FootsWitCh
Marshmallow also supports our Neo Footswitch for preset Select or warp functions.
To use the Neo Footswitch, you’ll need to congure Marshmallow to use its MultiJack for
footswitch input. Consult the instructions on page 6, Setting Up Your Pedal.
Connect the Neo Footswitch to your Marshmallow using the provided TRS cable.
If you have congured the pedal correctly, you should see the LED on the Neo Footswitch
light up and change as you tap the footswitch.
SERIES
1
2
3
4
LOAD
LOAD
1 2 3 4
SERIES
NORMAL WARP
NORMAL WARP
PRESET:
Tap the Neo Footswitch to advance
one preset. The presets will load in
sequence, 1, 2, 3, 4.
The LED on the Neo Footswitch
will change to indicate the current
preset:
RED = 1, GREEN = 2, BLUE = 3,
YELLOW = 4.
Hold the Neo Footswitch to go back
one preset.
RAMP:
Tap the Neo Footswitch to trigger
the WARP eect.
The LED on the Neo Footswitch
will change to indicate the current
WARP state.
You can also re the ramp for
a moment, by holding the Neo
Footswitch down. The ramp will
fade back down when you release
the Neo Footswitch.
You can also use any momentary normally-open (NO) footswitch in place of the Neo
Footswitch, but you won’t get the super-cool LED stu.

9
Midi ConFiGurAtion
All Neo Series pedals support full control using MIDI. In order to use your Marshmallow with a
MIDI controller, you’ll need to follow these instructions to congure its MultiJack and set up the
MIDI channel.
First, you’ll need a way to connect your MIDI controller to the MultiJack.
If you’re using a Disaster Area Designs controller, you should be able to use one of its MultiJacks
to send MIDI. We recommend the qCONNECT controller, since it’s made to interface with
multiple 1/4” MIDI devices. Consult your MIDI controller’s manual for details on how to
congure its output.
If you are using another type of MIDI controller, you’ll need an interface box or adapter cable.
We support the following interfaces and cables:
Alexander Neo Link Alexander Neo MIDI Cable
Disaster Area Designs MIDI Box Chase Bliss Audio MIDI Box
Next, connect your Neo Series pedal to your MIDI controller or interface box using a standard
1/4” cable or adapter cable. Make sure that your controller is powered on.
Power on the Neo Series pedal while holding its center Select button.
Release the button when the main LED turns violet.
Tap the center Select button until the upper small LED is red, then hold
Select to save.
C 05
Power the Neo Series pedal o and back on, again holding the center Select button until the
upper LED turns violet.
Send a program change message from your controller on the MIDI channel you would like to
use. When you see the upper small LED ash, hold the Select button to save and exit.
Your Neo Series pedal is now congured!
C 03

10
Midi CoMMAnds
All of the functions of your Neo Series pedal may be controlled with MIDI messages.
The following commands are accepted by Marshmallow:
MIDI Program Change: Load Presets 0-15
0-3 are the Red bank, also accessible by holding the Bypass / Preset footswitch
4-7 are the Green bank
8-11 are the Blue bank
12-15 are the White bank
MIDI Continuous Controller 97: Ramp
Send any value to trigger the ramp
MIDI Continuous Controller 100: Expression Pedal
Value 0 = Heel down, Value 127 = Toe down
MIDI Continuous Controller 102: Bypass
Value 0-63 = Bypass, Value 64-127 = Engage
MIDI Continuous Controller 50-57: Pedal Knobs
Value 0 = CCW, Value 127 = CW
CC 50 = Mod CC 54 = Ramp Rate
CC 51 = Voice CC 55 = ALT
CC 52 = Two CC 56 = Clock
CC 53 = Mix CC 57 = Level
MIDI Continuous Controller 58: Pitch Lock
0: UNLOCK 2: MAJOR
1: CHROMATIC 3: MINOR
MIDI Continuous Controller 59: Mode Select
0: MOD 3: RAND
1: CLOUD 4: ARPY
2: RING 5: DYNA
Marshmallow does not respond to MIDI Beat Clock and does not have tap tempo capability.
sPeCiFiCAtions
Input Impedance: 1M ohm
Output Impedance: 560 ohm
Power Supply: 9V DC, 80mA or greater, center negative
Bypass: Buered analog bypass
Dry Signal Analog or DSP (selectable)
DSP: 24-bit + 32-bit controller
Sampling Frequency: 36kHz -> 6.66kHz
We recommend the use of an isolated power supply with your Neo Series pedal.