While Vongon's Paragraph II shares a lot of similarities with the first iteration, a lot has also changed, with some very key differences between the two. The new Paragraphs is no longer an analog filter pedal based around the AS3320 analog chip, the IC used in synths like the Prophet 5, LinnDrum, etc., and instead uses a Daisy-powered 4-pole Moog inspired ladder filter (the same filter found in their Replay synth) as its heart. Also gone is the metal enclosure of the first version, replaced with the walnut case that's in line with the rest of Vongon's pedals. Perhaps the two biggest changes—both very welcome—is that Paragraphs II now has stereo ins and outs, is more reactive to playing style and technique, and has plenty of options to modulate the filter. The onboard dual stage (Rise, Fall) bi-polar envelope generator (from 5 ms to 4 seconds) is the key to all this and offers three distinct modes: Follower, Trigger, and Cycle.
Follower opens up the filter following your input volume; strum, pick, or synth harder, and the filter frequency follows suit. This works well for auto-wah type sounds and can be used for ducking signals as well. Trigger uses a sensitivity control that determines whether the trigger is active or not, and gives a one shot opening of the filter set by the EG settings. Short percussive attacks, long and slow fades, and everything in between. Cycle mode lets you get into tremolo territory, the speed of the cycling being set by the Rise/Fall sliders (or MIDI). There's also a 3.5mm CV input for modulating the filter and a 3.5mm MIDI TRS input that offers control of all the pedal parameters, and also gives you the ability to save and store up to nine presets.
The filter itself has Frequency control (20Hz to 12kHz) and Resonance control and, on top of being able to be controlled by the envelope, can also be modulated with an onboard LFO (0.1Hz to 100Hz). Two LFO shapes are available—sine and a smooth random—the amount of which can be adjusted to taste. Paragraphs II is not a complicated pedal by any means, but it still takes some thought and reading of the signal flow to see how it works, and more importantly, how to isolate the features to fully realize the control and features available. A clean, unadulterated input signal runs parallel to one that goes through the filter, and there's a Mix control to mix your signal to taste. Like setting the EG to a slow and steady rise before it could fully bloom, I found that to get a good feel of what Paragraphs II can do; it was best to set it to 100%, mixing out the dry signal completely and starting from the ground floor. Therefore, I turned the LFO modulation all the way down so I could get a grasp on the different EG modes, to see how they reacted to my playing and what they offered. Tweaking the filter to find a sweet spot and adjusting the Rise, Fall, and Sensitivity, and I was brought back to my early days of pedal discovery with the Boss SG-1, something I used almost entirely for auto-swell purposes. Paragraphs II has way more going on than that pedal, and even without doing any dynamic filtering (and therefore no modulation on the filter, but with added reverb from Vongon's Ultrasheer), I found the three modes responsive and performed as I'd hoped. Now, this is sort of a utilitarian test up to this point, really just getting a feel for the EG, but even so, with the bi-polar ability and adjustment amount (along with your Rise and Fall settings), you can get a lot here. Set to a negative amount, in Trigger mode there were the reverse sounding leads which I used to love to do with the Danelectro Back Talk reverse delay back in the day. Reverse swells in Follower mode, and swelling tremolos in Cycle mode.
Adding in modulation to the filter with the LFO and things could get wobbly, stuttery, beautifully mutating, and on and on. There's so much to get here among these three features; it's a vast grab bag of sound sculpting tools, with further gains in the stereo field. The LFO offsets the phase of the two outputs by 180° so you can get some beautiful stereo spread and the rate determines the phasing/panning speed when in Stereo mode and that can be interesting, though I wish this amount was adjustable and not fixed, as it would be nice to be able to open up more exploration in that way.
Cycle mode turns the envelope into basically another LFO to modulate the filter, and with the combination of the two stages of the EG, you can create linear shapes: triangles, sawtooths, reverse sawtooths, and pulses. With those and the two rounded LFO shapes onboard, Cycle mode really covers all the waveshape needs nicely. It's interesting to think of these, the EG and LFO, as complements to each other; the succinct and precise rising and falling of the envelope being cycled into an LFO, and the more loose, flowy style of the LFO. Two different halves of the same being, a Jekyll and Hide of sorts; a yin and yang. There's all sorts of sonic goodness to be had by exploring these two different dichotomies of sound shaping within a singular device.
Some sounds I got were disturbing atonal ringtones, like a doorbell from a demented dimension, or a distorted, ineffective jackhammer. It's possible to get delayed filter wobbles, like having a filtered tremolo in the background that comes in depending on the rise and fall settings. It's possible to use an external LFO where the rate could be synced to tempo via the CV expression or MIDI input. Also, with the MIDI in you could clock both the LFO and the Depth, which could be really interesting in tandem with the envelope settings.
It was even fun experimenting without an input—no sound source, other than Paragraphs II itself—with the resonance up high so it would self-oscillate. Adjusting the envelope settings, the frequency of the filter, and the LFO gave all sorts of strange bubbly squawking sounds, and using the LFO depth on full for the smooth random shape and the LFO rate set high brought about a sequence of sounds, though I would have loved to have a not-smooth random LFO to try out here as well.
I spent a lot of time in Trigger mode, messing around with formant type solos, similar to a talk box, which can be had by modulating the filter and the envelope settings to the right amount. Interestingly enough, when in Trigger mode with the Rise and Fall both set to fast settings, and the LFO rate and Depth both at max, different notes sounded smoother than others. For example, just a single held B, in any octave, had a smoother repeat than other notes. This, in turn, affected the LFO rate, which affected the panning/movement of the output in the stereo field. Maybe it's the beating of the frequencies, harmonics, whatever, but it was just an interesting phenomenon that I encountered while playing, something I really enjoy, these odd tidbits of exploration that involve my hands, my playing of an instrument. The combination of the feel throughout parts of my body; my hands, the guitar against my chest, the vibrations in my ears that enhance the sound experience.
If you couldn't tell already, most of my testing was done with electric guitar, as I really wanted to be in real-time control of the subtleties of the input signal, as opposed to patching in a more static synth (which was still most excellent), though you could most certainly create plenty of nuance at the input with that as well. Lately I've really been craving the feel of holding and playing an instrument that I'm creating the sound with, more of an extension of my playing where I can feel the vibrations of the wood through my torso. With a setup of Paragraphs II, my Cherry red Gibson ES-335, the Vongon Ultrasheer, and my DIY Tweed clone, I found all the feels: jittery, relaxed, mysterious, warm, sleek, expansive and otherwise.
Paragraphs II is a beautiful pedal, as easy to connect with on a soulful, expressionistic level as it is on an experimental one, and I'm looking forward to finding more ways to use it, and unlocking more of its potential.
Price: $449

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