The Lemon Squeezer is a unique tremolo pedal. Aside from providing tremolo effect that can be adjusted all the way from the most subtle modulation, all the way to a very rhythmic "chopped" sound; The Lemon Squeezer has a few extra tricks up its sleeve.

Like all tremolo effects, the Lemon Squeezer has a "rate" dial that controls the rate at which the tremolo effect is applied. There's also a "Tap" button, that when tapped will change the selected rate to match the rate at which you tap that button. Hold down the button for more than half a second though, and the tremolo's rate will revert back to whatever is currently selected on the "rate" dial. You effectively have two rates to choose from, one from the dial, and the second from the "Tap" button.

But wait, that's only the first trick. The depth of the tremolo is calculated using a microcontroller, so we can do something most other tremolo effects can't. See that "squeeze" dial? That controls the depth of "every other" tremolo cycle. Because it's difficult for us here at Dart to explain this properly with just words, we have drawn this picture instead -

That pretty little curve there is the tremolo "envelope". It's how much the tremolo effect modulates the volume of the guitar signal over time. Many other tremolo effects provide for different "envelope" shapes, such as a triangle wave. The Lemon Squeezer instead offers the "squeeze" dial, which squeezes the volume effect down on every other cycle of the volume envelope, as shown above with the two little dotted arrows. Leave the squeeze dial all the way over to the left, and the there will be no squeezing. All the way over to the right, and the tremolo's volume effect will be entirely squeezed away to nothing on every other envelope cycle. In-between these two settings lie a whole range of interesting rhythmic effects.

Since the tremolo effect does its work by reducing the volume rhythmically, it can sometimes sound slightly quieter when engaged. The Level dial offers an additional 6dB of boost when turned all the way up. Set the Level dial to about 2 o'clock, and the level into the Lemon Squeezer will be exactly the level that comes out of it. Turn it all the way to the right to get some boost. You can also turn it all the way down, so don't forget to make sure that you don't accidentally have it turned down if things don't seem to be working.

The Lemon Squeezer also supports modifying how the tap button works. Out of the box, your taps are subdivided into two beats of the tremolo cycle per tap. This setting can be adjusted to select anywhere from one to eight subdivisions per tap. When first powered on, the Lemon Squeezer will blink its LED to tell you how many subdivisions are currently selected. To change the setting, hold the Tap button down for two seconds. The LED will blink out the current setting for you again, and you can then use the rate dial to select a new subdivision setting. Then push the Tap button one more time, and the Lemon Squeezer will use your new selection. It will remember this setting, even when you unplug the power or take out the battery.

The Lemon Squeezer comes with a free 9v battery included, which will last a reasonable amount of time. It only draws about 27mA of current when active, and about 23mA when bypassed. Nine volt batteries don't contain a lot of energy though, so that's only enough to keep the Lemon Squeezer happy for maybe 18 hours. Luckily you can also plug in any standard centre-negative power supply too, and the battery will be disconnected when you do. The Lemon Squeezer contains its own voltage regulation, so you don't need to worry about fancy expensive power supplies. It also contains reverse-polarity protection, so you don't even need to worry about killing it with the wrong kind. Don't give it more than 15 volts though, it might not work anymore if you do. It will work perfectly happily anywhere up to 12 volts, in case that happens to be a power supply you have kicking around.

Input Impedance	500k Ohms
DC voltage	9-12v
Current	27mA
Input -3db cutoff point	16kHz
Tremolo rate (dial)	0.6Hz to 10Hz
Tremolo rate (tap)	0.5Hz to "as fast as you can tap"
Tremolo depth	0db to -20db