The Depths addresses nearly every complaint anyone ever had with a Uni-Vibe. I typically kept the level at two o’clock or higher, which kept the modulations pronounced while adding a little overdrive color. Aggressive voice and throb settings blunt high-mid content and emphasize the volume drop most players perceive in heavy modulation situations. The level knob is a valuable and powerful addition, given how intense and how focused in the EQ spectrum these modulations can be. Fast rate settings, meanwhile, benefit from treblier voice settings and less pronounced throb settings, which sharpen modulations and lend definition as things speed up. It’s fluid, harmonically rich modulation that can be tailored to fit an arrangement, mood, or rig via the voice and throb knobs.īass-heavy voice and throb settings add emphasis and power to low-end modulations, making The Depths sound positively abyssal at slow rates. Slow rate settings also make it easy to hear the gently contoured waveform that defines The Depths’ basic voice. Keeping the rate low and the intensity at about noon that adds a funky, psychedelic character to slow, bluesy Hendrix-style licks or meandering Jerry Garcia-style lead runs. Like most good Uni-Vibe style effects, The Depths is beautifully musical at mellow settings. In a number-crunching DSP age, it’s a fascinatingly anachronistic technology that generates organic and nuanced modulation tones.ĭeep, beautifully countered modulations. And intensity adjustments make the light swell in brightness more or less gently. It blinks faster as you advance the rate settings. You can actually observe the lamp reacting as you adjust controls: Turning the voice control clockwise makes the lamp brighter. Such circuits work by placing a small lamp adjacent to a light-sensing photocell so that the rate and intensity of the light control the effect. Cracking it open reveals a tidy PCB-mounted optical circuit. There’s a lot going on in the depths of The Depths’ compact enclosure. The latter two shape the output tone and add low-end emphasis to the modulation, respectively, expanding the range of musical scenarios where The Depths can shine. Just above, five knobs are arrayed in an X-shape: control, intensity, level, rate, voice, and throb. The pedal’s exterior is dressed up with a hybrid octopus/bathysphere graphic that gets our vote for coolest stompbox art of the year. But in typical EarthQuaker fashion, it tweaks a classic formula to more expressive and more practical ends. With its light/optical circuit, EarthQuaker’s The Depths is inspired in no small measure by the Uni-Vibe. But if the Uni-Vibe didn’t sound exactly like a Leslie, its rich phasing and chorus effects were glorious, particularly in the hands of exploratory players like Hendrix, Trower, and Gilmour. You can make a case that the original Univox Uni-Vibe falls in that category.Ĭonceived to replicate the rich and complex sounds of a rotating speaker, the Uni-Vibe was charged with an unenviable task that the best DSP technology has only now tackled with real success. Synthesizer horns, analog drum machines, home organ banjo sounds: None of them authentically replicated the sounds that inspired them, yet all became great tools of expression on their own merits. Modern music history is littered with instruments that failed at their original mission, only to become something more interesting in creative hands.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |