Robert Keeley and Andy Timmons have been co-designing guitar effects pedals again and have come up with a reverb pedal that approaches it from “a completely different angle”.
The Nocturne is a full-stereo reverb that occupies a similar housing to Timmons’ other signature Keeley Electronics pedal, the Halo Core, and takes some of the DNA of that pedal to engineer a reverb that’s unlike any other.
“The Nocturne ‘sound’ is essentially the beauty of what we all love about the Halo sound, but without the crosstalk of repeats of the delays,” says Timmons. “It’s reverb [created] from a completely different angle. ‘What If?’ ‘Could We?’ It’s the sound I’ve been hearing, but was unable to get with other reverbs. It’s the most inspiring reverb I’ve ever heard and I just want to play all day basking in its beauty.”
This, by the way, is a departure for Timmons. He admits that he had never met the right reverb pedal. He never really got on with them until now.
“The way that I’ve gotten reverb effect has always been through delays,” says Timmons. “Oddly enough, I was never a reverb guy.”
The Nocturne has got lots going on. It is controllable via MIDI, has an expression pedal input, with 72 presets available and switchable true and buffered bypass. You can turn those reverb trails on or off. You can run it in stereo as wet/dry or wet-only. And yet it is super-simple to dial in.
There are three modes: Spring, Plate and Nocturne, selectable via push button with LEDs to show you which is active. The Plate algorithm is based on a stereo tube plate reverb that has been a prized piece of hardware in Austin City Limits studio’s since Timmons was in short trousers.
The Spring reverb has that old-school splash to it, serious amounts of drip when you crank it, and then you have the eponymous Nocturne reverb, adapted from Keeley’s Halo algorithm.
There are knobs for Tone, Level, Decay, and Modulation, dual footswitches. The jacks are on the top. It’s a serious bit of kit. Robert Keeley himself is calling it his company’s “flagship” reverb.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this confident about a reverb, so I’m gonna say this is our flagship reverb,” says Keeley. “It features three different reverb sounds, and two different ways to play with them. You can have a Live mode where the knobs give you exactly what you’re listening to, or you can have it in a Preset mode, or you can step through the three different reverb sounds.”
Safe to say the Nocturne will be a fixture on Timmons’ pedalboard for the foreseeable future.
And if you want to follow suit, it’ll cost you £319/$269. See Keeley Electronics for more.
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