EarthQuaker Devices has just launched something quite different for your pedalboard consideration… It’s named the Towers Stereo Reverberant Filter, a stompbox that you could refer to as a reverb pedal, but that feels a little insufficient given that this is the kind of effect that transcends the usual food groups of room, hall, plate or spring.
Maybe it’s best to do as EarthQuaker Devices does and consider Towers a “soundscape generator.” Certainly, if you dime the settings on the pedal, it “will sound incomprehensibly huge and haunting” – but, EQD advises, there is gold to be found with subtler settings too.
What you want find is a redo of anything EQG president and chief designer Jamie Stillman has ever made before. This is something all-new he has cooked up.
Article continues below“I don’t want people to think that we’ve redone the Afterneath, or that we’ve redone the Transmisser, or that we’ve redone the Astral Destiny,” he says, “Towers represents a linear progression of reverbs. It’s not an evolution of or update on any current or legacy device.”
You can run the Towers in three switchable modes. In Manual mode, you are controlling the filter frequencies and stereophonic movement – to change the filter frequency, adjust the Frequency dial. Easy. In Envelope mode, the filter frequency responds to your picking dynamics, so the Frequency dial then acts as a sensitivity control for the envelope filter.
Finally, LFO mode is where the filter frequency is set by “slow-moving” LFO. You can adjust the rate of the LFO by turning the Frequency dial. These will sound particularly heady in stereo rigs. That LFO mode has a slow panning effect to fill the stereo field.
You can also store and recall presets via the 8-way rotary dial.
All this makes for one outré reverb. The Mix dial will be invaluable for controlling the balance so your electric guitar – or bass guitar, keyboards, synthesizer etc – can find its place in the mix.
Where things get really nuts is with the Stretch footswitch, which slows everything down, doubling the length of the reverb, playing around with the spectrum of filter frequencies, and as all this goes on there’s a sort of pitch-bending effect at play. Time and space coming to a halt, or indeed arriving at an altogether more psychedelic pace – a sound so weird and wrong that it’s right.
The Towers is priced at £329/$299. Check out the demo video above. As ever, EQD makes these in the USA. Head over to EarthQuaker Devices to find out more.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.