What do you get for the pedalboard that has everything? It’s an evergreen quandary. Another modulated delay pedal? Too passé. A tremolo and fuzz pedal twofer? That could work. But what about a [coughs] ‘spectral decomposer’? Does such a thing even exist?
It does now. It’s called the Atomic Cluster, and it has been developed by Electro-Harmonix, whose R&D spend has been generously rewarded with a mini-pedal of cosmic consequence for your electric guitar sound.
As part of the NYC guitar effects pedal brand’s Pico series, it will not bogart space on your pedalboard. It will, however, transform your sound, applying glitchy, synth pedal to your playing – sounds are hard to put into words. “Dipping our toe into the cosmic pool of glitchy synth pedals with this one,” was how EHX put it.
And here are some more words from the company on what the Atomic Cluster actually does: “This compact glitch and synth pedal breaks down your signal and interpolates it into a variety of musical and whimsical sounds. Using a unique algorithm to reduce the frequency resolution of your instrument, it creates a wide range of unique effects from rhythmic lo-fi glitch and auto-arpeggio tones to ambient synth pads and more!”
Okay, we’re sold. Especially seeing as all this weirdness does not come at the price of confusion. This looks easy enough to use. There are dials for Volume and Blend, the latter particularly welcome on an effect like this; often a subtle mix is what you’re looking for, a little magic dust on those clean guitar parts, and other times you want to max it out and go 90 per cent plus on the wet/dry mix.
The Atoms and Speed dials require some explanation. Atoms is controls the number of “simultaneous resonant oscillations” sounds at any one time, while Speed adjusts how quickly these oscillations are refreshed.
With the Atoms dial fully clockwise, the sound might not actually be that pronounced. Remember, this is a pedal that deconstructs your sound, so the more you reduce those oscillations, turning the Atom dial counterclockwise, the glitchier your sound gets.
As for the Speed dial, set it slow and it’ll sound like a rhythmic step filter. Set it fast and chaos and chance takes an interest in your sound. There is also a Mode button that toggles between Sharp and Smooth transitions between oscillations, the former being more rhythmically aligned, the latter more lush. You can also control the Speed with tap tempo.
Where things get really interesting is when you perform all this deconstruction on your guitar tone and then pair it with another pedal, such as the Pico Rerun tape delay.
As with the other Pico series pedals, don’t let the size fool you. This is packing some serious DSP firepower under the hood. It’s one of the good algorithms. And you can add it to your ‘board for just $129. The Atomic Cluster Spectral Decomposer is available now, see Electro-Harmonix for more details.
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