Old Blood Noise Endeavors Visitor
Interacting modulations in a compact pedal
Old Blood Noise Endeavors describes its new Visitor pedal as a ‘Parallel Multi-Modulator’. It runs two modulation effects (Primary and Secondary) in parallel, the idea being that they interact to offer a range of shifting sounds and textures.
For the Primary effect you get a choice of tremolo, chorus or phaser selected via a toggle switch, and there are standard Depth and Rate knobs to adjust the effect. The Secondary effect can either be tremolo or chorus and there is a single knob to adjust this. If you keep that knob at minimum you can simply have your Primary effect, but advancing it adds and intensifies the Secondary effect. The knob adjusts four parameters simultaneously. First up, the volume ramps up to unity and stays there for the rest of the sweep. Depth does something similar so it doesn’t get out of control. Rate increases but is also influenced by the Primary LFO for some extra to and fro. A delay offset also increases giving a much more ambient sound in its further reaches.
Two more knobs adjust the overall sound: a Mix knob sets the dry/wet balance and a Regen knob controls overall feedback, feeding the sum of the two modulations back to the input.
The three basic primary effects all sound good: the tremolo has plenty of natural variation including extreme on/off choppiness, the chorus has a nice shimmer and is capable of cool vibrato by setting the mix to fully wet, while the rich-sounding phaser does a great metallic flanger sweep if you turn the Regen up. Bringing in the secondary effects makes things altogether more interesting with very usable effects from all six combinations. Two choruses or a chorus/phaser combination can make things really swimmy. Two tremolos together offer more rhythmic complexities with a nice slapback towards the extreme of the secondary parameter, while tremolo offers a textural overlay for chorus and phaser. There’s a pleasing sonic ebb and flow as the two modulations interact, something that can be exploited in realtime as an expression pedal can be used to take over the function of the Secondary knob, shifting through the gears.
VERDICT
This pedal offers its own unique take on textural modulations.
PROS Complex modulations in a compact pedal; unique interactions between the two modulations; expression pedal control of secondary modulation
CONS A little on the expensive side