Create “vast ambient and shimmering soundscapes” with SoldGoldFX’s Ether Modulated Reverberator

There are reverb pedals and then there are reverb pedals*, those that exist outside of the hall/spring/plate holy trinity, and SolidGoldFX’s newly unveiled Ether Modulated Reverberator is definitely one of the latter.

The Ether is a compact powerhouse that allows you to create epic ambient soundscapes and augment them with vibrato, tremolo and harmonic tremolo. 

Its core effect is a huge reverb – “a cavernous ambient reverb” – and to this you can add a warped off-menu take on the octave-up shimmer reverb effect, in which the shimmer effect devolves as it decays into what SolidGoldFX describes as a “dissonant haze”. But it's once you add the modulation to the reverb that things get really interesting.

You can apply vibrato, tremolo and harmonic tremolo to the reverb trails, using tap-tempo for increased control over the processing of your ambience, with selectable sawtooth, sine and Special LFO shapes for each effect.

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Vibrato gives your reverb tails a “melting fluidity and washed out chorus flavour” while tremolo adds a rhythmic pulse to the reverb's decay, from subtle movement to choppy and percussive. Harmonic tremolo, meanwhile, takes this rhythmic approach an applies it to the frequency spectrum, giving you a psychedelic vibe. 

Vibe is very much the name of the game with the Ether, on which there is a Colour control for adjusting the tone of the effect, Decay for setting the size of the reverb, Speed for adjusting the rate of the modulation, and a wave-form selecting Depth control.

The Depth control is interesting. Here you can accesses a Special effect-specific waveform at its noon position, with an unpredictable waveform for the vibrato, square wave for the tremolo, and a flutter triangle for the harmonic tremolo. Below noon, and the Depth control adjusts the depth of a sine wave, while above noon it is a sawtooth wave. It's a handy way of getting a lot out of a single control.

Modulation types are accessed via the toggle switch. A tap to the left of the mini-toggle switch cycles through the modulation type, while moving it to the right activates the octave-up Shimmer effect. Level sets the output of the reverberated signal, and it has an extended range so you can really saturate the dry signal.

The Ether has two footswitches; one for the tap tempo, and toggling reverb modulation on and off, with the other to engage or bypass the effect, or to engage a hold function that can suspend your reverb trails in perpetuity. Furthermore, hold both footswitches together and you have a ramp mode, which adds a ramping effect to those infinite reverb tails.

Finally, you've got top-mounted jacks to keep your pedalboard neat and tidy. The SolidGoldFX Ether Modulated Reverberator is available now, priced $209. See SolidGoldFX for more details.