Kilpatrick Audio Vibro Man review

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Kilpatrick Audio Vibro Man

Kilpatrick Audio Vibro Man

Kilpatrick is a lesser known pedal manufacturer on these shores. Founded in Toronto by electronics engineer (and classically trained muso) Andrew Kilpatrick, Kilpatrick Audio's latest design is the Vibro Man, a tremolo pedal with a touch sensitive Depth control.

This means that, in Touch mode, strumming lightly will set the depth to a lower level, while attacking the strings increases the effect depth.

The pedal also includes a band-pass vibrating filter and a vibrato effect, either of which can be selected at the same time as the tremolo.

There's a separate Depth control for the tremolo, which is your key to varying the sound. Setting up a non-tremolo equipped amp to a crunchy rhythm sound with the Vibro Man's Depth set low produces some gentle vintage sounds that really bring out the retro vibe of the pedal.

Conversely, putting the pedal in front of a higher gain sound and increasing the depth produces a modern gated effect. The filter and vibrato are both clocked by the master Speed control, so by choosing either of the two effects you can add extra tonal movement or pitch flutters to the tremolo sound.

The Vibro Man offers a good range of effects in one pedal, but we'd like to have seen a tap tempo switch for setting the speed of the swells. Nevertheless, the touch sensitive control of the effect depth opens up a different and very dynamic way of using the pedal.