Greek manufacturer Dreadbox is one of the pioneers of what one day may be remembered as some sort of “Greek Pedal Invasion” of the early 21st century, and even though its most celebrated releases lately have been synths, three new stereo stompboxes have surfaced in 2021. The Dreadbox Darkness, a granular pitch-shifting reverb, is the most intriguing of the bunch.
Product of a collaboration with software company Sinevibes, the Darkness is based on a granular pitch shifter circuit followed by the digital reverb circuit found in the Dreadbox Typhon synth and then by a gate generator (for tails on/off) and a 150ms loop for the momentary Hold effect (aka “freeze”).
There’s also a modulation circuit in there, for good measure, with three selectable LFO waves: Triangle or Sample & Hold.
The gate and modulation parameters are controlled through the appropriately named Control knob and the Mode toggle.
The result is an experimental reverb pedal that can create a variety of sounds from “small and smooth Reflections up to huge shimmering and endless reverbs.”
We added the Dreadbox Darkness to our article about the best stereo reverb pedals.
Dreadbox DARKNESS is a Digital True Stereo Reverb effect pedal and it is a result of our collaboration with Sinevibes.
By combining two exquisite Sinevibes Algorithms, Dreadbox team took this even further by extending the code and making these suitable for use as an effect pedal. Dreadbox favours open architecture in most of their devices, so instead of having several switched algorithms, DARKNESS has a single versatile and flexible formula, that can create from Small and Smooth Reflections up to Huge Shimmering and Endless Reverbs.Technically, DARKNESS is a Granular Pitch Shifter, followed by the famous large Reverb found on the Typhon synthesizer and ending up to a gate generator. In addition to this, there is also a micro looper that can hold up 150ms of the input signal, in order to create a freeze effect.
Experimenting is strongly suggested.FEATURES:
Flexible Shimmer Reverb with Gate function
32bit @ 48kHz Digital Effects Processor
Variable Time Scale with Modulation (Triangle or Sample & Hold)
Selectable Pitch Shift (+/-12 semitones) with variable mix amount for shimmering sounds
Up to 30sec Decay Times
2-Pole Damping Filter (High Pass or Low Pass)
Freeze function (loops 150ms of the input signal)
Versatile Gate effect with variable Attack and Release Times
True Stereo (Input and Output)
Selectable Tails Bypass
