The Lichtlaerm Audio Untiefe is a compact ambient (mono) reverb by a new Berlin-based company that’s distinguishing itself for creative and tweakable hand-made pedals with a strictly black and gold look.
At its heart, the Untiefe is a modulated reverb with 3 modes:
- phase mode offers a large room reverb and gives you the option to send it through a warm and smooth phaser voiced after the classic Mu-Tron 4-stage effect of yesteryear. You can get anything from swirly textures to otherworldly space reverbs.
- shiver mode is based on an even bigger plate reverb blended with a classic tremolo, delivering effects like smooth swaying verbs or choppy on/off-style tremolos.
- siren mode is based on the Soft Focus patch found in the Yamaha rack effect of the ’90s, involving a plate reverb mixed with shimmer and a chorus – an effect adored by shoegaze-leaning guitarists.
Six knobs allow extensive tweaking of these three modes: Rate and Depth for the modulations, Decay and Dampen (a low-pass filter) for the reverbs, and Mix and Level to set the amount of effect and the output.
The three toggle switches under the knobs select the mode, the Trail On/Off setting, and the assignable parameter for the left footswitch momentary effect, which can be feedback for swells or rate or decay for freeze effects.
Extra welcome features are the FX Loop on the left panel and Expression and Ramp inputs on the right one.
We added this pedal to our articles about the best ambient/shoegazer reverbs.
Lichtlaerm Audio Untiefe, Builder’s Notes
Dive into vernesque depths
The Untiefe is a huge and lush sounding am- bient reverb that creates uniquie textures by blending natural sounding reverbs with different classic modulation effects:
– phase is a big room reverb with the option to send the reverb through a classic Mu-Tron inspired 4-stage phaser: create liquid sounding textures or otherworldly space reverbs with the help of of smooth and warm phase-shifting
– shiver is an even bigger sounding plate reverb that can create meandering movements with the help of a classic tremolo: everything from smooth swaying verbs to choppy on/off-style tremolos are available here
– siren is based on the absolute shoegaze classic: the soft focus patch that utilizes a chorus which is controlled with the rate pot and a shimmer that can be blended in with the depth pot
The Untiefe is capable of both subtle room-reverbs and endless washes of reverb with it’s endless decay, 0-100% mix control: create big pads or extreme momentary modu- lations with the ramp switch or replicate freeze-style effects by utilizing our SmartRelay-System!
The reverb trails can be modified with both the dampen knob for bright or dark and moody feels and the exp-con- trollable modulation creates sounds that are normally only accessible through parallel fx-chains. If you want to add external effects into that mix just create your own modulat- ed verbs with the fx-loop.
Of course we also added switchable spill-over and a level control to make the Untiefe work in any setup and even as a boost!
So dive in and let it take you 20.000 leagues beneath the sea!
For more information check the manual!
Features:
- Lichtlaerm Audio Smart Relay technology
- depth-control to blend in modulation into the reverb
- rate controls the modulation-speed/sample-rate
- decay adjusts the length of the reverb tails (infinite is possible)
- level can work as a boost or master volume
- mix control adjusts the wet/dry-mix 0-100%
- dampen applies an analog low-pass filter to the wet signal
- assignable ramp-switch (rate or decay for freeze effects)
- switchable spill-over
- fx-loop for the wet-signal
