OBNE killed the BL-44. Good. It deserved a proper successor. The Old Blood Noise Setback is that successor: a reverse delay that ditches the “textural” hedging of its ancestors (Rever, Minim, Parting) for something more surgical. It can drift off on its own or lock tight to MIDI clock. It can sound gritty and broken or clean and precise. All in a compact stereo chassis.
The four-knob layout is deceptively simple. Clock controls the sample rate, from pristine 48kHz down to a degraded 500Hz. At its lowest setting, you get 24 seconds of reverse audio—more than enough time for your signal to become unrecognizable. Speed adjusts the playback rate, introducing quantized pitch shifts from an octave down to an octave up. Crank it for ring-modulated robot tones.
Div handles subdivisions, letting you sync the reverse timing to everything from sixteenth notes to half notes. Mix is your wet/dry blend. The Aux footswitch gives you tap tempo, runaway feedback (hold for infinite reverse sustain), or preset scrolling across three onboard slots.
The Alt controls are a nice touch: hold a button and the Mix knob becomes a master volume, while the Div knob lets you adjust delay time manually without tap tempo.
Analog dry-through, stereo I/O, full MIDI, expression control over everything. $259. Handmade in Oklahoma.
It’s not a delay pedal that happens to reverse. It’s a reverse pedal that happens to have delay. A subtle distinction, but it changes everything.
