Built in Wales, the Holy Island Tides is an atmospheric pedal featuring a reverb followed by two gain stages, creating over-the-top fuzzy walls of sound sprinkled with interesting harmonics and sonic artifacts.
Each gain stage can be activated through a toggle switch: Gain I is a low gain, opamp-based overdrive with soft silicon clipping, while Gain II (in V2 activated via the left footswitch) adds a reverse transistor fuzz circuit to the end of the chain, and can create thick walls sound when used with the first gain.
V2 introduced an Order toggle on the right that lets you switch the routing of the two circuits. There’s also a new Voicing toggle on the other side that in the downward position gives you a high-frequency cut with a slight boost in saturation conducive to the perfect fuzzy walls of sound. The upword setting delivers the original voicing of V1.
A Dry Kill switch allows to entirely remove the clean signal, whose amount can otherwise be controlled with the Moisture knob (I guess it’s another word for Wet).
The Momentary footswitch (on the left in V1 and in the center in V2) makes the pedal self-oscillate, feeding the reverb signal into itself. The Swell knob can control the intensity of this effect.
There’s also a Control knob that affects the tone of the wet signal, while an effect loop lets you place any effect into your reverberated signal.
Hear the sounds of the Holy Island Audio Tides V2 in the videos below.
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Holy Island Tides V1
Tides is fundamentally a highly tweak-able dirty reverb. A more accurate description of the pedal would be an atmosphere generator that allows you to craft perfect noisy waves of reverb. Usually you would be advised to place all dirt before your reverb pedal but Tides ignores this convention and provides you with not one, but two gain-stages after your dry signal has been blended with the reverberated signal. This approach enables you to create over the top fuzzy walls of sound sprinkled with interesting harmonics and sonic artefacts that would not be achieved otherwise. When pressed, the momentary ‘swell’ foot-switch forces the pedal into self oscillation as the reverb signal is fed back into itself for wild washes of sound and feedback as and when you desire. The final trick up the pedals sleeve is an effects loop, which allows you to place any effect (or chain of effects) that you can imagine onto your reverberated signal to further expand the ability for sonic exploration and the discovery of new, unconventional sounds. The ultimate shoegazers wet dream.
SWITCHES:
Gain I
Engages the primary drive circuit which is a low gain, opamp based overdrive overdrive with soft silicon clipping.Gain II
Adds a reverse transistor fuzz circuit to the end of your signal chain. This can be used in conjunction with the primary drive circuit for thick walls sound.Dry Kill
Removes your dry signal from your signal path. Perfect for producing soundscapes and ambient washed out textures.*note* This mode will introduce a slight delay when engaging the effect as the circuit requires a second for the signal to pass through the reverb brick.
KNOBS:
Gain
Adjusts the amount of gain for the primary drive circuit, this can be dialled back to provide a gentle clean boost or cranked for sweet saturation.Tone
Adjusts the filter of the primary drive circuit. Dialling this tone knob back will cut the highs of your signal and leave a thick almost fuzz like tone to your drive, while turning the knob clockwise adds highs to give you clear and sharp tones.Moisture
Blends in your reverberated signal with the your dry signal.Swell
This knob is tied to the left momentary footswitch. When pressed the footswitch completes a feedback circuit which feeds the reverberated signal back into the reverb brick, this causes the circuit to regenerate to the point of oscillation. The swell knob can also be balanced to tame the oscillation and provide infinite droning reflections of your wet signal.Colour
This controls the tonality of the wet signal. Turn clockwise for clangy, treble-heavy spring reverb sounds. Turn anti clockwise for a thicker blanket of ambient reverb.Master
Controls the overall output of the circuit.*note* As this is a passive volume control it needs to be maxed out if both gain circuits are disengaged to provide unity volume
Effects Loop
Tides comes equipped with an effects loop which allows you to introduce whatever effects you would like to your wet signal. The only limit here is your imagination octave down verb? why not?! arpeggiated walls of noise? hell yes! envelope filtered explosions of fuzz? No problem.
