For such a small country (although densely populated, with its 18 million souls), the Netherlands is extremely good at producing Olympic medal-winning athletes, but not so much at manufacturing guitar pedals – something its 6-million-shy neighbor Denmark excels at, for example. However, Eindhoven’s Iceberg Effects is here to change that with a range of intriguing pedals.
Their latest release, called Frits (the mittle-European term for “Fries”) is a peculiar stereo, multi-modulation pedal producing flanging, chorus, vibrato, modulated slapback delay, faux reverb, and everything in between.
The type of effect you get is set by the central 3-way toggle, offering Flanger, Chorus/Vibrato, and Delay/Reverb.
While the knob controls for Rate, Depth, and Mix are fixed, two extra knobs can be assigned to set different parameters:
- the Level B knob can control Rate, Depth or Feedback/Lag depending on the position of the toggle next to it.
- the FDB/LAG knob Controls the amount of Feedback when the mode is set to Flanger or Delay/Reverb and the amount of Lag (=delay time) when the mode is set to Chorus/Vibrato.
The pedal has two modes of operation, one of which leverages the circuit’s ability to utilize the stereo in/outs in dual channel mode:
- in Preset Mode the left footswitch triggers preset B
- in Direct Channel Selection Mode the left footswitch enables/disables the left channel and the right footswitch enables/disables the right channel
Both footswitches can be set to Momentary mode so that, if held for more than half a second, they will return to the other position when released.
Another cool thing about the Iceberg pedals is that they can be linked to each other via a 3.5mm audio cable in three different ways:
- One-at-a-time – Lets you turn on one effect while automatically disabling the other linked effect. Both effects can be off at the same time, but not on.
- Always-on – Disabling one effect automatically enables the other linked effect. Both effects can be on at the same time, but not off
- Toggle – Enabling one effect automatically toggles the state of the other linked effect.
Check out the video of the Frits.
