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Catalinbread Releases the Cloak

Catalinbread Releases the Cloak

The Cloak began after unearthing some ancient texts containing some forbidden incantations on how to introduce spectral elements within a decaying echo. Ok, we're embellishing a bit; but the inspiration came from the land of academia and the acoustics department at Stanford, where a treatise on the optimal shimmer effect was penned a handful of years back.


In a similar pursuit of perfection, we've drawn inspiration from a combination of research and our own endeavors to craft a truly superb take on shimmer reverb. At its core, the Cloak is a "room" style reverb that sounds amazing on its own, but with a twist of the Shimmer knob, rich, harmonically-laden overtones creep in, emphasizing three different orders of harmonics within the trails. A specially-designed low-pass filter steps in and smooths the harmonics out before they get too out of hand and wreck up the signal path. The size of the room can be effortlessly dialed in, from a cramped broom closet to as close to infinity as we can possibly muster. This comes in handy when deciding on which type of switching you prefer; the Cloak offers up true bypass switching that cuts off the reverb trails when the Cloak is disengaged, or buffered bypass, which keeps the decay going even after switching off—your pick. Either way you slice it, the Cloak is ready to impart a little black magic unto your rig.

The Cloak Reverb and Shimmer is out now and available for early Black Friday pricing of $178.49 (usually $209.99) at participating retailers and catalinbread.com.

Featuring P-90 PRO pickups, CTS potentiometers, and a Custom ’59 Rounded C neck profile.

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Wonderful array of weird and thrilling sounds can be instantly conjured. All three core settings are colorful, and simply twisting the time, span, and filter dials yields pleasing, controllable chaos. Low learning curve.

Not for the faint-hearted or unimaginative. Mode II is not as characterful as DBA and EQD settings.

$199

EarthQuaker Devices/Death By Audio Time Shadows
earthquakerdevices.com

5
5
4
4

This joyful noisemaker can quickly make you the ringmaster of your own psychedelic circus, via creative delays, raucous filtering, and easy-to-use, highly responsive controls.

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This little pedal offers three voices—analog, tape, and digital—and faithfully replicates the highlights of all three, with minimal drawbacks.

Faithful replications of analog and tape delays. Straightforward design.

Digital voice can feel sterile.

$119

Fishman EchoBack Mini Delay
fishman.com

4
4
4
4.5

As someone who was primarily an acoustic guitarist for the first 16 out of 17 years that I’ve been playing, I’m relatively new to the pedal game. That’s not saying I’m new to effects—I’ve employed a squadron of them generously on acoustic tracks in post-production, but rarely in performance. But I’m discovering that a pedalboard, particularly for my acoustic, offers the amenities and comforts of the hobbit hole I dream of architecting for myself one day in the distant future.

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A silicon Fuzz Face-inspired scorcher.

Hot silicon Fuzz Face tones with dimension and character. Sturdy build. Better clean tones than many silicon Fuzz Face clones.

Like all silicon Fuzz Faces, lacks dynamic potential relative to germanium versions.

$229

JAM Fuzz Phrase Si
jampedals.com

4.5
4.5
5
4

Everyone has records and artists they indelibly associate with a specific stompbox. But if the subject is the silicon Fuzz Face, my first thought is always of David Gilmour and the Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii film. What you hear in Live at Pompeii is probably shaped by a little studio sweetening. Even still, the fuzz you hear in “Echoes” and “Careful With That Axe, Eugene”—well, that is how a fuzz blaring through a wall of WEM cabinets in an ancient amphitheater should sound, like the sky shredded by the wail of banshees. I don’t go for sounds of such epic scale much lately, but the sound of Gilmour shaking those Roman columns remains my gold standard for hugeness.

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