In theory, any good, transparent overdrive pedal should enhance rather than transform the sound of your rig. That’s why they call ’em transparent, right? Essentially, the low-gain Limbo Overdrive is a transparent overdrive pedal. It’s extremely touch sensitive and amp-like, so you can imagine a lot of what Limbo sounds like with your own rig. But feel is what really sets most top-tier overdrive pedals apart. And this is where the Limbo packs something a little different and immeasurably useful.
Built to Roam
The Limbo Overdrive is well built. The footswitch feels rugged, the chassis-mounted pots feel stout to the turn, and the metal chassis will be as durable feeling as anything else on your pedalboard. The all-analog circuit can be run at 9 to 12 volts for a little extra headroom if you want it. There is no battery option, which may be a bummer for some players.
Controls include a familiar complement of volume, drive, and tone knobs for dialing in grit and output. And each of those controls has great range that makes the pedal musical in many applications. Limbo has plenty of output on tap to run as a clean boost. As a stand-alone overdrive, it delivers everything from bluesy breakup to cranked vintage-style amp wailing with all it’s got. The pedal is also responsive to picking dynamics and gets clean when you attenuate guitar volume.
The tone knob works much like the passive controls in a guitar or an old blackface Fender amp. All the way up, you get straight, unadulterated overdrive signal. Rolling it back cuts high-end content. But to the Limbo’s credit, it never sounds muddy. And it was particularly helpful for taming the top end of a Telecaster’s bridge pickup without sacrificing cut and definition.
Ratings
Pros:
Huge array of overdrive tones. Easy-to-dial-in response and feel.
Cons:
No battery option.
Tones:
Ease of Use:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street:
$140
Nunomo Limbo Overdrive
shop.nunomo.com
The Limbo also works wonderfully when stacked with other dirt devices. The Nunomo became a singing sustain machine with a push from my Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive Mod pedal. Running it in front of my 5-watt, class-A Blackheart BH5H amp and a preamp pedal set at the edge of breakup added more harmonic content and weight to single notes and chords.
Variable Voltage Means More Feel
Additional keys to Limbo’s dynamic sound and feel are two knobs labeled positive and negative, which control the pedal’s clipping voltages and whether the clipping is symmetrical or asymmetrical. While the physics behind symmetrical clipping can be tricky to explain (and deserves its own story), the sonic effects of various settings are much more obvious. Clipping becomes sharper when you turn the dials counterclockwise, and softer when you turn the dials clockwise. I also found that with the knobs pulled all the way back, the pedal sounds much more open and airy—like a high-headroom amplifier. Every picking nuance becomes more pronounced, and highs have more sparkle and clarity. Rolling the positive and negative knobs all the way up results in a more rounded, warm, and compressed quality, better suited for thick lead tones. They’re a rewarding and intuitive way to dial in the perfect response for your playing style and can shift the character of your amp in sometimes subtle, but still very tangible, ways.
The Verdict
Many of us already have great overdrive pedals that we’re very fond of, but leave us wanting just for a little more compression, top-end clarity, or a bit more headroom. The Limbo rarely, if ever, left me longing for more of those attributes. And while the pedal’s low-gain transparency means metal heads and other aggressive tone fiends may be underwhelmed, it’s hard to imagine any other players who wouldn’t be intrigued by Limbo’s wide-open overdrive-shaping potential.
EBS BassIQ Blue Label Triple Envelope Filter Pedal
The EBS BassIQ produces sounds ranging from classic auto-wah effects to spaced-out "Funkadelic" and synth-bass sounds. It is for everyone looking for a fun, fat-sounding, and responsive envelope filter that reacts to how you play in a musical way.
Reverend Vernon Reid Totem Series Electric Guitar - Shaman
Silos features six presets, tap tempo, one full second of delay time, and three voices—two of which are styled after bucket-brigade and tape-delay sounds. In the $150 price category, it’s not unusual for a digital delay to leave some number of those functions out. And spending the same money on a true-analog alternative usually means warm, enveloping sounds but limited functionality and delay time. Silos, improbably perhaps, offers a very elegant solution to this can’t-have-it-all dilemma in a U.S.-made effect.
A More Complete Cobbling Together
Silos’ utility is bolstered by a very unintimidating control set, which is streamlined and approachable. Three of those controls are dedicated to the same mix, time, and repeats controls you see on any delay. But saving a preset to one of the six spots on the rotary preset dial is as easy as holding the green/red illuminated button just below the mix and preset knobs. And you certainly won’t get lost in the weeds if you move to the 3-position toggle, which switches between a clear “digital” voice, darker “analog” voice, and a “tape” voice which is darker still.
“The three voices offer discernibly different response to gain devices.”
One might suspect that a tone control for the repeats offers similar functionality as the voice toggle switch. But while it’s true that the most obvious audible differences between digital, BBD, and tape delays are apparent in the relative fidelity and darkness of their echoes, the Silos’ three voices behave differently in ways that are more complex than lighter or duskier tonality. For instance, the digital voice will never exhibit runaway oscillation, even at maximum mix and repeat settings. Instead, repeats fade out after about six seconds (at the fastest time settings) or create sleepy layers of slow-decaying repeats that enhance detail in complex, sprawling, loop-like melodic phrases. The analog voice and tape voice, on the other hand, will happily feed back to psychotic extremes. Both also offer satisfying sensitivity to real-time, on-the-fly adjustments. For example, I was tickled with how I could generate Apocalypse Now helicopter-chop effects and fade them in and out of prominence as if they were approaching or receding in proximity—an effect made easier still if you assign an expression pedal to the mix control. This kind of interactivity is what makes analog machines like the Echoplex, Space Echo, and Memory Man transcend mere delay status, and the sensitivity and just-right resistance make the process of manipulating repeats endlessly engaging.
Doesn't Flinch at Filth
EarthQuaker makes a point of highlighting the Silos’ affinity for dirty and distorted sounds. I did not notice that it behaved light-years better than other delays in this regard. But the three voices most definitely offer discernibly different responses to gain devices. The super-clear first repeat in the digital mode lends clarity and melodic focus, even to hectic, unpredictable, fractured fuzzes. The analog voice, which EQD says is inspired by the tone makeup of a 1980s-vintage, Japan-made KMD bucket brigade echo, handles fuzz forgivingly inasmuch as its repeats fade warmly and evenly, but the strong midrange also keeps many overtones present as the echoes fade. The tape voice, which uses aMaestro Echoplex as its sonic inspiration, is distinctly dirtier and creates more nebulous undercurrents in the repeats. If you want to retain clarity in more melodic settings, it will create a warm glow around repeats at conservative levels. Push it, and it will summon thick, sometimes droning haze that makes a great backdrop for slower, simpler, and hooky psychedelic riffs.
In clean applications, this decay and tone profile lend the tape setting a spooky, foggy aura that suggests the cold vastness of outer space. The analog voice often displays an authentic BBD clickiness in clean repeats that’s sweet for underscoring rhythmic patterns, while the digital voice’s pronounced regularity adds a clockwork quality that supports more up-tempo, driving, electronic rhythms.
The Verdict
Silos’ combination of features seems like a very obvious and appealing one. But bringing it all together at just less than 150 bucks represents a smart, adept threading of the cost/feature needle.
EarthQuaker Devices Silos Multi-generational Time Reflection Delay Pedal
