A once-obscure preset on an ’80s Yamaha multi-effect becomes the foundation for a fun and varied ambience machine.
Many very pretty ambient reverb textures. Intuitive, fun operation. Solid construction. Cool textures beyond the ambient/shoegaze sphere.
There are cheaper ways to approximate the sounds of Slowdive.
$209
Catalinbread Soft Focus
ehx.com
If there is a prettiest work in the shoegaze canon, Slowdive’s Souvlaki is arguably the one. Souvlaki is probably also the reason the Catalinbread FX-40 Soft Focus exists. The FX-40 Soft Focus, you see, is inspired by the sounds of the “Soft Focus” preset on the Yamaha FX500, a still-inexpensive multi-effects unit that debuted in the waning days of the 1980s. Though definitive documentation about when Slowdive used the FX500 is spotty, guitarists Neil Halstead and Christian Savill have both alluded to using it. As Slowdive enjoyed an unexpected renaissance over the last decade, word got around among curious guitarists that the FX500, and the Soft Focus preset in particular, might have been responsible for Souvlaki’s highly intoxicating, dream-picture textures.
Speculation about tone sources on records—which are inevitably colored by other outboard processors—is risky business. Yet there is much about the Yamaha’s Soft Focus preset that is eerily redolent of Slowdive’s sleepy and soaring washes of reverb. (And yes—as a major, OG Slowdive fan I have tried it out myself.) Catalinbread’s FX-40 Soft Focus pedal takes a few liberties with recreating the Yamaha preset. It removes the Yamaha preset’s redundant delay component. Catalinbread also says they used a plate reverb algorithm as a starting point. (There is no indication in the original FX500 manual of what kind of reverb Yamaha intended the Soft Focus to be.)
”The ease with which you shape variations on celestial textures is a delight.“
So, while the Catalinbread Soft Focus may be more an interpretation of the FX500 Soft Focus preset than a to-the-letter emulation, it effortlessly conjures sounds that can lend a Souvlaki-like and ethereal essence to your own compositions, as well as reverb tonalities that can lead you along very non-shoegaze tangents.
Diagram of a Dream
One of the most appealing facets of the FX-40 design is its simplicity. Compared to clunky late-’80s rack units, it is downright dainty. And though it’s far from the only compact stompbox capable of deep, ambient reverbs, few are as singularly dedicated to the pursuit of that sound. And the ease with which you shape variations on those celestial textures is a delight.
Even if you’ve never explored reverb much beyond amplifier-based varieties, the FX-40 is easy to suss. “Verb” governs decay time. The cool volume control adds gain to your dry signal before it hits the reverb. “Symph” adds in an octave-up signal. Catalinbread calls the octave effect subtle in their documentation, but, to my ear, the octave-up content in the FX-40’s signal still comes on pretty strong. The modulation control governs the rate of an onboard chorus. And as with many chorus effects, the peaks in modulation can emphasize specific frequencies and harmonics—particularly in the octave-up voice—that radically shift the profile of the reverb, especially when you add a long tail.
Stumbling Toward Slumberland
Unlike a lot of records in the shoegaze genre, Souvlaki is not a monolith of reverb wash. It percolates with different guitar textures—some drier, some soaked. I’d even venture that what a lot of people perceive as octave’d reverb on the guitars is actually Rachell Goswell’s beautiful, swirling vocals. It’s a lovely production. But while many guitar tones on Souvlaki are colored with octave-up content—particularly the simple melodic lines—my own efforts to replicate these sounds revealed that a little octave-up content from the FX-40 goes a long way, and that aggressive-but-just-right decay times and a little modulation were most critical to nailing those tones. Adding distortion and overdrive, incidentally, has a way of softening and gluing together some of the more inorganic elements of the octave-up sound.
If you’re more interested in crafting original tones, the relationship between the octave-up “symph” voice and the modulation gives you a lot of ground to explore. Adding the latter can exaggerate the former. (Think about how a human voice with intense vibrato tends to stand out over a straight-toned voice.) I’m not generally a fan of excessive octave-up reverb. In contemporary ambient and shoegaze music it has almost become the equivalent of high-fructose corn syrup. But on the FX-40 you can very easily steer clear of those pitfalls by dialing the octave back and letting the long decay do the heavy lifting.
The Verdict
Much of the guitar universe (including a few folks that sound suspiciously like they heard their first Slowdive record last week) fell over itself to anoint the FX-40 Soft Focus as the reigning shoegaze-in-a-box king. But while I would happily recommend this pedal to anyone chasing that kind of ambience, Catalinbread sells itself a little short by so strongly emphasizing it as such. The FX-40 Soft Focus is capable of weird and ghostly short-to-medium-decay-range tones, and truly complex, drier reverb tones. Operation is intuitive and fun. If you only want reverb tones that evoke the sounds of Souvlaki, there are cheaper paths to that goal. But if your musical agenda leaves you open to exploring the breadth of this cool pedal’s possibilities, the $209 price will be a fair one for this lovingly designed, U.S.-built pedal.
Catalinbread Soft Focus Reverb Demo | PG Plays
Catalinbread Soft Focus Shoegaze Reverb Pedal with Chorus, Modulation, and Octave-up
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It’s almost over, but there’s still time to win! Enter Stompboxtober Day 30 for your shot at today’s pedal from SoloDallas!
The Schaffer Replica: Storm
The Schaffer Replica Storm is an all-analog combination of Optical Limiter+Harmonic Clipping Circuit+EQ Expansion+Boost+Line Buffer derived from a 70s wireless unit AC/DC and others used as an effect. Over 50 pros use this unique device to achieve percussive attack, copious harmonics and singing sustain.
Does the guitar’s design encourage sonic exploration more than sight reading?
A popular song between 1910 and 1920 would usually sell millions of copies of sheet music annually. The world population was roughly 25 percent of what it is today, so imagine those sales would be four or five times larger in an alternate-reality 2024. My father is 88, but even with his generation, friends and family would routinely gather around a piano and play and sing their way through a stack of songbooks. (This still happens at my dad’s house every time I’m there.)
Back in their day, recordings of music were a way to promote sheet music. Labels released recordings only after sheet-music sales slowed down on a particular song. That means that until recently, a large section of society not only knew how to read music well, but they did it often—not as often as we stare at our phones, but it was a primary part of home entertainment. By today’s standards, written music feels like a dead language. Music is probably the most common language on Earth, yet I bet it has the highest illiteracy rate.
Developed specifically for Tyler Bryant, the Black Magick Reverb TB is the high-power version of Supro's flagship 1x12 combo amplifier.
At the heart of this all-tube amp is a matched pair of military-grade Sovtek 5881 power tubes configured to deliver 35-Watts of pure Class A power. In addition to the upgraded power section, the Black Magick Reverb TB also features a “bright cap” modification on Channel 1, providing extra sparkle and added versatility when blended with the original Black Magick preamp on Channel 2.
The two complementary channels are summed in parallel and fed into a 2-band EQ followed by tube-driven spring reverb and tremolo effects plus a master volume to tame the output as needed. This unique, signature variant of the Black Magick Reverb is dressed in elegant Black Scandia tolex and comes loaded with a custom-built Supro BD12 speaker made by Celestion.
Price: $1,699.
Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine is one of the loudest guitarists around. And he puts his volume to work creating mythical tones that have captured so many of our imaginations, including our special shoegaze correspondent, guitarist and pedal-maestro Andy Pitcher, who is our guest today.
My Bloody Valentine has a short discography made up of just a few albums and EPs that span decades. Meticulous as he seems to be, Shields creates texture out of his layers of tracks and loops and fuzz throughout, creating a music that needs to be felt as much as it needs to be heard.
We go to the ultimate source as Billy Corgan leaves us a message about how it felt to hear those sounds in the pre-internet days, when rather than pull up a YouTube clip, your imagination would have to guide you toward a tone.
But not everyone is an MBV fan, so this conversation is part superfan hype and part debate. We can all agree Kevin Shields is a guitarists you should know, but we can’t all agree what to do with that information.