Unique, complex reverb tones lurk in a fun and imaginative stomp that’s an ergonomic and utilitarian delight.
Recorded via Apogee Duet to Garage Band with Fender Jazzmaster, and Fender Vibro Champ.
Drum machine recorded with room mode reverb.
Rhythm track uses room setting at 20-30% FX level, and modest modulation rate and depth.
The lead track moves through room, digital, peak, and gate reverbs in that order.
At 1:28 the gong reverb appears on a separate track along with the wave reverb set to high depth and modulation rates.
RatingsPros:Scads of unusual, vast-to-tasteful reverb tones. Thoughtful, ergonomic, flow-oriented design. Great contrasts between modes. Fun! Cons: Doesn't do super-accurate spring or plate sounds. Some digital artifacts. Expensive. Street: $395 Death By Audio Rooms Stereo Reverberator deathbyaudio.com | Tones: Ease of Use: Build/Design: Value: |
As wild as reverb pedals can be in this digital epoch, I find many of them a little same sounding—even in their spaciest incarnations. Leave it to Death By Audio to shake that up with Rooms. The digital Rooms makes many unusual and unpredictable sounds—but it's not so quirky that you can't dive in intuitively and fearlessly. It's just as capable of beautiful, subtle-to-lush reverbs. It's forgiving. And it's potent and varied in ways that transcend guitar use. In fact, Rooms sometimes feels and functions like outboard studio gear. It's also incredibly fun and sends you along many unexpected creative trajectories. If you can't have fun with Rooms, you might just be a zombie.
Space Brick
Rooms was designed with little concern for the miniaturization trend. In my humble opinion, it's a better, more useful pedal for it. The controls are easy to identify, and there is great ergonomic satisfaction in being able to move assuredly among the controls, confident in the function and the results. The critical bypass and “alt" switches, which enable movement between two very different settings, are far enough apart to avoid accidental activation. The powerful, expressive time knob is outsized and situated prominently so you can make adjustments with your toe. (There is also an expression-pedal jack for controlling the time or frequency in the alt mode.) The independent effects mix and dry controls, meanwhile, open up endless possibilities for foregrounding, backgrounding, or adding clarity to the most radical sounds. (Both controls also function effectively as boosts.)
Individual controls have huge range, and the resulting sound-crafting potential is immense. Given Rooms' lack of presets (unless you count the single “alt" setting), that range and sensitivity may give control freaks fits. But I returned to near-identical or approximate settings with ease, and was happy to be unburdened by preset recall functions. Switching between primary and alt settings can also generate transitionary sounds like pitch swoops and slides that could become killer song hooks.
To the Valley Below…and Spaces Above
Rooms is overflowing with tasteful-to-powerful sounds. And in each mode the function of the frequency and depth controls shifts to suit the mode. Room reverb mode is capable of subtle and cosmic-scale sounds that are well suited to volume swells. Digital mode sounds are less colored by overtones at equivalent settings, but can still go positively interstellar. The peak mode is awesome—particularly if you've wearied of high-octave-emphasized “choral" verbs. Peak mode achieves the less cheesy side of that ambience, but the filter frequency function in this mode also enables you to emphasize heavy low-frequency reverberations to awesome ends. Applied to detuned guitars, the effect yields massive, ominous, deep-Earth tones.
Gated mode helps create solo and chord textures that have the attack and mood of super-splashy ambience, but won't bury everything else with dense, runaway reverb trails. The modulating wave mode generates a range of undulating textures that can be shaped into dry, in-your-face '80s Brit-chorus (Cure, New Order) or super-spacious, high-speed vibrato sounds. (Another awesome possible contrast you can exploit with the alt switch.) The ultra-fun gong mode, meanwhile, creates unorthodox near-fuzz tones at settings with quick decays and low-mid frequency emphasis, or—at the right frequency and time settings—ring modulated colors that sound like a gamelan-and-sitar duo lost in the bowels of an endless cavern.
The Verdict
Impressively, the many possibilities described merely scratch the surface of Rooms' capabilities. In fact, the only vaguely crappy thing about Rooms is the price. For me, the $395 sticker price is justifiable: First, because much thought, labor, and development went into this circuit, but also because I can imagine using it with other instruments, in composition, or, more intriguingly, in mixing, where the bounty of unexpected sounds and stereo output functionality could yield truly unique outcomes. If you're strictly a gigging player who likes occasional extreme-reverb colors but generally sticks to simpler fare, there are cheaper options. But if you're fascinated with the outer limits of pedal reverb and sound design, you have to try it. Rooms isn't for everyone, and it favors an impressionistic, not-too-precious approach to sound creation. But for those who relate to its quirks, the fresh ideas it inspires are likely to flow hard and fast.
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While the pedal builders at Sehat Effectors are in the game for their love of the 6-string, they’ve since begun exploring what effects pedals mean to other kinds of instrumentalists.
This time, I’d like to share my perspective as a pedal builder on how our effects pedals—originally crafted with guitarists in mind—are experiencing an exciting evolution in use. Our customer base spans around the globe, and as it turns out, many of them aren’t guitarists. Instead, our pedals are finding their way into the hands of non-guitarist musicians like DJs, synth players, movie sound directors, and even drummers. Yes, a drummer once used one of my fuzz pedals in a drum miking setup—quite an extreme yet bold experiment! This made me wonder: How did such a phenomenon come about?
Most of the pedals I build are fuzz effects and other experimental types, all primarily tested within guitar setups. But then I visited a friend’s studio; he goes by “Balance” onstage. He’s a well-known musician and producer here in Indonesia, and a member of the hip-hop group JHF (Jogja Hip Hop Foundation). Now, here’s the kicker—Balance doesn’t play guitar! Yet, he’s one of my customers, having asked for a fuzz and modulation pedal for his modular synthesizer rig. Initially, I was skeptical when he mentioned his plans. Neither my team nor I are familiar with synthesizers, let alone Eurorack or modular formats. I know guitars and, at best, bass guitar. My colleague has dabbled with effects experimentation, but only within the guitar framework.
So, my visit to his studio was a chance to study and research how guitar effects pedals could be adapted to a fundamentally different instrument ecosystem. The following is an interview I did with Balance to get a deeper understanding of his perspective.
As a modular synthesizer user, aren’t all kinds of sounds already achievable with a synth? Why mix one with guitar effects?
Balance: Some unique sounds, like those from Hologram Effects’ Microcosm or the eccentric pedals from Sehat Effectors, are hard to replicate with just a synth. Also, for sound design, I find it more intuitive to tweak knobs in real-time than rely on a computer—direct knob control feels more human for me.
Are there challenges in integrating guitar pedals with a modular synthesizer setup? After all, their ecosystems are quite different.
Balance: There are indeed significant differences, like jack types, power supplies, and physical format. Modular synthesizers are designed to sit on a table or stand, while guitar pedals are meant for the floor and foot control. However, they share a common thread in the goal of manipulating signals, eventually amplified through a mixing board and amplifier. The workaround is using converters/adapters to bridge the connection.“If you’re a saxophonist who buys a guitar pedal, it’s yours to use however you like.”
Are you the only modular synth user combining them with guitar pedals?
Balance: Actually, I got the idea after seeing other musicians experiment this way. Effects like fuzz or distortion are iconic to guitar but absent in synthesizer sound options. I believe signal manipulation with fuzz or distortion is a universal idea that appeals to musicians creating music, regardless of their instrument.
This brief chat gave me new insight and sparked my curiosity about different frameworks in music-making. While I’m not yet tempted to dive into modular synths myself, I now have a clearer picture of how fuzz and distortion transcend guitar. Imagine a saxophonist at a live show using a pedalboard with a DigiTech Whammy and Boss Metal Zone—absurd, maybe, but why not? If you’re a saxophonist who buys a guitar pedal, it’s yours to use however you like. Because, in the end, all musicians create music based on their inner concerns—whether it’s about romance, friendship, political situations, war, or anger. Eventually, they will explore how best to express those concerns from many angles, and of course, “sound” and “tone” are fundamental aspects of the music itself. Good thing my partner and I named our company Sehat Effectors and not Sehat Guitar Works. Haha!
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Contender 290, Midnight BlackMetalocalypse creator Brendon Small has been a lifetime devotee and thrash-metal expert, so we invited him to help us break down what makes Slayer so great.
Slayer guitarists Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman formed the original searing 6-string front line of the most brutal band in the land. Together, they created an aggressive mood of malcontent with high-velocity thrash riffs and screeching solos that’ll slice your speaker cones. The only way to create a band more brutal than Slayer would be to animate them, and that’s exactly what Metalocalypse (and Home Movies) creator Brendon Small did.
From his first listen, Small has been a lifetime devotee and thrash-metal expert, so we invited him to help us break down what makes Slayer so great. Together, we dissect King and Hanneman’s guitar styles and list their angriest, most brutal songs, as well as those that create a mood of general horribleness.
This episode is sponsored by EMG Pickups.
Use code EMG100 for 15% off at checkout!
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Pearl Jam announces U.S. tour dates for April and May 2025 in support of their album Dark Matter.
In continued support of their 3x GRAMMY-nominated album Dark Matter, Pearl Jam will be touring select U.S. cities in April and May 2025.
Pearl Jam’s live dates will start in Hollywood, FL on April 24 and 26 and wrap with performances in Pittsburgh, PA on May 16 and 18. Full tour dates are listed below.
Support acts for these dates will be announced in the coming weeks.
Tickets for these concerts will be available two ways:
- A Ten Club members-only presale for all dates begins today. Only paid Ten Club members active as of 11:59 PM PT on December 4, 2024 are eligible to participate in this presale. More info at pearljam.com.
- Public tickets will be available through an Artist Presale hosted by Ticketmaster. Fans can sign up for presale access for up to five concert dates now through Tuesday, December 10 at 10 AM PT. The presale starts Friday, December 13 at 10 AM local time.
earl Jam strives to protect access to fairly priced tickets by providing the majority of tickets to Ten Club members, making tickets non-transferable as permitted, and selling approximately 10% of tickets through PJ Premium to offset increased costs. Pearl Jam continues to use all-in pricing and the ticket price shown includes service fees. Any applicable taxes will be added at checkout.
For fans unable to use their purchased tickets, Pearl Jam and Ticketmaster will offer a Fan-to-Fan Face Value Ticket Exchange for every city, starting at a later date. To sell tickets through this exchange, you must have a valid bank account or debit card in the United States. Tickets listed above face value on secondary marketplaces will be canceled. To help protect the Exchange, Pearl Jam has also chosen to make tickets for this tour mobile only and restricted from transfer. For more information about the policy issues in ticketing, visit fairticketing.com.
For more information, please visit pearljam.com.