An ingenious amalgam of sustain, delay, and looping effects that generates sky-high walls of ambience and weird webs of sound.
The MXR Layers Pedal blooms with rich, organic sustain that imbues every strum and pluck with resonance and depth—pull off chord voicings you never thought possible, compose transcendent melodies, orchestrate harmonic ensembles, create lively stereo pads, and more—all from a standard MXR housing.
Whether you want to lengthen single notes or generate multi-layered soundscapes rich with ambience, the MXR Layers Pedal will extend the creative potential of your instrument. Pull off chord voicings you never thought possible, compose transcendent melodies, orchestrate harmonic ensembles, create lively stereo pads, and more—all from a standard MXR housing.
The featured-packed new delay from Kansas City builder Junior Thomason sounds heavenly, but can be a beast to navigate.
Many beautiful delay tones. Nice, subtle modulation. Double-delay algorithms sound incredible. Big-box functionality in a small footprint.
No delay time knob. Requires a lot of time to memorize its color-coded operations. Difficult to quickly navigate settings on the fly without a MIDI controller.
$299
JET Pedals Eternity
jetpedals.com
Maximalist pedal engineering—the kind that finds dozens of functions crammed into small enclosures—isn’t for everyone. The impressive capabilities of these units test conventional thinking about how much tone shaping power you can fit in a single compact housing. But such pedals can also test your patience if you’re the plug-in-and-go type.The JET Pedals Eternity Delay is likely built with patient tinkerers in mind. It's rich with fascinating delay sounds, but to unlock its ample power, you’ll have to keep your wits and do your work with the manual up front.
Bright Lights
There’s a lot going on in the Eternity. It has two soft-click footswitches for bypass and tap tempo, four control knobs, a 3-way toggle switch, a MIDI jack, two input and two output jacks to run it in either mono or stereo, plus a 9V jack on the right side. These are all smartly arranged, so the Eternity doesn’t feel or look crammed. Its capabilities, however, are almost overflowing.
The Eternity’s four knobs are all clear plastic, and when it’s fired up, you’ll notice that the top two knobs—which control mix and repeats—double as LEDs. Along with the two LEDs above the footswitches, these knobs are the Eternity’s navigational signposts. Clicking and holding the bypass footswitch for one second changes the delay algorithm, which is signaled by a change in color in the repeats knob. There are six algorithms to cycle through: tape, digital, analog, dual, ESD, and JRD.
The Eternity’s preset mode, which is engaged by double-tapping the bypass switch, has room for six saved presets. The presets are cycled by tapping both footswitches at the same time. Presets, too, are color-coded, and indicated by the color of the mix knob. But connect a MIDI controller, and the world’s your oyster. That will allow you to program up to 127 presets, and remotely manipulate each of the Eternity’s controls.
Memorizing numerous color codes and varying LED light patterns won’t be easy for everyone. But the functionality goes deeper still. The Cntrl 1 knob functions differently for each algorithm. For example, in the tape and analog algorithms, it adjusts the level of the preset modulation; with digital mode engaged, it adds grit to the repeats; and in the custom delay modes, it sets the level of one of the two delay programs. Curiously, there is no dedicated time knob to quickly dial in or modify the effect.
Heavenly Sounds
JET Pedals boss Junior Thomason builds pedals for worship guitarists, so it’s little surprise that the sounds here are, well, heavenly. And no matter how you set it, it seems to possess a sparkle and three-dimensionality that turns a bedroom into a cathedral. The pedal boots up on its tape delay algorithm, which is thick and musty, and the adjustable modulation is gentle and tasteful. The otherwise pristine and endless digital delay can be dirtied-up via the Cntrl 1 knob. The analog algorithm nails the dark atmospherics of BBD delays, and the ESD, which stands for echo slap doubler, hits the mark for rockabilly echo.
Where the pedal really shines, though, is in the algorithms that feature two delays. The dual algorithm combines a customizable analog delay with a fixed dotted-eighth-note digital delay. The JRD (JET signature rhythm delay) similarly features a tweakable analog delay with a tight slapback. The dual is the most fun of the two, producing zany ping-ponging rhythms and encouraging attention to timing and phrasing. The JRD, meanwhile, is straight-up grand. It lends so much space and body to chording and single notes alike that it feels like a hack to sounding like a better player.
The Verdict
For the patient and invested user, the Eternity will yield a world of possibility. It’s a powerful pedal with a ridiculous swath of features and full stereo capability. Its delay algorithms sound brilliant and rich, and JET’s original double delay programs are engaging and rewarding. But fitting all of that functionality into a pedalboard-friendly package comes with hard-won compromises in operational ease, so it’s probably best to test the Eternity before you commit to exploring its deep well of sounds and functions.
A stereo, high-fidelity ambient reverb designed to allows musicians to tailor three original spaces—Theatre, Temple, and Cosmos—as well as the ability to oscillate between two different reverb sounds in real time.
“Cosmosis is a new chapter for Pigtronix,” says Bond Audio CTO and Pigtronix Founder, Dave Koltai. “We worked on this pedal for years, and breakthrough after breakthrough, we kept refining and reaching so that we could offer one of the finest sounding and coolest digital reverb pedals ever made. We’re incredibly proud of what we’ve been able to achieve.”
This is the very first pedal that Dave and I discussed making when we began working together,” says Bond Audio EVP of Product Ryan Kershaw. “This is an inspired product. The amount of detail and imagination that went into developing this pedal is beyond my wildest dreams. It was so much fun to make—I cannot wait to see what artists do with it.”
In addition to controls for the size of the reverb, wet/dry blend, and filtering, Cosmosis features a unique Morph function that allows musicians to alter their reverb settings in real-time by engaging the Morph footswitch. Players can set both “red” and “green” values on their Tone, Blend, and Size knobs, then engage the Morph footswitch to oscillate between the two reverb tones at their desired rate, controlled by the Morph Rate knob. Any combination of knobs can be assigned to morph. Create elegant morphs for subtle movement or sweeping, cinematic morphs for dramatic sound design effects. Save up to four custom reverb presets, including morphing.
Unlock a World of Ambient Reverb with Cosmosis | Pigtronix
Features
Each of the three spaces within Cosmosis is a completely unique algorithm—a combination of impulse responses and imaginative, heady mathematics.
Theatre puts the player in a variable room that ranges from cozy to highly reflective using multiple parallel short reverberators, offering vintage-inspired recording studio tones.
Temple offers a dramatic, large indoor space by implementing numerous long reflections in both parallel and series. Perfect for the sweeping cinematic reverb associated with worship spaces.
Cosmos creates an enormous spectrum of heavenly reverb derived from the harmonic content it’s fed. The spiritual center of the pedal, the Cosmos space is a rich and smooth harmonic reverb with none of the grainy octave generation or glitching that many ambient reverb pedals suffer from. Just soaring, beautiful reverb that shadows your playing.
More info: pigtronix.com