Old Blood Noise Endeavors Bathing Liminal Delay

I am a hobby musician with a small home studio. I wanted to buy a really good delay pedal, which would also deliver some weird and unusual sounds. I have a stereo setup, so I wanted a stereo pedal, and I play both guitar and synth, so I wanted a pedal that can handle both instrument and line-level inputs.

I went looking for a pedal that fitted these criteria, and there are lots of options on the market. What attracted me to this pedal, was that it delivers some of my favourite effects (delay, phaser), the company seems to have a good reputation in the industry, and various online videos showed that it could indeed be used to produce some weird experimental sounds.

After three months of usage, I am very satisfied. Here are the main features that I can highlight:

- Delay: A versatile delay with a nice filter and tap-tempo
- Phaser: A cool phaser with a huge number of customisation options
- Chorus: A 'Dimension-style' stereo chorus

I have checked a lot of online materials about this pedal, from both company promotions and also user reviews. Many of these online demonstrations focus on: 1) The 'signature sound', which is a washy, underwater mix of delay+phaser, and 2) Weird and experimental sounds including ring-mod.

But I want to highlight that this pedal is also capable of many 'bread and butter' sounds. I actually copied many of these from online video reviews, which deconstructed different ways to use the pedal.

It took me a long time to get familiar with this pedal, but after a few months of use, my favourite feature of this pedal is the ping-pong stereo delay. Note: for best results, I ensure: 1) Pedal is in MISO mode, 2) LFO is off (STAGES, RATE, DEPTH all set to 0, SHAPE now irrelevant because LFO is off).

I love ping-pong delays generally, and the ping-pong delay on this pedal is great to use. I find it fun to manipulate the remaining knobs on the pedal (TIME, FEEDBACK, FILTER, WET, DRY, DIMENSION) while playing a riff.

The delay is fully-featured: When STAGES is set to minimum (two), the pedal can be used as a relatively standard digital delay. The TIME parameter has a pretty good range, (slapback at short settings, up to ~800 ms maximum). Feedback gives a nice response, from a single repeat to effectively infinite repeats. The filter imparts a nice range of dark-bright tones on the repeated signals.

With Time set to minimum, the pedal can be used as a multi-stage phaser, with an adjustable range of 2-12 stages, a wide choice of LFO shapes, and flexible control over both rate and depth of LFO movement. As a 'standalone' phaser, there are a lot of options to work with, and I really like how this phasing effect sounds.

The distinctive feature of this pedal, is that the phaser and the delay can interact with each other, when the user simultaneously engages Time and Stages. The derived repeats have a diffuse, swirling character. Sometimes this sounds really cool, other times it sounds washed-out. The results are not always musical, but this is definitely a cool effect, and I think it occupies a distinct niche in the pedal market.

Some other positive things about this pedal: 1) The pedal sounds great on synths as well as guitars. 2) Expression pedal mapping is quick, easy and responsive. 3) The stereo chorus is nice to use, and has its own discrete knob 4) This pedal is very flexible and there are definitely sounds available outside of delay and phaser (eg: by manipulating the DRY knob, you get some compression/volume control, and by running 100% of signal through the WET knob, there is some capacity for filtering/detuning the processed signal).

Some small criticisms about the design/layout: 1) The three knobs for Wet, Dry and Dimensions are not nice to handle. They are too small, and the response of the Wet knob is not linear. 2) Two of the knobs (Stages and Shape) are built using a continuous sweep, but they both deliver discrete outputs. I am surprised that the manufacturer did not use 'notched' knobs for these two controls.

These are very minor criticisms and definitely not deal-breakers. Altogether I am very satisfied with my purchase!