Old Blood Noise Endeavors Bathing Liminal Delay

I am a hobby musician with a small home studio. I wanted a pedal that could deliver some weird and unusual sounds, to complement my existing pedals, which generally 'do what they say on the tin'. 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.

On my first use of the pedal, I could already get some cool sounds by arbitrarily twisting the knobs. However, I couldn't really understand what the controls were doing, and the online manual only give a brief description of the controls. After doing some research, I gathered a vague understanding about how this pedal works. I find the pedal difficult to describe, because it can combine delay with phaser. (Note the old version was called a phase repeater, which to me is a better description compared to liminal delay).

When the number of phase 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, whereby short times deliver reverb, a bit longer gives slapback, then the rest of the dial gives a delay with up to ~800 ms maximum. Feedback gives a nice response, from a single repeat to 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 like a washed-out sloppy reverb. 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) There is a knob for a detuned stereo chorus (sounds great on synths). 4) This pedal is very flexible and there are definitely sounds available outside of delay and phaser (for example, I can produce nice filter sweeps, by sending only the wet signal through the pedal, and then sweeping across the filter range using an expression pedal. Online videos show how this pedal can be used as a ring mod, which I find dissonant, but some people might like it).

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. I can see myself happily using this pedal long into the future, sometimes as a relatively standard delay/phaser, other times for more experimental sounds.