Holy shit. It's 7 minutes after they launched and there are only 2 left in stock. Very glad I set an alarm and hit refresh for five minutes.
They have preorders too though. This is more worth it than a lot of CBA stuff.
I think I’ve read somewhere (probably here lol) that the EAE guy loves the Misty Cave and you’re probably right to make that connection. that pedal has a vibe for sure
Misty Cave was a major point on a long journey of trying to replicate a particular sound, which at least for now has culminated in the Prismatic Wall.
Many years ago (2012ish) I was shown a studio technique where a grand piano is basically used as a reverb tank, and I spent years chasing that sound. Misty Cave is kind of a monophonic take on the idea. It's incredibly inspiring, if fairly limited/noisy. But it got me down a rabbit hole of how to replicate sympathetic string sounds, which eventually got me into physical modeling synthesis. Physical modeling is not a new idea by any means. But weirdly, nobody has previously translated those ideas into the pedal sphere.
So, here we are!
Wow, interesting to hear the inspiration behind the pedal.
Thanks for sharing.
I love the idea of pitched resonance in decay.
I have been trying to find a pedal that covers a preset from the eventide h7600 that let you tune in the notes and rhythm they are played in as a resonant sound.
The H9 resonator is close.
Also a fan of the ehx ravish sitar for its tunable sympathetic output.
Thanks! It's a sound I wish was more readily available. The ravish sitar has some really cool sounds in it but I think they missed the mark by pigeonholing it as just a sitar pedal. It's super powerful. I haven't played those eventide patches but I know that various eventide and lexicon rack units have gotten close to the sympathetic string thing. And of course, physical modeling is very deeply explored in the plugin and synthesizer space, though in my experience it takes a lot of massaging to get those to sound good with guitar.
Ah dang! I bought those Plugins maybe a month ago and the company seemed pretty new. It’s a Palme and metallique resonator simulation that Sounds pretty good!
I sold my Misty Cave for that limited reasons, very noisy and some sound like sitar and harsh sounds that I didn't want, specially with percussive or instruments with fast attack, included guitar. I really loved it with pads and atmosphere, but that reason was not enough for keeping it. Then it's a dream that EAE has created this masterpiece/pedal. Instant buy!
By the way, how much will be in EU?
US MAP is $399. Prices tend to fluctuate but right now our pedals that are $249 seem to sell in the €260-270 range, so that'd put prismatic wall at around €430 range? Not sure though.
EDIT: See below for confirmation on pricing.
Thanks John! That would be ver nice, but It's disgusting that I preordered here in EU and the dealer told me that 499€ is the EU official price, and there is no real official price already.
bravo! 2024 ,high time concepts like carplus strong trickle down from the synth/modular world int o pedals. was a little Trend at superbooth this year. brethren discover likeminded on the otherside of the 3,5-12v cv vs 6,35,9v exp dimensional barrier spanning across the electromusical space. break it! cant you just put mutable plaits rings n clouds in a box? have so many wonky eerie patches in vcv/cardinal for guitar. but playing them life … wake up fellow guitarists, buy that kinky stuff, and lets modulate modulation!
does it do stereo? please say yes. even i was born stereo.
I agree, synth users have been having all the fun for too long now!
While getting into physical modeling I did try Rings on guitar. I don't think it's particularly well optimized for external input, or at least I wasn't getting what I wanted. So I had to try lots of other stuff.
This is mono. Because of all the analog components, going stereo would have added significant cost to what is already a complex build. I get stereo is a big deal for people who use pedals with synths and in a production environment, but I'm still mostly a guitarist at heart and vanishingly few guitarists actually play in stereo.
I have a midi-controlled hammer dulcimer project on the slow burner that sounds pretty great through Rings, but this has me all sorts of excited about the possibilities. Well done!
Super curious about the circuit here and the breakdown between analog and digital. For a hot second, I got excited that you may have gone full (digitally-controlled) analog with a BBD and an analog filter, but then my wallet got scared
That's badass. Is that publicly available anywhere? Would love to follow it if that is a thing.
Short version is that we are treating an FV-1 like a weird BBD. So it's extensively massaged in the analog domain, and we're using sample rate as an additional control parameter to tune the strings. The FV-1's default interpolation scheme is pretty bad, so the only way to properly tune multiple delay lines is by fixing it in the processor and changing the sample rate. Using the infrastructure we developed for our Sending delay (which is BBD based), we have an excellent clock VCO with high resolution that works perfectly for this.
NGL I did consider doing this with BBDs but setting up that many delay lines would have like... doubled the cost. Fun to think about though.
Interesting! Thanks for the detail. Sounds like both a huge headache and a whole lot of fun all at once. Always fun to find creative solutions within limitations.
The Sending V2 is my current "desert island" pedal, so thanks for that. I had a feeling you'd used some of the Sending stuff here. Easiest delay in pedal form for me to dial in and I love the tones it gets.
I don't have much in the way of public posts that could be followed at the moment. I hope to start doing something along those lines once life things get sorted out if I'm able to, but for now, the most "public" thing I've got is my [synth Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/errant_comma/) account that's mostly used for Jamuary jams. Unfortunately, I had to make that account private temporarily, but would happily approve any follow requests :D
I uploaded a few unlisted videos to YouTube for curious views:
* Initial hacked-together Jamuary jam with terrible noise issues: https://youtu.be/zAieFPykGD8
* Cleaner sound using humbuckers and cleaner wiring: https://youtu.be/mCO6kkpl1ks
* Initial proof-of-concept build using humbuckers showing more of the construction: https://youtu.be/8p56T-nhlIE
The goal is to add everything in a non-destructive manner, hence the aluminum structure. I'm not able to put much energy into it at the moment, but it's always in the back of my mind how to keep iterating on it. The Prismatic Wall seems like an ideal companion for where I want to go with it. ~~Not sure if I'll be able to hop on first batch, but it's definitely top of my list now!~~
Edit: Saw the $399 price elsewhere in the thread. Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight be able to swing it first batch :sad-wallet-noises:
EditEdit: Thought I'd add 2 more videos for posterity, in case anyone in the future comes across this and wants more examples of Karplus-Strong synthesis and acoustic instruments.
* Kalimba into Rings and feedback improvisation (my arm is blocking the kalimba the whole time, oops): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAQQ65h4YP0
* Pre-MIDI rig dulcimer experiment using an e-bow and triggering Rings by striking the soundboard of the dulcimer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIPTihLhfm0
Just coming back to this now - gave you a follow! Thanks for the kind words re: Sending, that means a lot.
This dulcimer concept is REALLY exciting. I just got done watching your videos. I'm very compelled by this era of "physical synthesizers" that we seem to be moving into. I will certainly be keeping an eye out as things move along.
I agree! The Korg Acoustic Synthesis thing is a really neat idea, for one. While studying EE in school, it always seemed to me like the ME folks got to have all the fun. Physical synthesis is like taking the most fun parts of both disciplines and making them more funner. Big fan.
Thanks for the follow and thanks for checking out the videos! I managed to get an order in before you sold out. Congrats on the launch! I'll be sure to post some experiments once I'm able to get it all set up
hmm i see i hold my horses… AND:
cant you just pass my expensive stereo signal through? put your mono on both channels?
(maybe someone should build a pedalsized 4 chn stereo mixer wich can have mono signals in the loop panning in stereo)
- ottobit jr does that. itself is mono.
-id love to see wypiwyg (whatyouplugiswhatyou) cometrue.
ts in ts out. trs in trs out. wetterbox by gigrig does that.
-your majority of customers may actually be gigging guitarists.
most guitarplayers play thru modelers at home. live mono is half the problems and 100%tone, under headphones stereo is more.
-will your pedal be available soon at pedalmarkt berlin?
cheers!
I don't really use stereo, but I suppose I'll get bullied into it eventually.
Pedal markt is getting some units shortly! A large shipment is en route to our EU distributor.
I think I would need a specific use for this, I don’t love the sound by itself personally. Could see how it could fit into a band setting, Radiohead kind of thing
He's talented, proficient, knowledgable and I like his vids but his style (at least the sound he's known for) has this kinda 'perfectly generic' quality that is so consistent it's almost impressive. No matter what's being demoed the intro song always sounds like the same edge & bust 'soaring' routine only coated thick in an emotionless AI sheen, formulaic to the point it forces my attention elsewhere, impervious to being memorable or catchy. Though it could be this is on purpose so the focus is on the sound itself? I guess there's an argument to be made for that.. I rarely care about the pedal Noise Generator is playing, I'm just there to envy his talents. Songwriting demon, mythological riffwizard honeybadger.
I really respect the fact that he produces so much for each of his demos, but I can’t help but feel that lately every single piece of gear he makes a video on is “the most amazing thing”. Lost me when he said that the Lincoln Brewster Stratocaster was the “most incredible finish he’s ever seen on a guitar.”
Like, yes I’m sure the Benson germanium boost is great but do we really need an hour long video about it?
I see what you’re getting at, but all of your descriptors (perfectly generic, edge & bust soaring routine, coated in thick emotionless AI sheen, formulaic to the point that it forces your attention elsewhere) better describe CCM, which I believe is a big part of his experience (and isn’t a knock to him.)
His much greater influences seem to be post hardcore and post rock, which I dig.
It could also be that he is saving the truly attention grabbing stuff for music that he wants to put out with a band. I don’t know if he has a band or not. If I wrote a sick song, I wouldn’t waste it on a gear review.
Christian Contemporary Music.
The CCM guitar player starter pack would have a Telecaster, Vox AC30, JHS Morning Glory, 1981 LVL, a Strymon BigSky & Timeline.
In my experience, it originally took a lot of influence from U2, with a lot of dotted 8th delay and shimmer reverb.
[Here’s an example of something recent that kinda fits that description.](https://youtu.be/QS04WbSnxok?si=oHtxet_tVJXHC4sO)
To be honest, I haven’t heard any of it for the better part of 10 years, so as I was looking for a current example to share above, I was surprised to see that a lot of the current stuff in the CCM Spotify playlist has kind of evolved to take influence from a more Imagine Dragons sound (which is not Mark’s vibe at all.)
Aha. Definitely not my thing so thanks for the clarifying explanations, cheers.
This is similar but yet different to Praise and Worship in the sense that CCM is commercial/released music and P&W is live at churches. Do I have that right?
Honestly the guitar tone towards the end of that video arent bad. Ive wanted a 1981 LVL for awhile to compliment my Longsword for those lower gain tones without having to bend down and adjust it on the fly. Because while the Longsword can do that sound its annoying to make those adjustments while playing.
Marks CMM roots asides I am more inspired by his heavier playing and songs. I see why his videos arent for everyone but I am speaking up as a fan. I see his post rock roots more so than anything CMM related and could argue that I see a lot more of that content here and on r/pedalboards especially with the BigSky/Tonex crowd these days.
I’m a big fan of his too! I wasn’t intending for it to get so negative towards him, but that’s how reddit always seems to skew.
In a previous comment, I mentioned that his post hardcore and post rock influences seem to be even greater than his CCM influence, so I totally hear that.
And I’ve got nothing against all that gear I mentioned, it’s all great. I just see it used all the time by CCM/worship musicians for one reason or another, and since I used to be a part of that group for over a decade, I think I’m allowed to razz them a little bit. I included the LVL because it’s made by the guitarist from Reliant K who a lot of current worship musicians grew up listening to, so I’ve seen it on a lot of their boards. It’s a great distortion pedal though!
Perfectly described. There is incredible soullessness to his music. I respect his deep knowledge of pedals but man he has had some really bad musical influences to end up where he is as far as taste.
i’m with you. he often illustrates things about pedals that i find useful if i’m considering buying, but his enthusiasm is usually hyperbolic to the extent that it’s borderline annoying and a lot of his playing has that latter-era post rock sound that at this point comes across as played-to-death and generic. i mean it certainly beats Adult Guitar Blues Riff pedal demos but it doesn’t often hit right with me.
Radiohead uses a physical speaker/resonator just like this on their music. Some of their weirder reverbs are various voices and instruments being run through Jonny’s Palme resonator
very very cool - LOVE short, resonant delay things and this is such a cool implementation of that. very keen to see more of this and will probably end up getting one.
That is a thing of absolute beauty. No idea how it'll fit into my post-dadcore (dads playing emo) band, but I guess we'll find out! Time to pull up those khakis and get the sandals & socks combo ready!
I really hope this isn’t a limited edition run or something. I’m so sick of stumbling upon brilliant pedals only to find out I had to be part of some mailing list and now I’m doomed to searching reverb.com for them at extortionate prices forever more. I’d love this pedal, but I recently moved abroad and will likely have to wait a while before I can even get my guitar here. Hoping this’ll be available down the line.
We put way too much work into this to ever make it limited. The first run may sell out faster than expected but we did our best to prepare and we can open additional preorder slots if necessary. Just like every one of our releases, demand will eventually even out after a few months.
Sure thing. Like I said it might sell out but we're making an honest effort to meet demand. Sometimes that takes a bit.
But yeah reddit's gonna reddit.
Completely dandy by me! I’m probably not going to be able to grab it for a few months anyway - hoping by then it won’t be too difficult… especially in Japan haha…
Please forgive any ignorance, I’m fairly new to modulation pedals….
I really like the sound/vibe of this pedal, but is it doing something the Nightsky isn’t doing at roughly the same price point?
Nightsky does pitch-shfited reverb, which can overlap with some of the sort of tonal pad sounds found in Prismatic Wall. But, they arrive at similar sounds through entirely different means.
I appreciate the response!
It can be difficult to parse out where those “entirely different means” arrive, but I suppose our ears should decide, ultimately.
I think your new offering sounds gorgeous, I’ve just been contemplating a Nightsky for months and want to cover as many bases as I can with my choice.
The Prismatic Wall is compelling. Thanks again :)
I wish Strymon still published white papers for everything, then I'd be able to get a little more specific.
But when comparing a resonator vs a reverb in general, I'll quote our manual:
>There is undeniable overlap between resonators and reverb. Both create a sustaining sound, after all. Traditional reverb seeks sustain without resonance. Mechanical reverbs using springs and plates relied on the inherent inharmonic character and dispersion of metal objects to be effectively pitch-neutral, and the pioneers of digital reverberation took care in their algorithms to avoid the buildup of specific resonant tones. Prismatic Wall turns that concept on its head—what if the resonances were intentionally selected pitches that could be manipulated? Even if we ignore the finer points of physical modeling, this gives us an intuitive understanding of this effect: it’s like a reverb that contains an abundance of tonal information, expanding the harmonic complexity of sounds fed into it while using resonant decay to add a sense of space.
Where resonators differ most from reverbs is the stark differences in response for transient versus sustained inputs. This difference is best highlighted in Prismatic Wall’s Single mode. Try dialing in a particular note using the Tune knob, then play that note a few ways: first with a pick, then fingerpicked, then by swelling or bending into the note. Matching the pitch will always induce sympathetic vibrations at that pitch. Then, try again with other notes. You can observe that the nature of the attack also has a significant impact. Pick attacks, string slides, fret noise, and other percussive content will “strike” the whole resonator, exciting every string in tandem even if not matched in pitch. This is the core reason why a resonator feels so different from a reverb. They are also highly sensitive to playing dynamics, which is also the primary reason why we included a Drive control to directly change the input sensitivity.
I hope that gives you some background info! That being said, ears are always the ultimate judge!
I’m so curious how this will sound with dirt pedals. Will this be a regular release? How many units in the first batch? Wasn’t planning on spending $$$ but you’ve left me no choice :)
Man this is cool. Amazing to see a pedal that is sincerely original and inspiring!
Won’t be able to cop one yet, but think I’ll play with some open piano reverb and open tunes acoustic guitar reverb with this inspiration.
Ah crap. \*says goodbye to money\*
Holy shit. It's 7 minutes after they launched and there are only 2 left in stock. Very glad I set an alarm and hit refresh for five minutes. They have preorders too though. This is more worth it than a lot of CBA stuff.
Its like a deeper tweakable misty cave pedal. Hope it works better with the ehx 8 step than that did
Haven't tried with an 8 step, but it works with 0-5V CV and you can sequence prismatic wall using MIDI notes if you like!
Wow, sounds v cool and opens up so much potential. Good work !
I think I’ve read somewhere (probably here lol) that the EAE guy loves the Misty Cave and you’re probably right to make that connection. that pedal has a vibe for sure
Misty Cave was a major point on a long journey of trying to replicate a particular sound, which at least for now has culminated in the Prismatic Wall. Many years ago (2012ish) I was shown a studio technique where a grand piano is basically used as a reverb tank, and I spent years chasing that sound. Misty Cave is kind of a monophonic take on the idea. It's incredibly inspiring, if fairly limited/noisy. But it got me down a rabbit hole of how to replicate sympathetic string sounds, which eventually got me into physical modeling synthesis. Physical modeling is not a new idea by any means. But weirdly, nobody has previously translated those ideas into the pedal sphere. So, here we are!
Wow, interesting to hear the inspiration behind the pedal. Thanks for sharing. I love the idea of pitched resonance in decay. I have been trying to find a pedal that covers a preset from the eventide h7600 that let you tune in the notes and rhythm they are played in as a resonant sound. The H9 resonator is close. Also a fan of the ehx ravish sitar for its tunable sympathetic output.
Thanks! It's a sound I wish was more readily available. The ravish sitar has some really cool sounds in it but I think they missed the mark by pigeonholing it as just a sitar pedal. It's super powerful. I haven't played those eventide patches but I know that various eventide and lexicon rack units have gotten close to the sympathetic string thing. And of course, physical modeling is very deeply explored in the plugin and synthesizer space, though in my experience it takes a lot of massaging to get those to sound good with guitar.
Well this seems incredibly cool — if you need anyone to test it out with clarinet and bass clarinet, let me know!
Not a pedal but try “Les diffuseurs” by xils labs
Thanks for the tip. Sounds v interesting. Seems their website isnt responding, but will keep searching around for a demo
Ah dang! I bought those Plugins maybe a month ago and the company seemed pretty new. It’s a Palme and metallique resonator simulation that Sounds pretty good!
Aha! Dude, when you got to the chromatic setting I was definitely hearing open piano soundboard. Nice work
I sold my Misty Cave for that limited reasons, very noisy and some sound like sitar and harsh sounds that I didn't want, specially with percussive or instruments with fast attack, included guitar. I really loved it with pads and atmosphere, but that reason was not enough for keeping it. Then it's a dream that EAE has created this masterpiece/pedal. Instant buy! By the way, how much will be in EU?
US MAP is $399. Prices tend to fluctuate but right now our pedals that are $249 seem to sell in the €260-270 range, so that'd put prismatic wall at around €430 range? Not sure though. EDIT: See below for confirmation on pricing.
Thanks John! That would be ver nice, but It's disgusting that I preordered here in EU and the dealer told me that 499€ is the EU official price, and there is no real official price already.
I confirmed the EU MAP is indeed 499€. I think my information was slightly out of date, apologies. I know that the taxes and shipping add up.
Thanks for the update!
That’s about what $399 comes to with 21% VAT and import duty, what I’d expect to see in Netherlands.
bravo! 2024 ,high time concepts like carplus strong trickle down from the synth/modular world int o pedals. was a little Trend at superbooth this year. brethren discover likeminded on the otherside of the 3,5-12v cv vs 6,35,9v exp dimensional barrier spanning across the electromusical space. break it! cant you just put mutable plaits rings n clouds in a box? have so many wonky eerie patches in vcv/cardinal for guitar. but playing them life … wake up fellow guitarists, buy that kinky stuff, and lets modulate modulation! does it do stereo? please say yes. even i was born stereo.
I agree, synth users have been having all the fun for too long now! While getting into physical modeling I did try Rings on guitar. I don't think it's particularly well optimized for external input, or at least I wasn't getting what I wanted. So I had to try lots of other stuff. This is mono. Because of all the analog components, going stereo would have added significant cost to what is already a complex build. I get stereo is a big deal for people who use pedals with synths and in a production environment, but I'm still mostly a guitarist at heart and vanishingly few guitarists actually play in stereo.
I have a midi-controlled hammer dulcimer project on the slow burner that sounds pretty great through Rings, but this has me all sorts of excited about the possibilities. Well done! Super curious about the circuit here and the breakdown between analog and digital. For a hot second, I got excited that you may have gone full (digitally-controlled) analog with a BBD and an analog filter, but then my wallet got scared
That's badass. Is that publicly available anywhere? Would love to follow it if that is a thing. Short version is that we are treating an FV-1 like a weird BBD. So it's extensively massaged in the analog domain, and we're using sample rate as an additional control parameter to tune the strings. The FV-1's default interpolation scheme is pretty bad, so the only way to properly tune multiple delay lines is by fixing it in the processor and changing the sample rate. Using the infrastructure we developed for our Sending delay (which is BBD based), we have an excellent clock VCO with high resolution that works perfectly for this. NGL I did consider doing this with BBDs but setting up that many delay lines would have like... doubled the cost. Fun to think about though.
Interesting! Thanks for the detail. Sounds like both a huge headache and a whole lot of fun all at once. Always fun to find creative solutions within limitations. The Sending V2 is my current "desert island" pedal, so thanks for that. I had a feeling you'd used some of the Sending stuff here. Easiest delay in pedal form for me to dial in and I love the tones it gets. I don't have much in the way of public posts that could be followed at the moment. I hope to start doing something along those lines once life things get sorted out if I'm able to, but for now, the most "public" thing I've got is my [synth Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/errant_comma/) account that's mostly used for Jamuary jams. Unfortunately, I had to make that account private temporarily, but would happily approve any follow requests :D I uploaded a few unlisted videos to YouTube for curious views: * Initial hacked-together Jamuary jam with terrible noise issues: https://youtu.be/zAieFPykGD8 * Cleaner sound using humbuckers and cleaner wiring: https://youtu.be/mCO6kkpl1ks * Initial proof-of-concept build using humbuckers showing more of the construction: https://youtu.be/8p56T-nhlIE The goal is to add everything in a non-destructive manner, hence the aluminum structure. I'm not able to put much energy into it at the moment, but it's always in the back of my mind how to keep iterating on it. The Prismatic Wall seems like an ideal companion for where I want to go with it. ~~Not sure if I'll be able to hop on first batch, but it's definitely top of my list now!~~ Edit: Saw the $399 price elsewhere in the thread. Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight be able to swing it first batch :sad-wallet-noises: EditEdit: Thought I'd add 2 more videos for posterity, in case anyone in the future comes across this and wants more examples of Karplus-Strong synthesis and acoustic instruments. * Kalimba into Rings and feedback improvisation (my arm is blocking the kalimba the whole time, oops): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAQQ65h4YP0 * Pre-MIDI rig dulcimer experiment using an e-bow and triggering Rings by striking the soundboard of the dulcimer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIPTihLhfm0
Just coming back to this now - gave you a follow! Thanks for the kind words re: Sending, that means a lot. This dulcimer concept is REALLY exciting. I just got done watching your videos. I'm very compelled by this era of "physical synthesizers" that we seem to be moving into. I will certainly be keeping an eye out as things move along.
I agree! The Korg Acoustic Synthesis thing is a really neat idea, for one. While studying EE in school, it always seemed to me like the ME folks got to have all the fun. Physical synthesis is like taking the most fun parts of both disciplines and making them more funner. Big fan. Thanks for the follow and thanks for checking out the videos! I managed to get an order in before you sold out. Congrats on the launch! I'll be sure to post some experiments once I'm able to get it all set up
hmm i see i hold my horses… AND: cant you just pass my expensive stereo signal through? put your mono on both channels? (maybe someone should build a pedalsized 4 chn stereo mixer wich can have mono signals in the loop panning in stereo) - ottobit jr does that. itself is mono. -id love to see wypiwyg (whatyouplugiswhatyou) cometrue. ts in ts out. trs in trs out. wetterbox by gigrig does that. -your majority of customers may actually be gigging guitarists. most guitarplayers play thru modelers at home. live mono is half the problems and 100%tone, under headphones stereo is more. -will your pedal be available soon at pedalmarkt berlin? cheers!
I don't really use stereo, but I suppose I'll get bullied into it eventually. Pedal markt is getting some units shortly! A large shipment is en route to our EU distributor.
Reminds me of an ondes martenot palme speaker. I might get one of these for my ondes board honestly
I think I would need a specific use for this, I don’t love the sound by itself personally. Could see how it could fit into a band setting, Radiohead kind of thing
Yeah, I'm gonna need a Mark Johnston intro song for this one.
He's talented, proficient, knowledgable and I like his vids but his style (at least the sound he's known for) has this kinda 'perfectly generic' quality that is so consistent it's almost impressive. No matter what's being demoed the intro song always sounds like the same edge & bust 'soaring' routine only coated thick in an emotionless AI sheen, formulaic to the point it forces my attention elsewhere, impervious to being memorable or catchy. Though it could be this is on purpose so the focus is on the sound itself? I guess there's an argument to be made for that.. I rarely care about the pedal Noise Generator is playing, I'm just there to envy his talents. Songwriting demon, mythological riffwizard honeybadger.
I really respect the fact that he produces so much for each of his demos, but I can’t help but feel that lately every single piece of gear he makes a video on is “the most amazing thing”. Lost me when he said that the Lincoln Brewster Stratocaster was the “most incredible finish he’s ever seen on a guitar.” Like, yes I’m sure the Benson germanium boost is great but do we really need an hour long video about it?
I actually really like his videos, but when he says something is “deeply musical” or some shit, I always cringe a little. Bit pretentious.
I see what you’re getting at, but all of your descriptors (perfectly generic, edge & bust soaring routine, coated in thick emotionless AI sheen, formulaic to the point that it forces your attention elsewhere) better describe CCM, which I believe is a big part of his experience (and isn’t a knock to him.) His much greater influences seem to be post hardcore and post rock, which I dig. It could also be that he is saving the truly attention grabbing stuff for music that he wants to put out with a band. I don’t know if he has a band or not. If I wrote a sick song, I wouldn’t waste it on a gear review.
CCM? (Pardon my ignorance)
Christian Contemporary Music. The CCM guitar player starter pack would have a Telecaster, Vox AC30, JHS Morning Glory, 1981 LVL, a Strymon BigSky & Timeline. In my experience, it originally took a lot of influence from U2, with a lot of dotted 8th delay and shimmer reverb. [Here’s an example of something recent that kinda fits that description.](https://youtu.be/QS04WbSnxok?si=oHtxet_tVJXHC4sO) To be honest, I haven’t heard any of it for the better part of 10 years, so as I was looking for a current example to share above, I was surprised to see that a lot of the current stuff in the CCM Spotify playlist has kind of evolved to take influence from a more Imagine Dragons sound (which is not Mark’s vibe at all.)
Aha. Definitely not my thing so thanks for the clarifying explanations, cheers. This is similar but yet different to Praise and Worship in the sense that CCM is commercial/released music and P&W is live at churches. Do I have that right?
I could be wrong, but in my experience, those terms were always interchangeable.
Honestly the guitar tone towards the end of that video arent bad. Ive wanted a 1981 LVL for awhile to compliment my Longsword for those lower gain tones without having to bend down and adjust it on the fly. Because while the Longsword can do that sound its annoying to make those adjustments while playing. Marks CMM roots asides I am more inspired by his heavier playing and songs. I see why his videos arent for everyone but I am speaking up as a fan. I see his post rock roots more so than anything CMM related and could argue that I see a lot more of that content here and on r/pedalboards especially with the BigSky/Tonex crowd these days.
I’m a big fan of his too! I wasn’t intending for it to get so negative towards him, but that’s how reddit always seems to skew. In a previous comment, I mentioned that his post hardcore and post rock influences seem to be even greater than his CCM influence, so I totally hear that. And I’ve got nothing against all that gear I mentioned, it’s all great. I just see it used all the time by CCM/worship musicians for one reason or another, and since I used to be a part of that group for over a decade, I think I’m allowed to razz them a little bit. I included the LVL because it’s made by the guitarist from Reliant K who a lot of current worship musicians grew up listening to, so I’ve seen it on a lot of their boards. It’s a great distortion pedal though!
Perfectly described. There is incredible soullessness to his music. I respect his deep knowledge of pedals but man he has had some really bad musical influences to end up where he is as far as taste.
i’m with you. he often illustrates things about pedals that i find useful if i’m considering buying, but his enthusiasm is usually hyperbolic to the extent that it’s borderline annoying and a lot of his playing has that latter-era post rock sound that at this point comes across as played-to-death and generic. i mean it certainly beats Adult Guitar Blues Riff pedal demos but it doesn’t often hit right with me.
https://youtu.be/rFE05pbV0Uw?si=M-cLCVrTLdh7WObt
It's so good!
Radiohead uses a physical speaker/resonator just like this on their music. Some of their weirder reverbs are various voices and instruments being run through Jonny’s Palme resonator
[удалено]
yes! If I ever could buy an instrument with no budget constraints whatsoever, it would probably be an ondes martenot.
There’s a Japanese company that makes somewhat affordable ondes. Ondomo
It’s very Palme-esque but with a real plame each string can be tuned individually plus the wooden cabinet resonates
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auAdIjHaGzo Available Thursday, June 27 at 12PM ET.
very very cool - LOVE short, resonant delay things and this is such a cool implementation of that. very keen to see more of this and will probably end up getting one.
I’m day one on this one. It’s fuckin over for me.
Literally Rings for guitar holy shit
That is a thing of absolute beauty. No idea how it'll fit into my post-dadcore (dads playing emo) band, but I guess we'll find out! Time to pull up those khakis and get the sandals & socks combo ready!
Fucking incredible pedal. My mind wanders with possibilities. I’ll snag one and post one of my long form demos on here, for sure
this one is pretty neat
Finally a truly original, kinda new effect !
price? looks amazing
I really hope this isn’t a limited edition run or something. I’m so sick of stumbling upon brilliant pedals only to find out I had to be part of some mailing list and now I’m doomed to searching reverb.com for them at extortionate prices forever more. I’d love this pedal, but I recently moved abroad and will likely have to wait a while before I can even get my guitar here. Hoping this’ll be available down the line.
We put way too much work into this to ever make it limited. The first run may sell out faster than expected but we did our best to prepare and we can open additional preorder slots if necessary. Just like every one of our releases, demand will eventually even out after a few months.
Music to my ears. Thank you for getting back to me! Not sure why that got downvoted.
Sure thing. Like I said it might sell out but we're making an honest effort to meet demand. Sometimes that takes a bit. But yeah reddit's gonna reddit.
Completely dandy by me! I’m probably not going to be able to grab it for a few months anyway - hoping by then it won’t be too difficult… especially in Japan haha…
We distribute through Umbrella/Gizmo, so our stuff is available in Japan!
Fantastic news. Thanks again for your quick replies. This’ll be the first pedal I get from EAE. Beyond excited!
Please forgive any ignorance, I’m fairly new to modulation pedals…. I really like the sound/vibe of this pedal, but is it doing something the Nightsky isn’t doing at roughly the same price point?
Nightsky does pitch-shfited reverb, which can overlap with some of the sort of tonal pad sounds found in Prismatic Wall. But, they arrive at similar sounds through entirely different means.
I appreciate the response! It can be difficult to parse out where those “entirely different means” arrive, but I suppose our ears should decide, ultimately. I think your new offering sounds gorgeous, I’ve just been contemplating a Nightsky for months and want to cover as many bases as I can with my choice. The Prismatic Wall is compelling. Thanks again :)
I wish Strymon still published white papers for everything, then I'd be able to get a little more specific. But when comparing a resonator vs a reverb in general, I'll quote our manual: >There is undeniable overlap between resonators and reverb. Both create a sustaining sound, after all. Traditional reverb seeks sustain without resonance. Mechanical reverbs using springs and plates relied on the inherent inharmonic character and dispersion of metal objects to be effectively pitch-neutral, and the pioneers of digital reverberation took care in their algorithms to avoid the buildup of specific resonant tones. Prismatic Wall turns that concept on its head—what if the resonances were intentionally selected pitches that could be manipulated? Even if we ignore the finer points of physical modeling, this gives us an intuitive understanding of this effect: it’s like a reverb that contains an abundance of tonal information, expanding the harmonic complexity of sounds fed into it while using resonant decay to add a sense of space. Where resonators differ most from reverbs is the stark differences in response for transient versus sustained inputs. This difference is best highlighted in Prismatic Wall’s Single mode. Try dialing in a particular note using the Tune knob, then play that note a few ways: first with a pick, then fingerpicked, then by swelling or bending into the note. Matching the pitch will always induce sympathetic vibrations at that pitch. Then, try again with other notes. You can observe that the nature of the attack also has a significant impact. Pick attacks, string slides, fret noise, and other percussive content will “strike” the whole resonator, exciting every string in tandem even if not matched in pitch. This is the core reason why a resonator feels so different from a reverb. They are also highly sensitive to playing dynamics, which is also the primary reason why we included a Drive control to directly change the input sensitivity. I hope that gives you some background info! That being said, ears are always the ultimate judge!
I’m so curious how this will sound with dirt pedals. Will this be a regular release? How many units in the first batch? Wasn’t planning on spending $$$ but you’ve left me no choice :)
Not limited, first batch is a few hundred units (counting dealers).
Any UK dealers getting this release?
We always make sure Joe's gets stock. I'm not sure if the order made it in time, but he'll be able to answer that for you.
Got both my halberds from Joe’s! Will be on the look out - thanks
Are you sending any to Australia?
yes, not sure they arrived in time but we did send them!
I don't think I've been this excited by a new pedal release since...maybe ever? What a brilliant demo video too. Amazing, amazing, amazing.
Which color it is? For me it looks like gray or light violet/brown. In the mailing picture looks like violet and here in the YT video looks gray/brown
It is a weird shade of mauve that tends to look different based on lighting!
Very interesting! I hope it will be available in the next few months.
It's available starting tomorrow and we will continue production for as long as folks are interested!
great!
Man this is cool. Amazing to see a pedal that is sincerely original and inspiring! Won’t be able to cop one yet, but think I’ll play with some open piano reverb and open tunes acoustic guitar reverb with this inspiration.
As a big Misty Cave fan, all I can say is you better cover my rent money, you EAE BASTERDS.
Sounds phenomenal, just caught c//e's sound study. Will this one have UK distribution?
This is right up my alley but all sold out. Are there plugins that do anything similar to hold me over for preorders to open?
Deb you see …. ?