Xploration • Curation • Recommendation
2025 Best New Delay and Reverb Pedals of the Year
In many ways this is the most straightforward category with singular award nominees - GOLD, SILVER and BRONZE.
It’s the second smallest category after Distortions - and the one where I own the least number of pedals in proportion to the whole - just 10 out of these 26.
The order pretty much set itself - with the Cornerstone Nucleo being the clear winner from the start. I’m so impressed with every aspect of that pedal - it’s a perfect Trifecta of Design, Feaures and Playability - pretty ...
Catalinbread updates its Belle Epoch Tape Echo - now in Plus Edition with 3 Programs onboard and Tap-Tempo on the one footswitch
Catalinbread has made its 80ms-800ms Belle Epoch more potent and more versatile. It has an additional 3-way Program Toggle-switch, and you can now use the Footswitch for Tap Tempo - similar to the Boss way of doing that.
Catalinbread’s Belle Epoch is one of the best known compact takes of the Echoplex EP-3 and has long been an essential delay for many players - obviously with Mono output - so not as useful for my own rig - but fabulous for Mono rigs.
Old Controls - Echo Sustain, ...
The Colortone VibroVerb and ZeroSum get the final tiny tweaks that they need - now with Smarter Preset Switching and slightly Brighter Tone Profile
So when I first reviewed these two superb specimens from Colortone Pedals I advocated for Smarter Preset Switching - via a combined press on the two footswitches - as several pedals do - and AD has now programmed that to perfection - so you can scroll through the presets with the 2 footswitches - changing things up wholly on-the-fly - for a much more dynamic live performance.
I also noted that the output could at times be somewhat dense and intense - and could do with Lightening Up and ...
Colortone Pedals rolls out to further dealers in Europe including now at Joe's Pedals in the UK, and Effekt Boutique in Germany
All the new dealers - including Joe’s Pedals and Effekt Boutique will feature the two most recent Colortone Pedals - the Vibroverb (£219 / €289), and ZeroSum (£219 / €289), while some - like Joe’s Pedals will also have the Lo-Fi Delay (£239) and Spring Reverb II (€179).
All 4 of those pedals sound every bit as good as they look!
Northern Stomps’ new website is due to go live on this coming Friday (31st) - with those Colortone Pedals featured for launch.
There’s a few more dealers ...
18 Months of development has delivered Beetronics' first Smart Multi-Mode Bee Bee Dee Analog Modulated Delay - with Classic, Pitch-Shifted, and Lo-Fi Tape style Modes onboard
A number of Analog and Analog style Delays have recently crossed my path - so there’s evidently a trend happening! I featured the HSE SeaWolf back in March, the Colortone ZeroSum in August, and then the Black Mountain Roto Echo, Anasounds Utopia MK2, Tru-Fi Aqua Echo, PastFX Echo 600, and now this Beetronics Bee Bee Dee all in September!
Beetronics’ Filipe always does things slightly differently, and his Bee Bee Dee Delay is very distinct - with a little bit of Chase Bliss style magic ...
Tru-Fi's Aqua Analog Echo 600 is an incredibly warm and lush MN3005 BBD Delay with Mods, Wow and Flutter
So I’m way late on this one - mostly a by-product of how busy I am - I can’t keep my eye on every single pedal company simultaneously - so inevitable the occasional release falls through the cracks. I was also in part waiting for this one to come into stock at Joe’s Pedals - but I clocked it too late - and the small quantity Joe had - sold almost immediately. I did sleep on this in part too - as I had only just received the Black Mountain Roto Echo, and the Echo 600 from PastFX has also just ...
2025 Strymon Capsule Collection
My Strymon journey started in December of 2016 - of course with the ’Stryfecta’ of BigSky, Mobius, and TimeLine. That was my first foray into Strymon, as well as the first of my Workstation pedal types - where I’ve favoured Stereo BIG-BOX solutions for Modulation, Delay and Reverb ever since. You can see the Stryfecta was a very significant part of my first official pedal-chain arrangement - first shared in April of 2017 - as below!
Colortone's ZeroSum is a beautifully textured and spectacular sounding full stereo rhythmic delay - particularly on the Single and Dual-Head Modes
For a simple looking format there’s actually quite a lot to get to grips with here - as we get 2 layers of controls - default Red Layer 1, and when you hold down the Bypass footswitch you get Layer 2 Green - which is mostly optional for me, while it does trigger the 3-Presets Mode too - via the A/B/C controls. With the Red 1, and Green 2 Layers you have a total of 10 controls at your disposal, and the A/B/C option selection controls the 3 presets - but more of that later!
As a bare minimum ...
AD Hauser further levels up his Colortone Imprint with his newest superior evolved Stereo VibroVerb Multi-Modulator and ZeroSum Dual-Head Delay - which both sound every bit as good as they look!
Every couple of years AD Hauser massively evolves and levels up his pedal creations - now in their 5th or 6th iteration overall from when the brand started. Where the symbol on the ZeroSum is slight reminiscent of that on the former Preacher 58 Mic Link pedal, while the artwork here is much further evolved, and a step away from the geometric patterns of its forebears.
I can imagine these in Brass - looking slightly Steam-Punk-ish in this new format! There is a degree of retro-futurism here ...
The superb evolution and replacement for the Lichtlaerm Trugbild LoFi Modulator - the Nostalgia - is now available at Joe's Pedals in the UK
It’s 5 years now since I covered Lichtlaeerm Audio’s original trio - the Altar, Gehenna, and Trugbild. Not so long after that article - Lichtlaerm went on hiatus for a few years - but then came back stronger and much improved - where we have had a few iterations of Altar and Gehenna in the meantime - but up until now - no replacement for the Trugbild.
I had hoped to complete that trio - when I first featured them - but various happening obviously got in the way. So I’m delighted that I now ...
