Kinotone unleashes probably its most potent and appealing pedal to date - the Ghosts 6-Voice Polyphonic Chordal Resonator with onboard touch pad, contact mic, synthesiser, drum machine and looper!

Kinotone’s Jaak Jenson is proving to be one of the finest sound engineers of his generation - with a trio now of killer unique pedals.

I wasn’t sure how I would deploy the Ribbons in my chain - so that one’s still on the ’maybe’ list - lots of my friends really love it, and use it for all kinds of things - while I’m still seeking a proper connection there.

I did get the Sparks Harmonic Processor - or Stereo Overdrive + State Variable Filter + Wavefolder. I mostly got that one because of one of its Harmonic Tremolo presets - while I like the Overdrive / Distortion side of it too - but never fully gelled with it. It was on the board for a good 3 and a bit months - and I used the Harmonic Tremolo quite a bit - but found its setup and maintenance rather fiddly - it’s one of those with multiple hidden modes and several function on each knob.

I’m mostly a stompbox guy - which is mostly of the set-and-forget and presets variety - while Kinotone pedals are are rather more suited to the tabletop crowd. They’re the kind of pedals that you need to be constantly tweaking by hand - which means they’re more for he synth brigade - as well as a few quirky tabletop guitarists. We’re getting a lot of tabletop devices these days - where companies like Chase Bliss and Empress led the charge on that!

Kinotone mines a similar furrow to Chase Bliss to a degree - but possibly even quirkier and more synth-crowd leaning. All varieties of Kinotone Pedals have a secret synth onboard! - where you need a keyboard and a MIDI cable to make use of that.

The elipse with the contour line (above the footswitches) is actually an expression touch / control pad, where there’s also a contact mic onboard - to allow you to process a variety of inputs.

Controls - Tone [Reverb], Root [Position], Mix [Touch 1], Decay [Time], Chord : Octave / 5 / 4 / m / m7 / m9 / m11, b9, M9, M7, M, User [Voicing], Volume [Touch 2]. Model Push-button, MIC Push-button. Layer Push-Button [Alt Parameters], Elliptical Ecpression Touch Pad, Touch Footswitch, Bypass Footswitch.

Ports - RIGHT } 9V DC [-] 220mA, CV / EXP, TRS Stereo Input, LEFT } USB-C, MIDI, TRS Stereo Output.

It’s not clear from the controls that there is a major looping component onboard - while you can see how you’re selecting intervals, Root notes etc. for Resonant agitation.

The below Demo is exceptional - and shows you just how many ways you can use this device. It’s evident from the demo that a lot of hands-on manipulation is required to get the most out of the Ghosts. I must say it sounds so cool in so many ways - and I’m of course tempted by those glorious resonant frequencies - but I know it’s not really gong to be in my lane as such - while I feel a number of players will get a whole lot out of this - where this pedal doesn’t live on the floor!

There’s been a number of Resonator pedals recently - including from Electronic Audio Experiments, Chase Bliss, and Poly Effects - while this Ghosts kind of takes that further with its chord sequencing and 6-Voice Polyphony.

I feel that many are going to get some fantastic sounds out of this - and it’s going to inspire so many cool tracks - I feel this one is kind of a game changer.

Kintone enjoys and enduring popularity - and the first batch sold out in an instant - we’re waiting for the next batch to be announced!

All Kinotone pedals are at $399 (standard Chase Bliss pricing!) - and available on the Kinotone Webstore when in stock. Weirdly I thought I was on the mailing list - but didn’t get any kind of notification for this one!