+ Very affordable + Lots of stacking opportunities – Needs to be combined with other pedals for best results Price: $395 / £425 Description: Multi-mode digital reverb pedal, voiced for experimental and glitchy sounds Controls: Mode selection rotary switch, Frequency, Depth, Time controls (plus F, D and T secondary controls), dry mix, wet mix Mono or stereo: Stereo Electro-Harmonix Freeze In classic Death By Audio fashion, when the Rooms was launched in 2020 its marketing copy included the phrase “control the Spice, control the universe.” So if you’re looking for a pedal that will make you see through time, this is it. Notably, some of the controls have secondary options, which are morphed to when the Alt footswitch is pressed. There are some traditional sounds on offer, the majority of the six sounds the pedal has on board are designed not to emulate the sound of a particular space but instead to create distorted, glitchy and dynamic ambiences. The Rooms is a strong candidate for addition to your ambient board: it’s stereo, it has a multitude of controls, core sounds and expressive capabilities, potentially infinite sustain and of course, that lick of Death By Audio’s signature sonic chaos. Price: $449 (direct from Hologram Electronics) Description: Granular multi-effects unit with phrase looper Controls: Effect selector knob, knobs for ‘Activity’, modulation shape and frequency, filter frequency and resonance, mix, delay time, delay repeats, reverb space and time, loop level and loop fade time, bypass footswitch, tap-tempo/rec/play/dub footswitch and hold/stop/erase footswitch Mono or stereo: Stereo Earthquaker Devices Afterneath V3 The phrase looper can also help create meaningful repetitions within more abstract soundscapes, and if you’re not feeling in the ambient mood, the pedal is capable of some more traditional effects, too. Thanks to the nature of granular sampling, your sound becomes strongly abstracted from the idea of any sort of guitar. The Hologram Microcosm certainly capitalises on the promise of transformation: making use of granular sampling, it slices your signal up into tiny samples, and then rearranges them to create incredibly gorgeous and unique delay, reverb and glitch effects. + Huge amount of options and effects + Versatile operation with a lot of connectivity – Control set might be overkill for some The best ambient guitar pedals at a glance: There are countless other creative ways pedal makers have allowed guitarists to create ambient sounds, so let’s dive in. In this context, too, delays and reverbs are often favoured for their cleaner, less abrasive approach to creating sustain. Sustain can be extended ‘naturally’ with overdrive, distortion or harmonic feedback, but delays and reverbs also extend a note or chord, and can offer some interesting ways to manipulate it.
A note’s attack can be hidden by EQ-ing out high end, or by rolling up your volume control (or a volume pedal) after strumming to create swells. These two things can be achieved in countless ways. So, in order to create a fuller ambience, the general approach is to do two things: soften the attack of a note and extend its sustain. The inherent sound of an electric guitar note is not particularly ‘ambient’ in itself – there’s a strong transient and then a relatively fast falloff. In either case, an ambient pedal’s key feature is transformation. Some ambient players rely purely on sustain and space from lengthy reverbs, while others prefer to use layered guitar sounds to create an abstract soundscape.
What makes a pedal good for ambient music?
We’ve compiled a list of stompboxes that are sure to aid you on your soundscaping journey. To do so, however, you’re going to need the right pedals. The argument that your whole rig is an instrument is strongest in the context of ambient music: coaxing textures, drones and shifting patterns out of your gear becomes an art in itself.
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