DBA warps the world of chorus!

Rich, unique chorus tones that evoke vintage tonalities without imitating them. Deep and useful “weird” sounds.

Expensive if you primarily require conventional chorus tones.

Death By Audio Space Bender deathbyaudio.com

Death By Audio’s most esoteric pedals are regarded by some as the company’s best and most visionary. But some of DBA’s greatest creations, like the Fuzz War, are also its simplest. The new Space Bender chorus lives somewhere in the middle of that complexity spectrum. Its sounds and some facets of its functionality are often unconventional, at times elusive, and occasionally unexpected.

But there are also sounds here that are redolent with moody, familiar vintage chorus and flange colors without sounding precisely like any specific vintage touchstones. This capacity for function, familiarity, and exotic textures make Space Bender a musical mood machine that can make simple ideas sound celestial or certifiably demented.Rockers Are Go! Space Bender is another beautifully executed riff on DBA’s retro-future design vernacular. As with most DBA pedals, its graphics and controls are stylish, smart, and make the Space Bender more fun to use. The three rocker switches (which evoke old Mu-Tron pedals—always a cool move) flip between low and high modulation intensity, LFO or envelope mode, or short and long delay times in the modulation line. They also streamline the user’s sound-design experience. A lot of builders might have opted for variable intensity and delay-time knobs for these functions. But DBA’s reduction of those variables to binary choices means you focus a lot more on the sensitivity and range of the depth and speed knobs. Bent at the Event Horizon As is the case with many DBA pedals, it’s good to explore Space Bender’s sounds intuitively and expect the unexpected. Though Space Bender generates rich washes of chorus, its basic modulation voice has a perceptibly metallic edge. Lots of conventional choruses and flangers exhibit some of these metalloid overtones as chorused waveforms interact. But in the Space Bender they lend a liveliness to overtones and harmonics as a signal fades. Working with the pedal is a gas. Though flicking the switches and twisting knobs with reckless abandon is a great way to approach things, paying close attention to how the controls interact yields big dividends and is the key to tapping into the Space Bender’s expansive vocabulary at will. There are a lot of intoxicating variations on classic chorus themes in the Space Bender. My go-to (hi-intensity, +10 delay time, LFO on, depth around 9 o’clock) produced everything from 12-string-like sounds to thick BBD-style chorus to wobbly quasi-rotary sounds, depending on where I set the speed. Subtle sounds abound, too. Using the LFO setting at low intensity and at shorter delay rate, for instance, produces modulations that sound more like filter effects. They’re subtle shades that shine when driven with overdrive or boost.Switching to +10 can turn thinner, clanging chorus clusters into an orchestra of heavenly glockenspiels. It takes just one flip of a rocker switch, however, for mellow modulations to become massive. The delay switch is particularly transformative. Though the snappy echoes you hear in the +10 mode make the pedal sound and act like there’s a separate echo circuit onboard, the “delay” refers instead to the delays among the waveforms that create the phase shift and chorus effect. In +1 mode, modulations sound tightly clustered—even at slow modulation rates. But switching to +10 can turn these thinner, clanging chorus clusters into an orchestra of heavenly glockenspiels. This is also the ticket to the most vintage BBD-like sounds—particularly at modest depth settings. And the expansive echoic aspect of these voices helps the Space Bender transcend traditional chorus tones. The envelope function is the trickiest of the three switches to master. It uses your input signal to modify the delay times rather than the intensity or rate of modulation. Merely switching to the envelope settings can make modulations a little hazier and sometimes flangier, and I often left it on for those reasons rather than any dynamic interplay it enabled. Without any gain source in front of the Spacer Bender, envelope-prompted changes in delay time tend to be subtle. Adding gain makes the envelope feel much more dynamic.The Verdict The Space Bender, in classic DBA fashion, twists the chorus effect to much more original and often mangled-sounding ends. There are loads of thick, rich modulation sounds that evoke vintage chorus and flange without imitating them, and a cornucopia of textures, from ring-modulated sounds to deep, throbbing tones that sound designers and experimental musicians will devour—particularly when paired with gain, reverb, and delay devices. The Space Bender may not be the easiest modulation pedal to master, but the path of discovering the sounds you want often leads to sounds you didn’t even know you needed. And that’s a lovely thing to experience in a musical instrument.

But there are also sounds here that are redolent with moody, familiar vintage chorus and flange colors without sounding precisely like any specific vintage touchstones. This capacity for function, familiarity, and exotic textures make Space Bender a musical mood machine that can make simple ideas sound celestial or certifiably demented.

Space Bender is another beautifully executed riff on DBA’s retro-future design vernacular. As with most DBA pedals, its graphics and controls are stylish, smart, and make the Space Bender more fun to use. The three rocker switches (which evoke old Mu-Tron pedals—always a cool move) flip between low and high modulation intensity, LFO or envelope mode, or short and long delay times in the modulation line. They also streamline the user’s sound-design experience. A lot of builders might have opted for variable intensity and delay-time knobs for these functions. But DBA’s reduction of those variables to binary choices means you focus a lot more on the sensitivity and range of the depth and speed knobs.

As is the case with many DBA pedals, it’s good to explore Space Bender’s sounds intuitively and expect the unexpected. Though Space Bender generates rich washes of chorus, its basic modulation voice has a perceptibly metallic edge. Lots of conventional choruses and flangers exhibit some of these metalloid overtones as chorused waveforms interact. But in the Space Bender they lend a liveliness to overtones and harmonics as a signal fades.

Working with the pedal is a gas. Though flicking the switches and twisting knobs with reckless abandon is a great way to approach things, paying close attention to how the controls interact yields big dividends and is the key to tapping into the Space Bender’s expansive vocabulary at will.

There are a lot of intoxicating variations on classic chorus themes in the Space Bender. My go-to (hi-intensity, +10 delay time, LFO on, depth around 9 o’clock) produced everything from 12-string-like sounds to thick BBD-style chorus to wobbly quasi-rotary sounds, depending on where I set the speed. Subtle sounds abound, too. Using the LFO setting at low intensity and at shorter delay rate, for instance, produces modulations that sound more like filter effects. They’re subtle shades that shine when driven with overdrive or boost.

It takes just one flip of a rocker switch, however, for mellow modulations to become massive. The delay switch is particularly transformative. Though the snappy echoes you hear in the +10 mode make the pedal sound and act like there’s a separate echo circuit onboard, the “delay” refers instead to the delays among the waveforms that create the phase shift and chorus effect. In +1 mode, modulations sound tightly clustered—even at slow modulation rates. But switching to +10 can turn these thinner, clanging chorus clusters into an orchestra of heavenly glockenspiels.

This is also the ticket to the most vintage BBD-like sounds—particularly at modest depth settings. And the expansive echoic aspect of these voices helps the Space Bender transcend traditional chorus tones.

The envelope function is the trickiest of the three switches to master. It uses your input signal to modify the delay times rather than the intensity or rate of modulation. Merely switching to the envelope settings can make modulations a little hazier and sometimes flangier, and I often left it on for those reasons rather than any dynamic interplay it enabled. Without any gain source in front of the Spacer Bender, envelope-prompted changes in delay time tend to be subtle. Adding gain makes the envelope feel much more dynamic.

The Space Bender, in classic DBA fashion, twists the chorus effect to much more original and often mangled-sounding ends. There are loads of thick, rich modulation sounds that evoke vintage chorus and flange without imitating them, and a cornucopia of textures, from ring-modulated sounds to deep, throbbing tones that sound designers and experimental musicians will devour—particularly when paired with gain, reverb, and delay devices. The Space Bender may not be the easiest modulation pedal to master, but the path of discovering the sounds you want often leads to sounds you didn’t even know you needed. And that’s a lovely thing to experience in a musical instrument.

The Holeyboard Mini is designed to be easy, light and compact with one sturdy platform for pedals and, of course, includes their signature “holey” design.

Holeyboard Pedalboards introduces their first ever grab-and-go pedalboard to the world. The Holeyboard Mini is easy, light and compact with one sturdy platform for pedals and, of course, includes their signature “holey” design.

Designed to accommodate several mini pedals or a few full-sized pedals. The patented “holey” design allows you to create a setup custom.

The Holeyboard Mini is built with precision in Minneapolis, MN- proudly celebrating American design, engineering and manufacturing. The Holeyboard Mini comes with a Lifetime Warranty.

MSRP $99. For more information, please visit holeyboardpedalboards.com.

Black Bobbin introduces the Black Bobbin Boost, a dual transparent boost that features two circuits with independent ins and outs to allow for placement anywhere in the signal path.

​The BUMP side is designed as an always-on mid-range bump with high headroom to be placed first in the signal chain. This benefits the drives that follow it in the signal path and pushes the amp to the desired edge of breakup. It has a single output knob, but also includes an internal tone trim pot that acts as a treble boost or cut.

The BOOST side is inspired by transparent boosts with tonal shaping capabilities and can be placed at the end of the drive signal path to act as a decibel boost after the heaviest gain stage. This allows for a boost on your board that is ideal for soloing by shaping your signal to cut through the mix. The BOOST side features Output, Gain, and Tone controls to allow for optimal EQing.

The Black Bobbin Boost is designed and manufactured by Old Blood Noise Endeavors and is available exclusively at blackbobbin.com for a $249 retail price.

This new processor combines all three Microtubes distortions (B3K, Vintage and X) and compression into one pedal.

Darkglass Electronics, a Helsinki, Finland-based manufacturer of handmade bass guitar equipment, announces the introduction of Microtubes Infinity, a new pedal that combines all the sounds of the Darkglass Microtubes line into one unit. Microtubes Infinity shares the footprint of the Darkglass programmable line, packed with the three legendary Microtubes distortions: B3K, Vintage and X. It allows multiband compression on every mode and blending Impulse responses (IR) between distortions, offering infinite sonic possibilities.

Compression and distortion can be bypassed independently, and each has five selectable modes. The pedal also offers selectable cabinet simulation with five on-board IRs. A six-band graphic EQ is also featured, featuring the same touch-sensitive sliders found on the Darkglass Element pedal. And crucially, all settings can be saved as presets.

The Darkglass Microtubes Infinity is now available with U.S. MAP pricing of $599.99. For more information, please visit darkglass.com.