YouTube is full of pedal demos by pro players who get paid by (or get free products from) pedal companies. These players create best-case scenario videos for unique pedals and make them sound great, but the little boxes are often a disappointment when you plug them in at home. That’s where this series of articles comes in. I bought the Mastro Valvola LEM at full price and don’t get paid by the company for reviewing it. Even when I’d love to write sonnets for this thing, I’ll do my best to hide my giddy enthusiasm and give you an honest take on LEM so you can evaluate whether or not it’s for you.
What is LEM?
Mastro Valvola’s LEM (Lysergic Emotions Module) may be a multihead, digital delay. Or it may be a musical circus on acid. Its eight programs use forward, reverse, pitch shift, bitcrush, filters, vibrato and/or glitch to create harmonious, rhythmic delays. You play something and something that sounds nothing like it comes out.
Hologram Chroma Console: Why would I buy this pedal?
A realistic view.
I too love the pedal demos where you witness exactly what a box can do in the hands of a paid pro. But what about you and me? We buy pedals based on those demos, but are often disappointed when we can’t get that box to sound anything close to what we saw in the video. Or we discover what looked like simple-to-use ain’t so simple. Chroma Console is definitely one of those pedals. Since I bought the Chroma Console and am not being paid by Hologram, hopefully I’ll present it here in a realistic light to help you determine if it’s for you or not.
The Vongon Polyphrase is a great pedal for creating short loops. There are restrictions (no undo, no octave function and a max length of 22 seconds) but the workflow can be easier than a conventional looper. And if you’re already got Polyphrase as your delay, you may not need to add a dedicated looper pedal. This article shows you how.
Current Pedal Obsession: Strymon Brig dBucket Delay.
It’s the Bucket Brigade Hall of Fame pedal.
Based on the Brigadier delay, Brig is the second in a new line of smaller, higher-quality pedals from Strymon. It’s an exploration of three legendary analog delays using Strymon’s dBucket technology. For this article we’ll approach the pedal from three familiar analog voices: Boss DM-2, EHX Deluxe Memory Man and Roland Space Echo, each with authentic characteristics and quirks.
Pedal Tricks: Landscape Stereo Field + Strymon Cloudburst.
Instant Bernard Hermann.
The Landscape Stereo Field is a touch-sensitive atonal synth (aka noise box). The Strymon Cloudburst is a reverb with an Ensemble mode that creates synthetic strings from whatever you put in it. And Bernard Hermann was the composer and conductor of the music for Hitchcock’s Psycho, known for his suspenseful, discordant scores.
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