If you loved Komorebi, you are going to want to meet Darkness, Kinematic, Raindrops and Lethargy: the newest stompboxes by Dreadbox.
Dreadbox teased us with a blurred image of their latest stompbox effects, which was uploaded to their website and Instagram last week without explanation. Finally, we’ve been lifted out of the dark and can assure you that these stompboxes are something to be excited about.
Dreadbox’s new effects come in an array of bright, new colours, while still honouring the arrangement of the 2018 Komorebi model. They each share four knobs, one or two footswitches and a switch to engage an alternate mode. Along the top of Kinematic and Lethargy are three patch points for Eurorack, a detail that suits the brand’s synthesizer-focused approach.
Let’s meet each new stompbox.
Lethargy
Lethargy is a fully-analog eight-stage phase shifter, manufactured to create great vibrato and add a “creamy gooeyness” to your music. There is a filter cutoff control that is perfect for creating lo-fi sounds. The LFO has a huge range, with rates reaching a whopping 110 Hz.
It features controls for amount, feedback, rate and Manual and can be used on pedalboards or synth racks. Lethargy has three patch points for Manual, Rate and LFO Out, which are designed for Eurorack compatibility.
Darkness
Midnight blue Darkness is being coined a “gated shimmer reverb“. It’s a digital stereo focused on ambient sound. The pedal processes audio at 32bit/48kHz. According to Dreadbox, it is capable of expanding your space into “huge shimmering and endless reverbs“.
Its knobs dictate spread, mix and decay. The Control knob has two modes: one that controls the modulation rate of reverb tails, and the other that applies a gate and defines the release time.
Kinematic
Kinematic, the light blue one, is a dynamic processor. It is a VCA-based compressor and envelope filter. Offering two modes — Compression Color and Envelope Filter — this stompbox allows control over filter, driver, level and envelope.
Compression mode can set the emphasis of the band boost filter, while Envelope lets you push the tone with the low pass filter and define the envelope curve. This box can hook up to a Eurorack and boosts audio level by up to 18 dB.
Raindrops
Dreadbox continues to tease us with their promotion for Raindrops. Their website features no more information on this stompbox other than pictures. However, from the images, we can suggest the box is a stereo delay and looper effect. It hosts Time, Feedback and Mix controls as well as a tap-tempo footswitch. More information on Raindrops is due at the end of the year.
Komorebi
Finally, if you haven’t heard of it, now is your time to get to know Komorebi: the chorus pedal. ‘Komorebi’ is an untranslatable word that means ‘”to capture the effect of sunlight beaming through trees”, which is a beautiful description for such an interesting, versatile and exciting device. The pedal has 3 LFO waveforms and can handle anything from guitar to Eurorack signals.
Stay up to date with the release by heading to the Dreadbox website.
