Death By Audio’s ROOMS is a pedal that explores all the possibilities of reverb while opening the door to new adventures. Engineering the Sound was keen to try it out.
New York stompbox company Death By Audio doesn’t tend to do things in half measures. Whether they’re tackling drive, modulation, fuzz, filtering and more, they’re eager to push the boundaries of sonic possibilities. ROOMS takes this philosophy and applies it to the world of ambience.
ROOMS with an ‘S’ seems an especially apt title for this reverberator, as it presents a host of environments for soaking your tone. If you’re looking for plates, halls and springs, well you might find those. But remember: this is a Death By Audio stompbox — imagination, engagement, and an openness to new tonal possibilities will help you get the most out of this stereo reverb machine.
Death By Audio has packed in a lot of hands-on functionality into a relatively small piece of real estate. There are independent Dry and FX controls for blending the dry and affected tones, and a big Time knob for stretching tails infinitely.
Freq and Depth are per-Room controls, meaning that they control unique parameters, dependent on the Room you’re in. And though these slightly differ throughout the six Rooms, they generally correspond with EQ (for Freq) and resonance/modulation depth (for Depth).
When you hit the Alt switch, the Freq, Depth and Time controls jump to the little knobs marked F, D, and T. Handy if you want to dramatic leap between two different reverb characters within the same Room.
And of course, we have the Rooms themselves. The names of these environments refer more to the way that they are affected within the washed-out context. For example, Peak is a filtered effected with resonance control, but it’s still blended with reverb. With Gong, you can blend in shimmering verb with a fascinating stereo treatment of ring modulation and aliasing.
You’ll be having fun with this pedal for hours on end, just like we did. If you’re looking for a reverb pedal that will help you reimagine boundaries of space, ROOMS could be for you.
For more details, head over to Death By Audio.
