Sky high
In 2001, Sony Computer Entertainment introduced an experimental new game, Ico.
An intentional spin on archetypal video game formulas, Ico used a "subtracting design" approach to strip away mechanics and aesthetics that may be distracting from the game's 3D puzzle-solving gameplay structure and emotionally immersive story. Since its release, Ico went on to become an early "pro" example in more modern discussions debating video games as art – Van Gogh-type art, if you catch our drift.
A compelling, intentional reinvention on some old, simple tropes. Where have we heard this before? Maybe we're getting our wires crossed on that or the dreamy castle set dressing, but we might have an idea.
This is the EarthQuaker Devices Towers Stereo Reverberant Filter.
Castle in the Sky
Introducing the EarthQuaker Devices Towers Stereo Reverberant Filter
Let's start our ascent. For those of you out-of-the-know on EarthQuaker Devices, let's just do a quick refresh. After a strong kick off in 2026 with their ZEQD-Pre tube preamp pedal collab with Dr. Z Amplification, EQD's been hard at work with Towers – though really, they have been for quite some time.
In a talk with EQD founder Jamie Stillman, we found out that Towers, in fact, isn't a "new" design, in a literal sense. Stillman illustrated to us how Towers was actually a finished design for years before now finally getting its limelight. According to Stillman,
“(Towers) is definitely one of my most favorite things that I've made. It's been done for two years. It was done for two years and I played it all the time and every time I played it, I was still excited. I was still kind of getting lost in the whole thing. Then, it was supposed to come out in September of 2025 and we hit a roadblock with parts availability. It left this weird window open where I was like, 'You know, there's a couple things about this pedal I think I could do better,' and then, I redesigned it from the ground up after it was done for two years. Now, I'm so happy that that all worked out the way that it did. I'm very stoked on this one."
The Towers' lengthy production cycle and ground-up redesign certainly gives us reason to be excited. Not to spoil too much at the jump, but for EQD fans, Towers is certainly worth the wait you didn't even know you endured. Reward yourself with all that time spent waiting with a trip up the Towers, huh? How 'bout it?
Such Great Heights
EarthQuaker Devices Towers Stereo Reverberant Filter Design
The EarthQuaker Devices Towers fancies itself a "soundscape generator" and "stereo reverberant filter." Breaking those down a little bit, a "soundscape generator" is pretty self-explanatory – just generatin' some soundscapes... but a "stereo reverberant filter"… let's discuss.
At the center of the Towers is, first, a cathedral-style reverb. Cathedral reverbs, as you might so aptly imagine from their name, lean way, way bigger and more cavernous than your average springs, plates, and halls. This design serves as the sonic centerpiece in this whole arrangement. The supplemental element to Towers' cathedral reverb is a filter effect that plays a pretty stellar supporting role to the reverb's sustaining, expansive sound.
EarthQuaker Devices Towers Stereo Reverberant Filter Controls
Like many other EQDs, Towers rises with a quite simple control scheme to get you in on its reverberating magic quickly. Three of Towers' dials are easy as pie, with one being a little more interpretive. This is what we mean.
- Mix – No surprises, here. Your overall effect mix. Counterclockwise to quiet the storm, clockwise to whip up a squall. Towers does quite a bit for soundscaping on smaller and larger scales, so keep this dial in mind along the way.
- Length – Your reverb trail length. With the Towers' cathedral-style reverb, don't be surprised if your effect starts long and ends longer. We're dealing with some pretty big reverb sounds, here.
- Filter – Your resonant low-pass filter mix. The supplemental resonant low-pass filter effect Towers totes can be mixed to taste with more subtle rings of resonance underpinning the overall reverb or more vocal washes of synthetic "wahs" taking a starring role. Either or, you're in for something interesting.
- Frequency – Your filter frequency control. Along with this control, Frequency also changes properties based on which of the pedal's three operating modes you're clicked into. Let's talk about those.
EarthQuaker Devices Towers Stereo Reverberant Filter Modes
- Manual – Your filter frequency is set manually by where you place the Frequency dial. Leftmost for quieter filter effects, rightmost for more prominent.
- Envelope – Your filter frequency responds to an envelope reactive to your playing dynamics. Pick harder for more drastic filter jumps, pick softer for shallower.
- LFO – Your filter is automatically controlled by an LFO. Clockwise for faster LFO movements, counterclockwise for the inverse.
No matter which way to take the Towers, it has interesting spins on its reverberating, filtering characters. A general compass you can gauge against when navigating the Towers follows that the pedal's filter becomes more vocal moving left to right, with Manual being the most subdued and LFO being the most prominent, generally. On any mode, with any configuration of dials, you're sure to find something interesting before long.
Wandering Towers
EarthQuaker Devices Towers Stereo Reverberant Filter Tones
For EQD fans, soundscaping fans, fans of ambience, shoegazing, the ethereal, or just pedals that punch way above their weight class but keep things quick, easy, and inspirational, Towers is truly something to behold. The pedal instantly delivers massive, reverberating tone readymade to drive your whole spacefaring rig forward.
All this talk of cathedral reverbs and filters and you might imagine where we're heading – and what genre we're thinking of. With the Towers, we want to be careful of our use of the phrase "shoegaze machine." The phrase, while illustrative in a capacity to sum up a general sound and use case for a single pedal, we all can admit, is a bit played out at this point. We start using the phrase "shoegaze machine" and your eyes start to glaze over a bit, don't they? You start looking around the room and noticing how that one word you always read is spelled weirdly, was it always spelled like that?
We don't want to be a loose cannon using a genre so many call home as the one-size-fits-all descriptor it's so commonly used as. Let's turn the phrase "shoegaze machine" on its head then a bit, shall we?
Rage Against the Shoegaze MachineThe EarthQuaker Devices Towers is an excellent shoegaze machine. Let it be your first and only shoegaze machine, if you'd like. Though even better than your first shoegaze machine is your second shoegaze machine. Pick up your first shoegaze machine, get comfortable in the knowledge that it's all you'll ever need and all a one-pedal experience can ever offer. Grab the Towers afterwards and look on in amazement like Luke Skywalker watching Yoda lift his X-Wing out of the Dagobah swamp, finding out he was, indeed, wrong all along. Let the Towers be your gateway into the possibility that maybe your favorite genre isn't as solved as you think. Let it be the reason the next "shoegaze machine" pedal you find doesn't put you on autopilot – or worse, to sleep.
EQD's Towers creates massive swaths of resonating, reverberating sound to cover many of your soundscaping bases. Take hold of Towers and feel it all out with some long, sustained, strummed chords. Let a massive, billowing cold front of cathedral reverb wash out among your domain while resonating, vocal filter passes ring out underneath. You'll find out quickly that Towers' filtering plays a pivotal role in differentiating it from your average "soundscaping" reverb pedal. Its vocal filter effects give quite a bit of personality to its cathedral reverb that keep it from getting stale, unreactive, and more of a sonic wallpaper rather than a living, breathing effect to play along with.
Throughout the Towers' expansive domain, you get avenues to explore that lead you to new, exciting pastures. The Towers deals in ethereal reverbs, but also does a lot to create new textures.
Reminiscent of multi-tap delays, Towers can create U2-style, galloping delay trails to fill out a rhythmic lead line. Reminiscent of resonant synthesizers, Towers can create vocal "vowel" wah artifacts to inject some synthetic expression that create something of an audible mirage. Something certainly worth noting is the pedal's filter's ability to accentuate other existing effects, even if they are much more subdued without the Towers engaged. Think: A teetering Fender amp. Think: An edge-of-breakup overdrive. Interestingly, Towers organically brings smaller aspects of a sound to the forefront and mixes them in easily.
Think you need that heavy drive to complete the soundscaping picture? Respectfully, think again.
The West Wing
EarthQuaker Devices Towers Stereo Reverberant Further Functions
Like so many other EarthQuaker Devices pedals, Towers comes equipped with some pretty impressive functions for playability. Let's run a few down.
- Stereo Routing – As per its namesake, Towers is a stereo reverberator. Two inputs and two outputs make its stereo routing capabilities not only present, but seamless. Work Towers directly into your stereo-ready rig and send its mountains of sound anywhere and everywhere. Left, right, center... you get the idea.
- Expression Control – A standard ¼" TRS connection allows for expression control. Map an external expression controller to a good couple of the pedal's parameters and work them remotely for on-the-fly sonic shapeshifting.
- Presets – Right on the front of Towers, we're met with eight onboard programmable user preset slots. Use these to swap between your favorite sounds and recall them with the turn of a dial.
- True and Tails Bypass Switching – By default, Towers is set to a tails bypass switching mode. This means you can deactivate the effect, but its reverb will keep going until there's no more trail to trail. This is probably the more popular option for a reverb of the Towers' nature, but the pedal does offer a true bypass option to switch to, meaning when the pedal is off, the effect stops right there.
- Stretch Footswitch – One of the most attractive functions of Towers is its onboard Stretch footswitch. Capable of working on a momentary or latching basis, Stretch slows the entire output of Towers, resulting in dramatic, lower-pitched voices. Reverb length is doubled, frequencies are altered, and a distinct pitch bend effect is created. Use Stretch to temporarily swerve into a warped lane of reverb or take a sabbatical there for even deeper, dreamier trips down the rabbit hole.
EarthQuaker Devices Towers Stereo Reverberant Filter Final Thoughts
Let's wrap this fairy tale up with a few cold, hard truths. A splash of water to the face, a dose of reality, even.
The Towers is a monumentally useful pedal. As we alluded, it offers a soundscaping experience that checks the usual soundscaping boxes without giving you an experience that glazes your eyes over, allows you to become forgetful, or becomes the proverbial sonic wallpaper. Towers provides quite a bit of playability to a subgenre of effect pedals that so often become forgettable when you actually get down to performing with them. That alone makes Towers well worth the trip.
In addition, Towers brings a lot of quick use and inspiration to a cathedral reverb for players who maybe aren't so keen on menu-diving and MIDI programming – the analog shoegazers, if you will. They're still out there, they still exist. EQD has done the world a service in presenting a pedal that has the cornucopia of sounds, playability, and directions to go of more involved digital effects without the chore of all that prep and programming. Click on Towers, place the knobs where they sound good to you, and you're off to the races.
The pedal's flexible, expressive, and interpretive digital brain cuts to the chase to get you on your way to new, musical frontiers in an experience that compels you to keep going long after you told yourself you'd take a break. Doesn't that kind of tell the whole story?
