Something to take the edge off
Liminal space. Look it up. The depiction of empty living spaces that fall distinctly into the uncanny valley. It's one of those things that's difficult to describe, but easy to identify. You're certainly familiar with liminal spaces, but putting the sensation into a succinct description is difficult. There's a certain in-between-ness of liminal spaces where there's definitely something familiar but also undeniably otherworldly. We might chalk this up to people spending too much time online in those "Dead Mall Vibes" forums, but for now, let's entertain the concept of liminality in this way.
What might we then call a "liminal delay," if we didn't already have our example lined up? A liminal delay would probably be elusive, ethereal, tonally familiar yet hard to pin down – the same experience as staring at the picture of that "liminal space" hotel hallway online. In theory, you know what you're looking at. In practice, it's a different story.
This is the Old Blood Noise Endeavors Bathing Liminal Delay.
Down by the Water
Introducing the Old Blood Noise Endeavors Bathing Liminal Delay
As we talk about Bathing, there's a certain Old Blood philosophy we have to cover, that being "phase repetition." The philosophy in question here refers to an algorithmic effect combination that lands us somewhere in between a reverb, modulation, and delay. Phase repetition, by Old Blood's account, is an algorithmic exploit of the similarities between reverb effects and phaser effects through their utilization of all-pass filters. This exploit originally appeared with the Old Blood Noise Endeavors Dweller. A smaller-scaled spiritual predecessor to Bathing, any past use of Dweller will help inform you of the sonic palette in which we are about to indulge.
Returning to the term "liminal" for a moment, it is worth mentioning that while Bathing takes some cues from Dweller and its phasing, delaying, and reverberating flavors of effect, it sets out on a completely new trail with gusto. The sounds in question hiding under the hood of Bathing range from undulating multi-tap-leaning delays, discordant modulations, and good-ol'-fashion otherworldly noise. If you're a fan of any of Old Blood Noise Endeavors' ambient-leaning pedals,* then Bathing is sure to inspire. Let's take a dip.
Which we're sure you'd have to be to read this far
Wading In
Old Blood Noise Endeavors Bathing Liminal Delay Controls
At the heart of Bathing is a robust feedback-looping mechanism with a bunch of musical moving parts. The central effect of Bathing is delay, something of a textural pivot from the Dweller. With Bathing, our central delay effect is actually something of a self-sustaining engine, where delays are continually fed into themselves as controls are pushed. Let's run down our basic control scheme.
Old Blood Noise Endeavors Bathing Delay Controls
Let's start this out slowly.
- Time – No surprises here. Time controls the span of time between when signal enters Bathing and when it gets repeated.
- Feedback – The number of times the delay trail is fed into itself. Where you might find a Feedback control on a normal delay pedal controlling only one delay trail, Bathing exceeds in feeding delays over and over again to get into textural, expansive sound palettes.
- Filter – An overall tonal filter for smoothing or spiking the effect. Filtering plays a big role in this ambient experience as the effect can be hushed or fired up, depending on your sonic prerogative.
Bathing is a delay that gets off to the races fairly quickly – self-oscillating races, if you catch our drift. Because of this, we can encourage not touching the bottom row of controls when trying to key in on its tones for the first time. If you've made it past the basic delaying effect construction, or if you figure the best way to enter this sonic sauna is from the deep end, let's talk about our LFO.
The other crucial ingredient to Bathing's cosmic cauldron is an LFO modulation section that intersects the delay effect. We round out our control scheme with these few settings, so let's get into it.
Old Blood Noise Endeavors Bathing LFO Controls
- Depth – The degree to which our LFO affects our incoming signal. Depth creates additional delay repeats both before and after the initial delay repeats as it is increased from its minimum to its maximum setting.
- Rate – The speed at which our LFO moves. Rate works to add distinct modulated movement among our repeats that can range from barely audible to squashed, ring modulator-adjacent texturing. These controls are shaped by our LFO Shape and Stages controls.
- Shape – The shape of our LFO waveform. These waveforms include options for triangle, square, sawtooth, random, and more. With different LFO shapes, our delays get new altered forms.
- Stages – The number of all-pass filters our incoming signal is fed through before reaching the delay. These stages, ranging from two to twelve passes, further sculpt the liminal signal to new, inverted conclusions.
With all these controls, let's talk a little about the sounds we're getting into.
Sonic Sauna
Old Blood Noise Endeavors Bathing Liminal Delay Tones
When we refer to Bathing as a "liminal delay," or "somewhere in between a delay, reverb, and modulation," we must admit that that doesn't get to the bottom of things as effectively as we'd like it. Like many of Old Blood's creations, there is that element of "hear it for yourself" that is present, but let's try talking about some of these sounds at hand.
Not Just a PhaseMinimizing your Time control will bring the Bathing's delaying capability to a zero. With your delay trails out of the way, Bathing's modulation character takes center stage. The phasing character of this effect leans more warped than your average phaser. Only spurred on further by the adjustments made by your LFO and Stages controls, Bathing comes equipped with an onboard phaser sure to get slippery.
One Ring to RuleLike we had alluded to, Bathing's effect capabilities range from delays to modulations. Feeding Bathing's Feedback control and maxing out its LFO rate control will result in spiraling, compressed, crunched resonations along the line of a ring modulator. What's more, you can ramp up the Rate control while the effect delays out and hear as the modulation hurries and catches up to the delay.
With Bathing's liminal delaying powers, we're treated to Old Blood ambience both familiar and fresh. Existing fans of Old Blood's flavor of warped weirdness are sure to get in on the fun quickly while newcomers to the party have quite a bit to sink their teeth into. Bathing is a pedal that propels itself powerfully through its own delay effect ebb and flow as it generates new effect palettes. Like a warm pond host to a thousand tiny ecosystems, Bathing acts a catalyst for blooming musical life on even the smallest of scales.
Stream of Consciousness
Old Blood Noise Endeavors Bathing Liminal Delay Further Functions
While we start wrapping this up, let's talk about some of the functions that really elevate Bathing to the next level.
- Wet and Dry – On the front panel of Bathing, we have two mini dials for controlling the effect mix between incoming dry and outgoing wet signals. With these settings, players can set their perfect balance to smother their dry signal, hush their wet signal, or anything in between to make an effect mix that works for them.
- Dimension – Since we haven't mentioned it already, now would probably be a good time to say that Bathing offers full stereo in and out connection. The pedal's mono-to-stereo jacks allow for a single input or output to be split using a stereo cable while the pedal is run fully in stereo. Dimension adds a subtle stereo chorus to the effect (and a vibrato if run in mono) for that added element of dimensionality to the sound palette.
- Expression – Like so many other Old Blood creations, Bathing features a 1/4" expression connection that allows for the control over any parameter Bathing has to offer. This expanded control is added onto with...
- MIDI – Bathing's 1/8" MIDI connections enable the pedal to be connected to existing MIDI clocks for synchronized delay performance. In addition, MIDI can be used to control effect parameters.
- Presets – Within Bathing's ambient brain are dedicated preset slots that can be programmed to recall built effect presets.
Altogether, Bathing's connections and functionality breathe new life into the playability of the pedal. Players familiar with Old Blood pedals like the Black Fountain Stereo and Dark Star Stereo are sure to get off to the races when it comes to connectivity and playability.
Old Blood Noise Endeavors Bathing Liminal Delay Final Thoughts
What is it about liminal spaces that are so evocative? What is it about the uncanniness of it all that drives us to want to look in further, peer around the corner? Bathing lets us in on some truth. With this pedal, we're treated to the journey and joy of discovery. Every time you turn a corner on Bathing, you're somewhere completely new. Crank up the Stages, roll back the Filter, reshape the Shape, follow your bliss. The many streams that breach from Bathing's main pool of tones provide plenty for the ambient soundscapers of the world to stay busy. While there are some "shot-in-the-dark" tone building elements at play here, that is surely all part of the fun. Bathing is a revitalized take on Old Blood's classic modulated, noisemaking formula and it's certainly one worth checking out if a hazy, swirling, discordant cup of tea sounds like yours.
Come on in, the water's fine.
