Reverse, reverse!
?ahead way wrong the taking you're like feel ever it Does
.minute a Wait
That's better.
Reverse delays. One of everyone's favorite stops on a multi-mode delay pedal, reverse delay is a classic flavor for a reason. The inverted, wonky effect has long been a favorite of ambient artists, soundscapers, and glitch gurus alike, but it seems more often than not reverse is relegated to one stop on the Wheel of Fortune of interesting delay effects. Luckily for us, the gang at Old Blood Noise Endeavors, ever-the-reverse-connoisseurs, have cooked up something to back up and take another pass on. "Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I walk by again?"
This is the Old Blood Noise Endeavors Setback Reverse Delay.
If I Could Turn Back Time
Introducing the Old Blood Noise Endeavors Setback Reverse Delay
It's one step forward and two steps, well, forward, but backward, with Old Blood Noise Endeavors and the Setback. Old Blood, Oklahoma's finest in weirdo, highly playable, and thoroughly musical effect pedals, have long stood as champions of reverse delays. Way back when, their Minim delay made a splash with its focus on harmonic, octave-up reverse delays, more recently, their BL-44 Reverse Variable Clock Reverser played in more direct realms of signal reversing. All along the way, Old Blood has been hard at work refining their reversing to ultimately end up here with their most robust crack at the art of backwards playback.
The Setback puts forward a reverse experience that focuses in on the textural and rhythmic characteristics of a signal played backwards. Through the pedal, Old Blood gets down to their most in-depth signal reversing experience yet with a very intuitive set of controls and a varied palette of tones. If you're fiending for a reverse delay to cover a lot of bases but still stay compact and easy to work, Old Blood's surely got you covered here. No spoilers, of course, though.
Let's talk about it.
Feels Like We Only Go Backwards
Old Blood Noise Endeavors Setback Reverse Delay Design and Controls
The Old Blood Noise Endeavors Setback centers around a straightforward, uncluttered array of controls meant to cut to the chase on signal reversing for instantly inspiring musical mixes. Across the pedal, four dials and two footswitches make up the totality of controls, including a push-button preset bank switch. Let's run down these controls.
Old Blood Noise Endeavors Setback Reverse Controls
- Mix – Centrally, Setback features a dedicated wet and dry effect mix control. This dial cuts through for the pedal to work its straightforward, direct reversing effect tones as the star of the show or as a supporting role among other sounds. A more legible guitar line with an undercurrent of reversed textures shows pretty quickly the utility of this control in action and how useful and impactful it can be throughout the whole enchilada.
- Speed – Probably the most direct control on the Setback is its Speed control. Adjusting the playback speed of the reversed signal, this will be your main control over the pitch-shift effect produced by a reversed signal played slowly or quickly. This control works in tandem with...
- Div – The division of the playback timing. Differing from Speed, Div works as something of the pedal's delay time, where the delayed signal response is produced closer or further from the initial signal input. Clockwise for a longer span of time between a note played and reverse response – counterclockwise for shorter.
- Clock – The sample rate of the reversed signal. This is where the Setback starts breaking out of the singular reverse effect formula. Turning Clock counterclockwise reduces the sample rate of the reverse effect, simplifying its rate and breaking down the reverse effect to a bit-crushed result. This control allows for some extra finessing of the effect's textural character and warping of its overall voice.
With this handful of intuitive controls, the Setback sets out for something that colors outside the lines when it comes to what you might think is a usual reverse delay.
Obverse and Reverse
Old Blood Noise Endeavors Setback Reverse Delay Tones and Playability
With this pedal, Old Blood Noise Endeavors certainly gives reverse delay one of its most loving commemorations. For every Danelectro Back Talk or Electro-Harmonix Attack Decay, the Setback steps to the plate to knock it out of the park in new, exciting ways. Part of what makes the Setback so captivating is its exploration of reverse delays as a venue to create other off-the-wall effects.
In addition to its chops as a reverse delay, the Setback shines in doubling as other, seemingly unrelated effects under the conceit that, well, doubling a signal and playing it back in an interesting way is what a lot of other effects essentially do, right? Let's talk about some of the tricks the Setback has up its sleeve.
Symphonic MnenomicStarting out slow, the Setback is a glowing example of a reverse delay. Strum a chord, hear it play back backwards. Easy. However, with its playback speed and signal fidelity controls, the Setback introduces new areas to shape a reversed delay to quickly invent new voicings of effect. Use your Speed and Div dials to make for faster playbacks, resulting in higher-pitch whistles of reversed signal like a flute or lower-pitched grumbles like a crunchy bowed instrument. With the Setback, you get the classic, artificial textures of reverse delays with ease.
Don't Bore Us, Get to the ChorusWith the Setback's capacity to reel in its delay response time very close, the pedal becomes a pretty effective doubletracking chorus. These abilities noticeably manifest as a more blinking, chiming, slapback-style effect that blends well with a cleaner Mix effect setting. Faster playback settings for a higher octave sound make for a shimmering doubletrack quickly with a tighter delay response time.
Harmonizer, HarmonizerA companion thought to the chorus discussion, the Setback's capacity to slow down or speed up its reversed playback makes it a very effective harmonizer or octave effect. Slow the Setback's playback speed to a crawl, dirty its fidelity with sample rate reduction, and tighten its delay time, and it becomes a pseudo-octave-down effect. Warp the Setback's playback upwards to invent your own off-kilter, octave-up harmonizer effect. Couple all this with the pedal's clean mixing and you've got yourself a Swiss Army Knife of double tracking-style effects.
Be Kind, Rewind
Old Blood Noise Endeavors Setback Reverse Delay Further Function
Like other modern Old Blood Noise Endeavors creations, the Setback is built out with a great shuffle of features for playability and connectivity. Let's run them down.
- Aux Footswitch – Alongside its On/Off switch, the Setback features a second auxiliary control footswitch. With this switch, the Setback can be remotely controlled for tap tempo or feedback control on-the-fly for more spontaneous playability. Additionally, this switch can be used to cycle through the pedal's internal preset memory bank.
- Expression and MIDI – It wouldn't be an Old Blood without it, huh? Onboard, the Setback features a 1/4" expression control input for use with external expression controllers over any knob on the pedal. This, combined with its 1/8" MIDI control input with the same utility, means the Setback is readymade to work into your most unhinged motherboard rigs.
- Stereo In/Out – Another great feature for pedalboard mad scientists, the Setback's stereo-enabled connection jacks allow for stereo input and output signals primed for soundscaping craziness on either side of your head.
- Selectable Bypass Switching – With an enveloping effect like reverse delay, sometimes you want to watch it ride off into the proverbial sunset after you've hit the bypass switch and said your goodbyes. The Old Blood Noise Endeavors Setback is by default set to buffered bypass, meaning hitting its bypass switch will not instantly stop the effect. A selectable true bypass option is a welcomed addition, whichever your preferred bypass setting.
- Standard Power – All this MIDI control, footswitch playability, and preset navigation, and the Setback still only requires standard nine-volt, center negative power supplies operating at a respectable 350mA minimum. Bon appétit.
Old Blood Noise Endeavors Setback Reverse Delay Final Thoughts
Alright, so what have we learned?
I think for one, we learned that Old Blood Noise Endeavors has yet to shake their fondness for reverse effects. For another, we've learned that they've yet to lose their skills in the reversed realm. The Setback is a skillfully put together reverse delay pedal that checks your usual boxes, swings for the outfield, and absolutely keeps going. With this pedal, we get a deeply musical look into what is, at its core, a fairly simple effect – it's your signal, backwards, right? Yes and no. The Old Blood Noise Endeavors Setback holds a mirror to that mirror for an in-depth exploration of that backwards universe. Sometimes strange, sometimes more familiar than you might think, Old Blood's backwards world is a welcoming one.
.baby ,vista la Hasta
