PedalPCB Gravitation Reverb for my SCHMORG

[dawson]

Hellooooooo
I built up this Gravitation for myself as a sensible colleague to work alongside the more outlandish Deflector reverb. After about 20 minutes of testing, I already prefer it to the Spirit Box doing that job.

It's a good solid reverb that really excels at conventional sounds and I'm super impressed by the TONE control- I knew it was going to be a rad feature but it's way cooler than expected. The ATMOSPHERE control seems to feed some feedback back to create a loop which is neat if you don't have a Deflector, but I'll be leaving it dialed out.

Here it is:

Rembrandt Robert over here with these satisfyingly symmetrical PCB layouts.

I had some trouble thinking of a graphic for this build. How do you visually represent levitation?
A feather would've been neat but I just built a Plumes clone with a feather on it so I couldn't do that again.. Magic carpet was my first bad idea- then I tried sketching out a few designs modeled after butterfly and moth wing patterns but none of them were really jiving. I've always thought Lunar moths were neat so I eventually I tried modeling one of their antenna:

*Thanks to Mike Keeling for sharing his photo with the whole internet.

The final result I got certainly isn't my best design or my best etch, and it may or may not look like.. something other than an antenna, but I'm really happy with it and it's staying in the SCHMORG.



If you're wondering WTF is wrong with this guy who thinks it's okay to build upside-down pedals with no pants on, this thread may answer a question or two:
SCHMORG

Thanks for reading!

 

[MichaelW]

My favorite reverb pedal that I've build so far. Love it!

 

[Matopotato]

Very nice build!
You mention you like the TONE control, but I struggle to notice what it does? Is it affecting the reverberations as they decay out? So I need Long + much Decay and Atmosphere to hear it clearly?

 

[dawson]

Thanks @Matopotato!

The TONE control is similar to the TONE knob on your guitar, but it only effects the reverb tails, not your guitar signal.

With the TONE all the way up, your tails will reflect all of your high-end content, and as you turn it down, your tails will 'darken' and become more 'muffled' -if you will.

 

[Matopotato]

Thanks @dawson , Now I know better what to listen for

 

[p_wats]

Thanks @Matopotato!

The TONE control is similar to the TONE knob on your guitar, but it only effects the reverb tails, not your guitar signal.

With the TONE all the way up, your tails will reflect all of your high-end content, and as you turn it down, your tails will 'darken' and become more 'muffled' -if you will.

My understanding of the tone control, based on Youtube demos (like this one and this one) and the one I just populated, is the opposite of that---it's more of a low cut. With the tone knob maxed out you get the full frequency range hitting the reverb, but as you dial the tone knob back it removes the low end from the reverb signal, leaving the reverb thinner and less muddy (but easier to sit in an overall mix)

Does yours sound like a high cut instead?

Love the etch, by the way. Looks great!

 

[dawson]

Oh shoot- my bad, @p_wats and @Matopotato . I'm sure if you've got two videos, you're totally right. I knew it was one way or the other, and the other way seems more intuitive to me so that's what I decided to declare. I'm a lazy jerk for not checking first.

 

[p_wats]

Oh shoot- my bad, @p_wats and @Matopotato . I'm sure if you've got two videos, you're totally right. I knew it was one way or the other, and the other way seems more intuitive to me so that's what I decided to declare. I'm a lazy jerk for not checking first.

No worries! That's exactly how I expected it to work too and was kind of underwhelmed. It would be nice to filter out some of the highs that can get out of hand with the atmosphere control cranked. Interesting reverb, regardless!

 

[Matopotato]

Thanks @p_wats , the subtle effect had me a bit confused as well.