Amptweaker Swirlpool Jr.

The Amptweaker Swirlpool Jr. is a compact tremolo/vibrato pedal, announced at NAMM 2019 as a newly shrunk version of the company's popular SwirlPool tremolo/vibrato pedal¹. It sits in the tremolo family but, like the original, runs tremolo and vibrato together, an approach Delicious Audio describes as reminiscent of the synchronized tremolo and vibrato circuits common in some vintage amplifiers from the '60s².

A smaller SwirlPool

The original SwirlPool was Amptweaker's first non-distortion pedal, introduced in January 2011. The company had been known for distortion pedals up to that point, and Premier Guitar's press release described the SwirlPool Tremolo/Vibe as "Amptweaker's first dive into non-distortion pedals"³. The original is a large pedal, and Delicious Audio's NAMM 2019 writeup calls it "fairly large"². The Jr. cuts that down: MusicRadar reports that the new pedal is less than half the width of the original¹.

The circuit idea carries over. Where the original pairs tremolo (rhythmic swelling of volume) with vibrato (pitch movement), the Jr. keeps both, and Delicious Audio notes that it "can slightly shift the LFOs to create a variety of swirly effects"². Reviewers of the original liked the combination: Pedal of the Day's Mike B called it "A great Tremolo, a great Vibrato, and an intense combination of the two"⁴, and MusicRadar's review of the SwirlPool noted that tremolo and vibrato "can sound great together"⁵.

The controls

The Jr. condenses the original's layout into a compact panel. MusicRadar's report on the announcement lists¹²:

• Tremolo and Vibrato controls, each with mini switches beneath them that "allow you to alter the LFO settings and vibrato types"¹
• An input gain control¹
• A master volume control¹

Delicious Audio adds a note on what the volume control is for: "A volume control allows you to make up for any loss of weight in the signal due to the effect"². In practice that means the master volume lets you bring the level back up when the tremolo's dips make the pedal feel quieter overall.

The footswitch and second speed

The single footswitch does two jobs. MusicRadar reports that "the true-bypass footswitch can be held to move to a second speed setting"¹. So a press bypasses the pedal entirely, and holding the switch down shifts the effect to a second, preset speed, useful for moving between a slow swell and a faster flutter without touching a knob.

Availability and price

At the January 2019 announcement, there was no word on pricing for the new pedal¹. Amptweaker was inviting interested players to register for a pre-order mailing list, which would notify them once the pedal became available¹. The pedal was shown at Delicious Audio's Stompbox Booth at NAMM 2019².

Questions