Carl Martin HeadRoom Mini

Where the original HeadRoom carries a genuine spring reverb tank, the Mini replaces the springs with a digital algorithm. As Carl Martin puts it¹²³:

Delicious Audio described the result as covering "everything from tight room ambience to vast cathedral-like spaces"⁴.

Two reverb channels and the controls

The HeadRoom Mini offers two independent reverb channels, A and B, each with its own set of controls, and a Select footswitch that toggles between them³². That gives you two settable reverb sounds you can jump between on stage, in the same spirit as the original HeadRoom's two channels, which Carl Martin built instead of menus or presets¹. Guitar Pedal X summed it up as "2 sets of Reverb, Tone and Decay controls, so you can switch between 2 different Reverb Settings"⁶.

Each channel carries three controls³⁴:

Delicious Audio's example of how to use the two channels: set a bright room sound on one and a darker, more dramatic reverb on the other, then switch between them with the Select footswitch⁴. The RockBoard PedalPedia entry for the original HeadRoom describes the same idea, with a soft small-room reverb on Channel A and a more dramatic, dark large-room reverb on Channel B⁸.

The pedal also has a Remote jack for external preset selection, built into its rugged metal casing, so the two channels can be switched from a remote switch rather than the onboard footswitch³⁴.

Bypass, stereo and power

The HeadRoom Mini uses a buffered bypass with spillover trails, not true bypass: when you switch the pedal off, the reverb tail decays naturally instead of cutting dead³². Carl Martin says the buffered output preserves signal integrity, especially on pedalboards with longer cable runs³, and Delicious Audio notes the buffered bypass "ensures signal integrity even in long pedal chains"⁴.

The Mini supports both mono and stereo operation, with stereo inputs and outputs and a switch on the pedal to select between the two modes, which makes it work with traditional amps as well as two-amp stereo rigs³². It runs on 9V DC³.

How it differs from the original HeadRoom

The original Carl Martin HeadRoom, released in 2011, is an analog pedal with a genuine spring reverb tank in a stompbox format¹⁵. RockBoard's PedalPedia entry calls it "this purely analogue 'real spring' reverb" with two identical channels, each with tone and level controls⁸. It was a mono-only pedal⁵, and its power arrangements varied by version: it runs internally around ±12V and can be powered by 9V DC, a 9V battery or a 12V AC adapter, with older versions actually carrying an AC mains plug¹.

The Mini keeps the two-channel concept but changes nearly everything else²:

Pedal of the Day reported that many players loved the original's spring reverb tone but found it difficult to fit the full-sized unit on their pedalboards, which is what drove demand for a smaller version⁵. Achieving a convincing digital recreation of the original's sound was, in that reviewer's words, "a major challenge," with the DSP integrated into an analog circuit⁵.

Guitar Pedal X's Stefan Karlsson called the Mini "an interesting move by Carl Martin" and "a smart enough device in a mid-size 1590BB style enclosure," while noting that customers for this kind of device might prefer a genuine spring tank pedal overall⁶.

The original Headroom pedal was released in 2011, a spring reverb pedal with two channels serving as two settable reverb sounds⁵⁹¹:

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Who uses it

On Carl Martin's artist pages, Amir John Haddad and James Massi are listed as HeadRoom Mini users¹⁰. The original HeadRoom has a longer roster: Kid Anderson, Paul Nelson, Carl Verheyen, Fred Turner and Derek Gripper¹⁰.

Videos

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Questions