Cosmodio Instruments Gravity Well Analog Wavefolder, Tremolo & Sonic Refractor

The Cosmodio Instruments Gravity Well Analog Wavefolder, Tremolo & Sonic Refractor is a dual-sided pedal: a tremolo on one side and a wavefolder on the other, each with its own footswitch so you can run them independently¹. The interesting part is what happens when both are on at once. As Pedal of the Day put it, "When both sides are active a third effect emerges, a refractor, a first-of-its-kind style of modulation effect"¹. Premier Guitar's announcement described it the same way: a third effect, the refractor, appears when both circuits are active².

The pedal's faceplate features artwork by GOLDSUIT¹. It runs a 100% analog signal path¹.

What a wavefolder does

A wavefolder is a circuit that comes from analog synthesizer design. Where a distortion or fuzz pedal clips the top off a waveform, a wavefolder takes the peaks that exceed a threshold and folds them back on themselves, adding harmonics without simply chopping the signal. On the Gravity Well the wavefolder is one of the two channels, and it is the less familiar of the two for most guitar players.

Pedal of the Day's reviewer listed the range of sounds the pedal produced: "analog synthesizer sounds, touch sensitive envelope filter-esque sweeps, heavy cinematic pulsing rhythms, splatty gnarly alien fuzz, ring mod like bell tones, science fiction sound fx and textures, and surfy tremolo warbles"¹.

The controls

The two channels have separate control sets, with a shared modulation section for the tremolo and refractor¹³.

Each channel also has its own footswitch, so the tremolo and the wavefolder can be engaged separately³. The Flow control determines the signal flow when both sides are active: tremolo into wavefolder, or wavefolder into tremolo². In refractor mode, the Flow control changes the relationship between the tremolo and the wavefolder, which is part of what makes the third effect variable rather than fixed¹.

Guitar Pedal X's Stefan Karlsson noted one practical point about balancing the two sides: "The skill here is going to be in balancing up the Volume of the Wavefolder with the Depth of the Tremolo" for the most musical output³.

Eight LFO waveforms and tap tempo

The tremolo's LFO offers eight waveforms: sawtooth, ramp up, square, triangle, sine, swoop, sample-and-hold and random¹³. That range goes well past the sine-wave chop of a classic tremolo. Sample-and-hold and random produce stepped, unpredictable amplitude changes closer to what you would hear from a synthesizer's random voltage source, while square gives a hard on/off gate effect.

The external control jack serves two purposes: plug in a tap tempo switch to set the modulation speed in time with your playing, or plug in an expression pedal to control the LFO's speed or depth mid-performance¹².

What reviewers said

Pedal of the Day's review was enthusiastic about the pedal as a whole¹³:

The same reviewer found the pedal creatively demanding in a good way, saying it "forces you to rethink the way you approach music creation, adding new ideas and sounds into your brain you might have never even thought could exist"¹.

Premier Guitar's reviewer took a more measured view of the two halves: "Used independently, the tremolo effect is great, but the wavefolder is where the real fun is"⁴. Guitar Pedal X called it "one for sonic adventurers for sure," while noting that compared with the Kinotone Sparks, "The Gravity Well is certainly a far more straightforward effect and seems pretty intuitive"³.

The Gravity Well was also featured on That Pedal Show's "Six Pedals to Love" episode, with the Gravity Well introduced at 23:10, wavefolder discussion at 24:55 and sounds from 25:55⁵.

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