Keeley Halo

The Keeley Halo is a stereo digital delay pedal built in collaboration with guitarist Andy Timmons, and its centerpiece is his own sound: a modulated dual echo the maker describes as Timmons's "mysterious" Halo effect¹. Premier Guitar's reviewer characterized the result as "a spacious playground of echoes that dwells partly in the realm of reverb," and called it "a perfect delay for players that want to dabble in multiple delay textures"². It is a compact stompbox, made in Edmond, USA, that carries two delay engines, presets, tap tempo and an infinite hold³.

The pedal is fully digital, powered by a Dream multi-core DSP chip that MusicRadar reported "aims to provide crisp sound quality"³⁴. Around it Keeley built a dual-echo design: two delay sides, A and B, that you can set independently and switch between from the footswitches, so the Halo "operates like two pedals in one"¹. Each channel delivers up to 1500ms of delay⁵.

What the Halo does

The Halo's five delay rhythms are where its range lives. MusicRadar listed them as Quarter Note, Dotted Eighth, Andy Timmons HALO, a Bucket Brigade stereo rack analog BBD delay, and a vintage multi-head Tape Delay³. Premier Guitar described the same set as a 5-position selector moving between tape-style, BBD-style, quarter note and dotted eighth modes plus Timmons's own Halo mode². Delicious Audio noted that the "Rhythms" emulate different delay types and subdivisions, including multi-head tape echoes and stereo echoes⁵.

The Halo mode itself is the reason the pedal exists. The maker describes it this way⁸¹²:

Robert Keeley has also explained that the delays duck out of phase with your playing, so they are not constantly chattering underneath you until you play staccato, "almost like a ducking effect"⁹. For players who want fewer decisions, the pedal ships with a preset recreating Timmons's modulated dual-echo sound⁵¹⁰.

The controls

The five primary knobs cover delay time, feedback, effect level, and modulation depth and rate². Underneath them sits a second layer: pressing and holding the feedback knob gives access to a high pass filter, a tone control for the delayed signal, a tape saturation control, and the 5-position mode selector². The Tone and High Pass Filter controls shape the overall delay character and mix⁵.

Set low, the Time and Feedback controls open up what the maker calls "a world of ambient chorus and flanger effects," so the Halo can work as a modulation pedal as well as a delay¹¹.

Footswitches, presets and jacks

The Halo uses soft stomp footswitches that handle tap tempo, infinite hold, and preset save and recall, among other functions³¹⁴. Pressing and holding the alternate stomp switch engages an infinite repeat, or hold, function¹. GuitarPlayer counted eight presets in total, with the two footswitches activating either of the current bank's two presets¹⁵. Premier Guitar found the preset system practical: "Setting up and clearing presets is relatively easy, and so is scrolling through them"².

Connectivity is aimed at a working pedalboard:

• Stereo inputs and outputs, with true-stereo imaging when run in stereo²¹
• An expression pedal jack that can control any of the five primary parameters²
• Remote switching capability¹⁶
• Stereo true bypass or trails operation, switchable on the fly³

Tap tempo works with multiple rhythmic subdivisions¹⁵, and the pedal can be set up for tap-tempo functionality in the first place².

Origins and the Halo Core

Keeley and Timmons first teamed up in early 2020 on what Premier Guitar called the "wildly successful" Halo dual echo⁶. Timmons's inspiration feeds in from the classics: MusicRadar reported that he "has been a fan of the classic Echoplex EP3 and Memory Man over the years, and that inspiration feeds in here"³.

In 2024 Keeley released a streamlined version, the Halo Core, a stripped-down take on the dual echo¹³¹¹¹⁷. It originally appeared as a limited 300-unit run in July 2024¹², then returned to production¹⁷¹². The version Brain Omilion saw had only two modes, Halo and Quarter Note⁹; the December 2024 version added a Dotted Eighth mode⁹, giving it the Quarter Note and Dotted Eighth rhythmic delays alongside the Halo mode⁹⁸.

Andy Timmons and the Halo sound

The Halo is a signature pedal in the strict sense: the sounds were developed with the player who uses them. The maker's description is direct: "Andy spent decades combining and crafting the sounds you can now get from the HALO"¹¹⁸. Before the pedal existed, Timmons had been using a Strymon Timeline for that sound, according to Robert Keeley⁹.

On the JHS Pedals interview with Josh Scott, Timmons and Keeley discussed the pedal's place in his rig, including that it comes with the two Timmons licks built in¹⁹. Josh Scott noted where it has landed for him:

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Timmons's association with Keeley has continued beyond the Halo, through the Halo Core⁷¹³¹⁷ and other collaborations, and Guitar World noted the partnership produced the Halo Dual Echo pedal back in 2022⁷. For players comparing Keeley's delay line, the Halo sits at the full-featured end, with the Halo Core as its simplified sibling.

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