Keeley Omni Reverb

The Keeley Omni Reverb is a digital reverb pedal from Keeley Electronics that puts three classic reverb styles in one box: Room, Spring and Plate, selected with a single toggle switch¹. Where many reverb pedals offer a panel of knobs for decay, tone and modulation, the Omni takes the opposite approach: two controls, Dwell and Level, and a three position style switch². Keeley announced it in November 2017 as "a powerful two control reverb that gives you all the classic sounds with set-and-forget Room, Spring and Plate reverb"¹.

The pedal is made in the USA and was priced at $129 at launch³⁴. It was originally released as an exclusive for the US retailer Sweetwater⁴.

Room, spring and plate in one pedal

Each position of the toggle gives a different reverb character, and Keeley described each one in its launch materials²⁴¹.

• Room: "Our Room Reverb is designed to give you that small club space or that living room sound, I call it social club reverb," with hardwood floors, windows, drywall and maybe a couch¹.
• Spring: "The Omni Reverb is our 2 spring reverb tank that gives you enough splash and spring to make any surfer happy," with depth and deeper tones for blues players¹².
• Plate: modeled on "the classic emt140" plate reverb, with low end resonance and a high end shimmer that decays as the reverb sings out²¹.

The Plate mode's EQ is part of why Keeley positioned it as a fit for gain and distortion tones: the maker says it works well with distorted sounds because of how its EQ is voiced². Delicious Audio summed up the pedal's aim as being "designed to fill the space around the notes with the perfect depth"².

The controls: Dwell, Level and the style switch

The whole interface is two knobs and a toggle. Keeley's own description of the workflow is simple: "With the Omni Reverb you simply select the style and then dial in the Dwell length"¹. Then, "Add whatever volume Level fills your guitar space and you're ready to get back to making music"².

The Dwell knob does different things depending on the mode. In spring mode it adjusts the length of the springs, and in plate mode it affects the dampening of the plate⁵. Guitar.com's review described the pair of knobs as controlling "the intensity of the effect and how long it hangs around for"⁴.

Inside the pedal there is more than the faceplate suggests. Slider switches let you select true or buffered bypass, plus a "wet only" output for use in a parallel effects loop⁴. That last option makes the pedal usable in an amp's parallel loop, where only the effect signal should be returned.

A Sweetwater exclusive

The Omni Reverb launched as a Sweetwater exclusive in the USA. Gearnews reported it as "exclusive to Sweetwater in the USA" at a list price of USD 129³, and MusicRadar noted at launch that "The Omni is currently only available exclusively from Sweetwater"⁶. Premier Guitar's announcement stated it "will be available exclusively at Sweetwater.com"¹. Guitar.com's later review described it as "originally launched as an exclusive for US retailer Sweetwater late last year"⁴.

What reviewers said

Guitar.com's Richard Purvis reviewed the pedal in July 2018. On the spring mode he wrote that "the Omni certainly nails the splashiness of a real reverb tank"⁴. His review listed the pedal's controls as "Dwell, level; room/spring/plate switch" and its price as $129⁴.

Gearnews' Jef took the two knob layout as the pedal's main selling point: "With only two controls on hand, Dwell and Level it should be easy enough to dial in and so I think it would suit someone like myself, that likes a simple to use effect"³.

For players who want more from a Keeley reverb, the company's later range includes the stereo Keeley Zoma reverb and tremolo pedal and the Keeley Realizer, both covered elsewhere on the site.

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