The Transcendence from LICHTLÆRM AUDIO is an ambient reverb pedal aimed at players who want everything from quiet room ambience to long, washed-out shoegaze textures. The maker describes it as "capable of creating cave-like ambiences, huge washes of shoegazey reverb as well as subtle and tasteful room emulations"1. It also offers switchable spill-over, so the reverb tail can keep ringing when the effect is switched off, the way a trail or spill setting works on many reverb pedals1.
Controls
The pedal has three main controls, each shaping a different part of the reverb:
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Dampen | Applies an analog low-pass filter to the wet signal, darkening the repeats1 |
| Rate | Controls the modulation speed and sample rate1 |
| Decay | Adjusts the length of the reverb tails, with infinite reverb possible at maximum1 |
The dampen control is the tone shaping tool here: rolling it back filters the wet signal only, leaving the dry guitar untouched, which is a common way ambient players keep the reverb sitting behind the notes. The rate control doubling as a sample-rate adjustment hints at the pedal's lofi side, which comes fully into play in its Nova mode1.
Nova mode
The Transcendence includes a modulation mode called Nova. According to the maker, Nova "adds a shimmery octave-up effect to the tails while reducing the bit-depth," which can create effects "ranging from lofi shimmer reverbs to fully distorted bit crushed effects"1. In practice that means the reverb tail can be pushed from a gentle shimmer into deliberately degraded, crushed textures, sitting closer in spirit to the lofi end of octave and pitch pedals and experimental filter pedals than to a conventional hall reverb.
Videos
SHOEGAZER CHANNEL
Ambient Endeavors
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Sources (1)
- Transcendence, LICHTLÆRM AUDIO