Neon Egg Planetarium 2

The Neon Egg Planetarium 2 is a hand-built multi-effects unit styled like a small synthesizer rather than a conventional stompbox. Inside, it chains a stereo reverb and chorus section running into a tape echo, with a built-in compressor that supports external side chaining¹. Neon Egg calls it a guitar pedal, but as Gearnews' Robin Vincent put it, "this is a box that's going to be awesome regardless of what you feed through it"¹, and Pedal of the Day notes it works on keys, vocals, bass and more².

The Planetarium 2 is an improved version of the original Planetarium, developed after months of building the first design. Neon Egg changed the modulation, made the unit true stereo, upgraded the power supply and switched the end cheeks to oak¹. Each unit is built by hand, so there is a waiting list.

Reverb, chorus, tape echo and compressor in one box

The signal path runs a stereo reverb and chorus section into a tape echo, with the compressor built in and side-chainable from an external source¹. A toggle switch in the reverb section selects between three algorithms: Reverb 1, Reverb 2 and Chorus². That makes the unit cover ground that would otherwise take separate reverb, chorus, delay and compressor pedals.

Pedal of the Day found the reverb section wide ranging: "The Reverb portion can go from subtle to never-ending and cavernous in an instant"². On the echo side, the reviewer found character in the longer settings: "The echoes get a bit dirty and degraded at longer times, which brings a real analog feel into the mix"².

The look is part of the appeal. Pedal of the Day describes "a kind of throwback, vintage, synthesizer, arcade game type of vibe"², and Robin Vincent saw synthesizer DNA in the design:

The controls

The front panel divides its controls across the reverb, echo and compressor sections.

The modulation shape switch and the compressor's short/long switch are both additions on the Planetarium 2, part of Neon Egg's reworking of the modulation and compressor sections¹. The pad switch on the reverb/delay output is also new, and the input jack now detects a mono or stereo jack automatically, so the old switch was removed¹.

Stereo, power and Eurorack use

The Planetarium 2 runs true stereo rather than the dual mono of the original¹. Pedal of the Day's reviewer found stereo operation worth the cabling: "You gotta run this one in Stereo, too, as it opens everything up and fills the room with wide-ranging, mind-engulfing sound"².

The power supply was bumped up for increased headroom, and the unit can now output about 10v peak to peak, which lets it play nice with Eurorack gear¹. That headroom is what makes it usable beyond the pedalboard, on line-level sources as well as guitar.

What reviewers said

Both reviews came away positive. Gearnews' Robin Vincent described the effect on a playing style: "It is instant ambient, instant post-rock, instantly enjoying, pushing, blurring and scaling whatever you want to play with"¹. Pedal of the Day called the compressor portion "incredible" and credited the unit's flexibility across instruments². Neither review reports a downside beyond the dirty, degraded character of the echoes at longer times, which that reviewer counted as a strength rather than a flaw².

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