Red Witch Seven Sisters Eve Tremolo

The Red Witch Seven Sisters Eve Tremolo is a compact analog tremolo pedal from New Zealand maker Red Witch, released in 2011 as part of the seven-pedal Seven Sisters range¹. Tremolo is a volume effect: the pedal raises and lowers the level of your guitar signal in a repeating cycle, and the Eve's two knobs set how fast that cycle runs and how deep the dips go. Red Witch describes the result as covering "everything from a light pulse to a deep throb"¹.

The pedal's distinguishing feature is its power system. Instead of a 9V battery or a mandatory power supply, the Eve carries an internal rechargeable lithium-ion cell with built-in charging circuitry, the same kind of cell found in a cell phone or digital camera¹. A four-hour charge from a regular pedal power supply gives 120 hours of use¹.

What the Eve Tremolo does

Tremolo is one of the oldest guitar effects, built into amplifiers long before it appeared in pedals. The Eve applies it as a small stompbox that sits anywhere on your pedalboard. Red Witch's own description of the sound is:

The maker says the pedal "encapsulates the idea of a simple, super musical sounding" tremolo, ranging from a light pulse to a deep throb¹. What that means in practice: with the depth knob low, the effect is a gentle shimmer in the background; with depth high and speed slow, the volume swells and dips become the most obvious thing happening to your tone.

The Eve is one of seven pedals in the Seven Sisters range, all sharing the same small footprint and the same rechargeable battery system. The range covers the main effect families: overdrive (Scarlett), distortion (Ivy), boost (Lily), compressor (Grace), delay (Violet), fuzz (Ruby) and tremolo (Eve)². Premier Guitar reviewed the Eve alongside the Ruby Fuzz, Violet Delay and Scarlett Overdrive².

The controls: speed, depth and an internal gain trim

The Eve keeps its control surface to two knobs, with a third adjustment hidden inside the enclosure¹.

The internal trimmer is the interesting one for players who find tremolo pedals eat a little volume. Red Witch says it "offers an overall gain control, allowing an optional signal boost"¹, so you can set the pedal's output level to match your bypassed signal or push it slightly hotter. It is a trim pot, not a knob, so it is set once with a small screwdriver rather than adjusted on the fly.

If you want a full-on volume lift rather than a trim, the same range included the Seven Sisters Lily Boost, which Red Witch says offers 30 dB of gain, from "the gentlest of volume lifts" to what the maker calls "a colossal, amplifier melting wave of gain"³. That is a dedicated boost pedal, a different job from the Eve's internal level trim.

Power: rechargeable lithium-ion cell or 9V supply

The Seven Sisters pedals were designed around the idea that you charge them like a phone rather than feed them batteries. Red Witch's instructions are simple¹⁴⁵:

Premier Guitar adds one detail worth knowing on a first charge: "plug it into the left-hand power socket for four hours (12 hours the first time)"⁶. So the initial charge takes 12 hours, and subsequent charges four.

When the battery runs down, or if you prefer not to use it, the pedal runs from a standard 9V DC wall wart supply¹. At the range's launch, MusicRadar reported that any DC adapter between 9 and 18 volts could be attached⁷, though Red Witch's current product page specifies a standard 9V DC supply¹. Premier Guitar also noted the pedals draw their charge through the left-hand power socket⁶.

For gigging, MusicRadar's launch coverage said an overnight charge was "good for 1-2 weeks worth of gigging"⁷. The current draw is listed at 110 mA¹, which is worth knowing if you plan to run it from a powered pedalboard rather than the internal cell.

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