Spruce Effects Badlands

The Spruce Effects Badlands is a compact chorus pedal released in November 2024 as part of the company's Junior Ranger series of pedals. California's Spruce Effects built it around an optical LED modulation design, which the company says is there "to deliver organic-sounding modulation"¹. A toggle on the pedal switches between chorus and vibrato, so it can cover both chorus and vibrato duties in one box¹.

What it does

The Badlands is a chorus with a vibrato option: a toggle on the bottom row of controls selects between the two sounds¹. The modulation comes from an optical LED circuit, an approach the press coverage ties to the pedal's organic-sounding character¹. The name and graphics are inspired by Badlands National Park¹.

Controls

The controls are unlabeled, which takes a little getting used to. Delicious Audio's Paolo De Gregorio put it this way: "The controls are unlabeled but straightforward once you memorize them, with Gain, Intensity, and Speed on the top row"¹.

What reviewers said

Delicious Audio's news item on the release describes the pedal's optical LED design as delivering organic-sounding modulation¹. In a Guitar.com review, Richard Purvis noted that Badlands "is described as \"a very brutal distortion\" but is really something much more strange and vicious than that suggests"². That description sits oddly beside the chorus-and-vibrato layout of the pedal, so players weighing it up have both characterizations on record: a modulation pedal with an organic bent, and a reviewer's warning that the name understates how aggressive it can get¹².

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