Recording - July 2015 - 47

hand, pretty much everything works as
advertised, and the redesign does keep the
pedal's price down while massively increasing what it can do, so it's a fair tradeoff.
The Atmospheres
Modulated is just that, a modulation
effect on the reverb tail, somewhat like a
chorus whose depth increases with the
Intensity knob. It produces, as GFI calls it,
a "weird but beautiful swirling resonance"
at higher settings.
Shimmer adds regenerating octave-up
harmonics into the reverb tail. This effect has
a simple Intensity control, with added depth
producing not only louder harmonics but a
greater emphasis on higher ones, for a subtle shift toward the treble that can be moderated with the Damping knob if desired.
Echo is just what it sounds like: an echo
effect with control of depth, time, and
feedback (regeneration). There's still
reverb in here with the echo, but its controls are reduced to a single Level knob,
letting you balance the reverb and echo
components of the sound.
Tremble is a tremolo effect applied to
the reverb tail. At its extreme Intensity settings, the tail oscillates from full volume to
near-silence, which can be disconcerting,
but at lower settings the reverb tail literally "trembles" behind the unaffected dry
sound for a riveting ambience effect.
Voices is somewhat similar to Shimmer
at first glance, but instead of providing
upper harmonics, it provides an entire second reverb tail, pitch-shifted up from the
original. The Intensity knob becomes a 3position switch, selecting a detuned unison, a perfect Fifth, or an octave above the
original reverb sound.
Infinity takes the reverberant sound and
"freezes" a 0.25 second slice of it as a
drone, over which you can then play further, with or without reverb. The drone
"slice" can be reset in the same way it's initially loaded: by holding down the
Select/Atmosphere button for two seconds
while playing. The original drone smoothly
fades out in favor of the newly loaded
sound without clicks or pops, and the
Intensity control dials in its level.
Extra features, and... oh yes... the sound
Note that the reverb tail (or drone, in
Infinity) doesn't stop when you bypass the
effect, nor does it stop while you select a
new preset to load. Reverb tails and
echoes are preserved right up until a new
preset is actually loaded, and that's when
you'll get an abrupt cutoff.
The "hold down the Select/Atmosphere
switch for two seconds" trick isn't just for setting drones in Infinity. In the other
Atmospheres, it triggers an Auto Intensity
Sweep... it's as if the Intensity knob is slowly turned up to maximum, stays there while
the switch is down, and then turned back
down to where it was when you started.

This gives you a burst of infinite feedback in
Echo, rich trebly harmonics in Shimmer, a
shift from unison to fifth to octave in Voices,
etc., without ever having to touch a knob.
Very, very cool!
And speaking of cool... I am a big fan of
reverbs, and have a stupidly big collection of
them, from cheap pedals to high-end racks,
and I have nothing in my studio at any price
that sounds like the Specular Reverb 2. The
decision to favor psychoacoustics (what
sounds pretty) over geometry (what sounds
like a recognizable room) was the right
one... the brain interprets the reverberant tail
as "a big space," but doesn't pin anything
else down, letting your imagination fill in the
gaps.
You could use this pedal for subtle,
even realistic reverbs at the right settings,
but where's the fun in that? A simple guitar becomes a chiming wash of harmonics floating in infinite space... great as a
special effect in any genre, but lovely
when used tastefully in jazz, and an
absolute must-have if you're at all into
electronic genres or ambient music.
Comments and final thoughts
In all the time I worked with the Specular
Reverb 2, I noticed only one small bug.
Sometimes using Auto Intensity Sweep or
setting the drone in Infinity will cause the
pedal to jump to another Atmosphere
when you release the footswitch. When I
reported this bug to the folks at GFI, they
responded that it's been found and fixed
on currently shipping units.
Another annoyance: the Blend control
doesn't go all the way up to 100% wet, so
you can't patch the Specular Reverb 2 into
your console or DAW interface as an aux
effect. That's a darned shame, because this
little guitar pedal rivals rackmount reverbs
costing far more, and it would be a perfect
fit for a guitarist's recording rig, doing double duty as a gigging pedal and a studio
effect. Yes, it sounds that good. (GFI is now
researching possibly adding this feature.)
The well-established names in the digital
reverb business need to move over a bit and
make room. GFI System has come to the
table with a reverb that's compact, powerful,
exquisitely beautiful, flexible, and fun... all at
a price that should have you taking a second
(and third) look. I can't wait to review my
next GFI effects box, and there's no way this
one is going back to Jakarta.
Price: $265 (includes worldwide shipping)
More from: Gear Fault Interrupt System,
www.gfisystem.com
Many thanks to Henry Widjaja of GFI
for trusting the half-crazy American editor
begging for a review unit, and to Har
(ambientguitarist.com) for turning said
American editor half-crazy over these
pedals in the first place.
RECORDING July 2015

http://www.t-funk.com http://www.gfisystem.com http://www.ambientguitarist.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - July 2015