Catalinbread Cloak Reverb And Shimmer With High Cut Pedal

The Cloak began after unearthing some ancient texts containing some forbidden incantations on how to introduce spectral elements within a decaying echo. Ok, we’re embellishing a bit; but the inspiration came from the land of academia and the acoustics department at Stanford, where a treatise on the optimal shimmer effect was penned a handful of years back. In a similar pursuit of perfection, we’ve drawn inspiration from a combination of research and our own endeavors to craft a truly superb take on shimmer reverb. At its core, the Cloak is a “room” style reverb that sounds amazing on its own, but with a twist of the Shimmer knob, rich, harmonically-laden overtones creep in, emphasizing three different orders of harmonics within the trails. A specially-designed low-pass filter steps in and smooths the harmonics out before they get too out of hand and wreck up the signal path. The size of the room can be effortlessly dialed in, from a cramped broom closet to as close to infinity as we can possibly muster. This comes in handy when deciding on which type of switching you prefer; the Cloak offers up true bypass switching that cuts off the reverb trails when the Cloak is disengaged, or buffered bypass, which keeps the decay going even after switching off—your pick. Either way you slice it, the Cloak is ready to impart a little black magic unto your rig.

OVERVIEW

The Cloak began after unearthing some ancient texts containing some forbidden incantations on how to introduce spectral elements within a decaying echo. Ok, we’re embellishing a bit; but the inspiration came from the land of academia and the acoustics department at Stanford, where a treatise on the optimal shimmer effect was penned a handful of years back. In a similar pursuit of perfection, we’ve drawn inspiration from a combination of research and our own endeavors to craft a truly superb take on shimmer reverb. At its core, the Cloak is a “room” style reverb that sounds amazing on its own, but with a twist of the Shimmer knob, rich, harmonically-laden overtones creep in, emphasizing three different orders of harmonics within the trails. A specially-designed low-pass filter steps in and smooths the harmonics out before they get too out of hand and wreck up the signal path. The size of the room can be effortlessly dialed in, from a cramped broom closet to as close to infinity as we can possibly muster. This comes in handy when deciding on which type of switching you prefer; the Cloak offers up true bypass switching that cuts off the reverb trails when the Cloak is disengaged, or buffered bypass, which keeps the decay going even after switching off—your pick. Either way you slice it, the Cloak is ready to impart a little black magic unto your rig.

CONTROLS

ROOM SIZE: Simultaneouslyadjusts both reverb decay lengthand a slight gain enhancementfor a more natural decay

MIX: Adjusts the amount of drysignal present in the output, from 100 percent dry to 100 percent wet

HIGH CUT: Cuts higher-order harmonics from the signal to soften the edges at higher Shimmer settings

SHIMMER: Mixes the amount of shimmer present in the room reverb. Fully CCW gives you a rich room reverb and fully CW serves up a harmonically rich shimmer

MEASUREMENTS

FILTER: cutoff at 5khz and knob is how much reduction past 5k from fully open down to fully cut everything above 5k REVERB

TIME: Shortest: 250ms. Longest: (depending on how hard the signal hits but tested by smacking the strings of a guitar) >3 seconds

CURRENT DRAW: ~60mA