Gamechanger Audio Light Reverb Pedal

Gamechanger Audio Light Reverb Pedal Overview

The name Gamechanger Audio couldn’t be more fitting for this incredible company. They’re renowned for creating boundary pushing stompboxes with truly innovative designs (such as the gnarly Plasma Overdrive & the ethereal Plus Pedal), giving sonic explorers a welcome change from tried-and-tested effects. Their Light Pedal is a revolutionary analog Spring Reverb - we guarantee it’s unlike any spring 'verb you’ve encountered so far!

Game-changing Spring 'Verb

The Gamechanger Audio Light Pedal is a powerful and flexible spring reverb in a pedal. However, it’s so much more than a traditional spring as it uses multiple pairs of infra-red optical sensors to capture the entire harmonic and timbral range of the reverb tank. There’s a tonne of tone shaping features and a world of gorgeous textures at your disposal.

Tone Shaping Controls

The Light Pedal features three volume knobs - dry signal, spring tank output & optical sensor level - which allow you to blend the signals however you see fit. The Tone knob has a breadth of colours available and can go from room-shaking lows to shrieking highs. This knob only doesn’t affect your dry signal, so your core tone is preserved. Next up is the Drive knob, which can be used to create a gentle, characterful distortion when cranked.

Powerful Optical Effects

There are six optical effects to choose from in Gamechanger Audio’s Light Pedal. These are arguably what make the Light Pedal special, creating sounds that you’d never expect a spring reverb pedal to produce. The colour LEDs provide visual feedback by dynamically reflecting the effect’s parameters, such as the rate of the tremolo.

Optics calibrates the optical signal, with the CTRL knob you can switch between different optical pairs. There’s a tonne of lush, vibrant textures to be discovered here. As you move towards the middle of the spring, the tone becomes richer and warmer.

Sweep is a modulation effect that creates dynamic movement. It does this by scrolling back and forth through the optical sensor pairs. The rate of the sweeping rhythm is controlled by the CTRL knob.

Trem is a built-in optical tremolo effect, just like the one you’d find on a classic amp. This effect switches the optical sensors on & off to a rhythmic pulse.

If you’re using the Sweep or Trem modes, you can create a multi-layered effect by merging the rhythm of the optical signal with the spring tank’s steady output.

Reflect is a cool lo-fi delay effect. It sends the signal back into the spring tank with three repeats.

Feedback uses self-oscillation to create interesting sound effects and crunch “wall-of-sound verb pads. The feedback amount is affected by the CTRL knob.

Last but not least, we have Harmonic - effectively an analogue shimmer reverb, naturally created inside the reverb tank. It uses an Octavia-Inspired circuit to increase the harmonic and overtone level going into the spring’s driver. The CTRL acts like a filter, adjusting the shimmer’s spectral range.

Dynamic Envelope

The fantastic one-knob envelope is used to adjust the Light’s reverb dynamic in all playing modes. At its lowest setting it acts like a gated reverb, towards the middle it’s wide open like a traditional spring reverb and at the end, it behaves like a side-chained, ducked reverb.

Switching Modes

In addition to having high-quality buffered bypass, the Light Pedal features a couple of exciting switching options. You can use the Light Pedal to create a momentary effect when the Latch switch is set to off. Perfect for when you want to instantly inject some excitement into a part. With the Tails switch in the On position, the reverb’s decay keeps going after the pedal has been deactivated which is handy for smooth transitions.

You can also hook up an expression pedal for hands-free control of the Light Pedal’s parameters.

The Light Pedal continues to follow Gamechanger’s knack for crafting unique designs that will inspire your playing to reach new heights. It’s the world’s first analogue optical spring reverb and it comes in a pedalboard-friendly stompbox format. If you’re ready to add a special lushness to your tone, pick up a Light Pedal today!

Overview by Gamechanger Audio

THE CLASSIC SPRING TANK SOUND

The LIGHT Pedal’s central component and main sound source is a traditional spring reverb tank, consisting of three major elements - the input transducer (spring exciter), the springs and the output transducer (pickup). There can be a lot of complexity in the spring’s movement patterns during the reverberation process, especially near the input transducer. However, due to the spring elasticity, by the time vibrations have reached the output transducer we mostly hear the spring’s own resonant frequencies, which is why all spring reverbs have such a particular jangly, metallic sound. The LIGHT Pedal’s spring output (the spring knob) offers a classic high-quality spring reverb sound with the option to adjust the spring “drip” (the drive knob) and the tone of the output signal (the tone knob).

THE OPTICAL SPRING REVERB SOUND

To capture the full range of the spring’s vibrations, the LIGHT Pedal uses multiple sets of special infra-red optical sensors that act as photoelectric pickups. Each set of IR sensors is directed at a different point on the moving spring’s surface. The optical sensors detect much finer movements compared to the output transducer. This makes longer decays possible and more detailed frequency response, including subharmonics and overtones. Additionally, the pedal can achieve amazing modulation and tremolo effects by scrolling through the optical sensors or by switching them on and off (optical effects).

THE EFFECTS

• optics – lets you choose a specific combination of optical sensors, each with a slightly different texture and timbral quality.
• sweep – sweep is a modulation mode that rhythmically scrolls back and forth through the different optical sensor pairs. The different frequency response properties of each sensor result in a modulation-style effect.
• trem – a tremolo effect is produced by rhythmically switching the optical sensors on and off. The tremolo effect can also be applied to the spring output together with the optical signal or separately.
• reflect - this mode is a lo-fi delay that will send the instrument’s signal back into the reverb tank several times. Long delay times can create powerful, lengthy reverb decays.
• feedback – the feedback mode sets the spring tank into self-oscillation, which lets you produces various drones and wall-of-sound-type pads. Lots of potential uses when paired with an expression pedal or when in momentary mode.
• harmonic – in harmonic mode the spring tank is driven by a special circuit designed to produce added overtones and harmonics. Think of it as a shimmer reverb effect, but only produced naturally within the spring tank.

All of the above effects are controlled with the ctrl knob, which can be responsive to playing dynamics. The first three effects (optical, sweep, trem) can be stacked with one of the remaining three effects.

THE CONTROLS

• 3 mix controls: dry, spring (classic spring sound) and optical (optical spring reverb sound);
• tone – shared between the spring and optical sounds, and does not apply to the instruments dry signal;
• 6-way effect selector knob
• ctrl – effect parameter control knob
• drive – spring tank’s input signal level;
• gate – primary function: gated and ducking reverb control; secondary function – ctrl knob envelope response control.
• tails – turns reverb tails on or off
• latch – sets the pedal into latching mode (on) or into momentary mode (off).
• shock sensor - shuts off the wet signal output when mechanical impact or a shaking motion is detected; three levels of shock protection: off, soft and hard.
• soft footswitch – the primary function: toggling bypass; secondary functions – effects stacking, adjusting the envelope control over the effects, and entering the footswitch assignment mode.

I/O

The LIGHT Pedal is a mono pedal with a ¼’ jack input and output. The LIGHT Pedal also features an expression input for ¼’ TS and TRS jacks and is compatible with all expression pedal types, as well as CV signal (active range to +3.3 V). The expression pedal can be assigned to the ctrl, spring, optical, drive or the gate knobs.
The LIGHT Pedal uses a standard 9V DC center-negative power supply of at least 500 mA. The power supply is not included.