EarthQuaker Devices The Depths Optical Vibe Machine Pedal Reviews

I love this pedal. I can get some pretty out there effects playing around with it, and really like that it can be used dialed down to round out the tone. Playing a Sheraton to a Laney Cub, it creates a really fat, wide tone with soft edges. It's a permanent fixture now, that tone is just so nice. Highly recommend playing with this in different places of your board.

I've had this pedal for two days and can't stop using it--it's been inspiring a lot of creativity. Whether adding subtle movement to your clean or distorted tone to full on quiver and shake, it sounds fantastic. I've found great sounds with any pickup combination (I play a Gretsch 5622t-cb, so 3 humbuckers), and with several other pedals on my board. I've been using it in combination with analog delay, chorus, OD, distortion and fuzz. I tried it before and after my dirt pedals, and IMO it sounds best just after, and before the rest of my modulation and delay. I find that it plays best with dirt with the intensity set at 11:00--any higher and it's a bit overdone for my taste. The throb knob is subtle, but brings out the low end if you're using a neck pickup and a fuller voice (voice knob past 2:00).With a clean tone, or with other modulation, the full range of intensity is at your disposal. The rate has a wide range, all of which are usable. It seems well built and looks great.

The best Vibe? Yes, the best. The scientists at Earth Quaker have created a vibe that does the original vibe tones faithfully, but it has the controls to take it further, much further. The original Vibes tend to be dark, your volume seems to disappear. The Depths cures all that. The voice knob is like a high mid control. Takes the tone from dark to thin/bright. Add the throb or low end pulse control to balance it out, especially in the neck position with a gain pedal before it. It comes alive. There's a level control to put an end to that volume drop off of the original. If you want the original sound with more highs and no volume drop off, it's right there. Want to crank the intensity control and go off the deep end, it's there too. It's very compact, well made in the USA. At under $200, it's a great value too. I have one and I love it.

My search for a great all around vibe is finally over. The Depths is a fantastic unit that can cover vintage sounds and venture into more modern areas. I have owned numerous vibe pedals over the years and though some were authentic in their vintage tone, I always had issues with them (some were too big, ran off of oddball power supplies, or were too limited tone-wise, or were very expensive). The Depths is a great all around solution for me. It's compact, is a true optical circuit (so the tone is there), runs off of a standard 9 volt power supply, and has an amazing amount of range. I use numerous guitars, amps, and effects and the Depths can be adjusted to work with any of them. It will do classic vibe tones, subtle phasing, rotary speaker, and tremolo type sounds. The build quality is some of the best I have seen, and I am picky about my effects. Don't be intimidated by all of the knobs, dialing in a great sound is very easy and intuitive. I highly recommend this pedal to anyone looking for a versatile vibe/rotary effect - it was worth every penny I spent.