The Deep End

Electro-Harmonix releases its most ambitious reverb pedal to date – and it goes way beyond ’verb to offer myriad sound-sculpting opportunities

- Trevor Curwen

ELECTRO-HARMONIX OCEANS ABYSS £475

CONTACT Electro-Harmonix WEB www.ehx.​com

While some players are totally sorted by having a spring reverb integral to their amp, there are plenty of others who embrace reverb as a creative effect and many companies out there are ready to cater to those desires with a range of pedals that can supply all manner of ambiences.

To date, Electro-Harmonix has been scratching that itch with its Oceans 12 pedal, and that dual stereo reverb now has a sibling in the form of the Oceans Abyss, which, as the name implies, takes a deeper dive into the world of ambience.

This triple-footswitch pedal features two full-stereo reverb engines that can be combined into a signal path comprising up to eight blocks and encompassing several other effects including delay and modulation, all with a range of routing options. Add a stereo send/return loop to incorporate other pedals to that signal path and EHX's description of the pedal as an “advanced reverb laboratory” makes perfect sense.

In Use

The Oceans Abyss has a clearly laid out user interface: the essential hands-on controls for Reverb A are on the left; those for Reverb B are on the right. Between the two, there's a display showing signal path and adjustable parameters, and a NavCoder knob with rotate, push and tilt actions that does all the hard graft of addressing what's shown in the display and setting up your sound.

Any sounds you create can be saved to 128 preset locations, and the unit comes with 100 of those already loaded with factory-programmed sounds.