Caroline Guitar Company Somersault Chorus-y / Vibrato-y / Faux-Rotary Device

CAROLINE GUITAR COMPANY SOMERSAULT™

This one sparks joy! Our SOMERSAULT™ is the chorus-y/vibrato-y/faux-rotary device we’ve been asked to make for years. So now we think it’s time.

From seasick wobbles to glitchy bleep- bloops and “I think I can” huffs and puffs, the crazy sounding stuff was actually the easy part for us. So once you’re done maxing out different settings to hear what kinds of bizarre wowie-zowie sounds you can make with this thing, we encourage you to explore the subtleties of how each control interacts with the others, and the remarkable range of sounds that you can quickly and intuitively dial in. Gentle, lagging vibrato, 1980s style choruses, and even some doubling effects are possible… and then, turn up & go wild again.

SOMERSAULT™ applies a similar framework as our popular KILOBYTE™ and MÉTÉORE™ pedals. While the digital chip sets the delayed wet signal, the initial gain stage, dry signal, LFO, control set and output mixing stage are entirely analog. The end result sounds rich and fat, with the same robust feel and power our customers have come to expect from our work.

Like our other pedals, the controls are a bit visually opaque, but straightforward and intuitive to use. Clockwise from the top right, the binary clock “offset” sets the short delay time of the *wet* signal. This increases the intensity and “width” of the effect. The wave selector chooses between classic 80s triangle waves or more intense square waves. The running devil is the speed control, setting the LFO rate. The waves set the depth of the LFO and how severely it will shift the “offset” control. Think of these as a push and pull - the more you use of one, the less you might need of the other. The tone selector is a standard/dark control for just the *wet*signal again. And finally, the Mix squares are the wet/dry control: all the way left for dry, all the way right for 100% wet.

In this pedal, the Havoc™ control (right stomp switch) is deliciously simple: it’s a basic “defeat” of the speed control, for instant maximum speed. I think of it as “Leslie speeds on demand” and releasing it returns the pedal to existing settings.

Power is 9VDC, current draw is 30ma. Input impedance is 220k ohms, output impedance less than 1k ohms. Size is Caroline standard “BB” box, 4.7”x 3.7”x1.7”.