The Earthquaker Devices Rainbow Machine is an awesome pitch shifter / octave guitar pedal that packs a lot features that will make your tone stand out. If you’re a guitarist who loves the improvisational and discovering new tones and textures, you’re going to love the Rainbow Machine.
One of the key functions of this pedal are polyphonic harmonies, or adding extra harmonies to the tones you play. But that is just the foundation, as the coloring patterns are essentially limitless.
The pedal comes directly from the workshops of EarthQuaker Devices, a company known for attracting the attention of guitar community with quirky, yet highly effective devices and first-rate components.
Controls, Features, Specs
The pedal offers very wide tonal control with a total of six knobs, plus a Magic button. What’s a magic button, you ask? Read on…
Tone – The basic one. Turn clockwise for full signal or go the other way to tone down the high registry.
Pitch – This button controls the pitch of the polyphonic harmony, allowing you to go from a 4th down to a 3rd up. Leave the knob in the middle and you’ll get a unison, or the doubled copy of your playing.
Primary + Secondary – These two knobs control the volume of primary and secondary pitch-shifted signals, respectively. When left in flat position, the knobs will not alter the sound, but if you need extra power and color, they enrich your audio output with extra tonal power.
Tracking – Controls the lag time between the direct signal and shifted signal. If left in the full-clockwise position, the altered pitch-shifted sound produced by the pedal will play directly over your current playing, while. The more you go to the left, the more lag, or delay you will get.
Magic – This is where the fun is! The Magic switch mixes up the Primary and Secondary pitch to deliver a wild, unpredictable effect. Depending on how you placed the remaining control knobs, the result of hitting the Magic button will vary every single time.
You can get more info from Earthquaker Devices or check it out for yourself.
Tones and Sounds
The vast specter of tones that is packed within this device is difficult to summarize, but several points should be taken. First off, the device heavily utilizes the pitch-shifting effect, along with standard elements of a delay pedal.
Secondly, it is aimed towards the experimental crowd, meaning that there is no predesigned position where to place the Rainbow Machine in a way that overdrive or wah pedals have a fairly standard placement within a song.
Additionally, this device works even better when combined with other effects, offering a really great palette of sonic chef d’oeuvres for you to pick from. As a matter of fact, this is the regime in which the Rainbow Machine shines out the most.
There are many aspects of guitar playing that can be enhanced by this pedal. You can use is during rhythm playing to add extra groove and underlining tones to the chords you strum. You can use it during lead soloing as well. We all know how difficult is it to stand out these days, and even a slight pinch of oddity can rank you above the rest.
Finally, there are pretty much countless ways to use this as a tool to add those delicate sonic colorings that in many cases give the song its character.
Road-Worthiness & Durability
The metal casing is quite sturdy, durable and reliable. The device is perfectly capable of taking a standard minor punch or two during transport, or withstand some strong stomping when you are in the zone live on stage.
We’re not the kind who tests durability by smashing the pedal, but we can point out with certainty that user complaints in the durability department are at a very low level.
Overall Rating
Pedal Rating: ★★★★
Needles to say again, this is a niche product, and as such requires that you know what is it that you want. And if a pitch-shifting monster with great versatility and experimental charm is your thing, than this item will likely get a 5/5 from you.
The possibilities are endless, and just when you think that things have gotten easy and you have lined this one down, you hit the magic button and a sonic explosion brings the struggle back, just lie it should. Playing is about expression, about struggle and about taking a left turn. And that is exactly what Rainbow machine does. Pick it up a notch, buy one today.