Chase Bliss has created its first-ever signature guitar pedal, the Wombtone – an analog, envelope-controlled phaser for bluegrass guitarist Billy Strings.
It marks the return of a long-discontinued Chase Bliss pedal that has since become something of a cult classic, especially in bluegrass circles.
Dave Bruzza of Greensky Bluegrass had fallen in love with the pedal and later introduced Billy Strings to it. In fact, Strings adored the Wombtone so much that he began buying every one he could get his hands on.
“It struck me,” says Chase Bliss owner, Joel Korte. “Wombtone has long been a favorite of mine and has never left my personal pedalboard. And here’s this artist who cares enough to start collecting them. He knew they were discontinued and he wanted to be prepared if his should break. So we started talking about the possibility of bringing Wombtone back.”
And back it is, with some choice amendments to its lusciously swirling sounds. Strings had been faking an envelope filter-type effect while using the original analog phaser with the help of an expression pedal, moving it in time with each note.
Now, there’s no need for faking – the pedal can be directly controlled with an expression pedal and an envelope feature baked in, making it capable of producing some pretty wild noises.
Elsewhere, the pedal is further revamped via increased headroom, a new Slow Mode, and a Burr Brown op amp that has been added to the pedal’s input stage.
Six dials and four switches make up its comprehensive control panel. A Feed knob gets it “singing”, and Depth offers more sweep across more frequencies the more it's cranked.
Its character can be altered by changing its stages, ranging from 2's “subtle and vibe-like tones”, 4's happy medium, to 6's “intense and detailed” modulation.
If the pedal's Toggle tip is engaged it will select the tap division, syncing the effect to a tapped-in tempo, with the option of making that two- and four-times faster.
The modulation's movement is dictated by a Rate control, allowing players to dial in a slow and exaggerated sweep or a faster one that “will plunge into surreal and chewy swirls”.
Its Volume and Mix dials are fairly self-explanatory, but its Form dial is less so. Here, the center point of the waveform is chosen, with asymmetrical or specific shapes on offer, in conjunction with two switches beneath it for dictating the shapes of the front and back half of the soundwaves.
Of its envelope controls, found on the top side of the pedal, there's an on switch, one control for short, medium, or long release, and another for tweaking its sensitivity. The pair of Medium settings have been calibrated to what Chase Bliss calls a nice default, but they can be personalized using trim pots within the pedal.
“In the way that the Wombtone to me says, 'Wow,' what if every note you picked said, 'Wow'?” says Strings when talking about his vision for the reborn pedal. “I've never had anything to do with building pedals, but I play and I use a lot of them. It was cool to be asked, 'Well, what would you do?' and you figured it out. It's an honor to do this.”
The Wombtone will enter the world as a limited release of 3,000 units, exclusively available in the US. That's because it contains a component called LDR – also known as vactrol – which is not compliant with UK and EU market access requirements.
To that end, those market laws saw five pedals recently discontinued (Preamp MKII, Thermae, Warped Vinyl HiFi, Dark World, and Condor HiFi), with Chase Bliis saying it is now looking for alternative components moving forward.
“This pedal is a special case,” it says, “because it was already well into production as we began navigating all of this.”
The pedal joins Chase Bliss' growing list of 2024 releases, headlined by the Artifakt's “the ultimate lo-fi experience” and the Onward sampler, described as “glitching and freezing heaven for guitarists.”
Strings, one of the world's hottest bluegrass pickers, spoke to Guitar World in 2022 about how divine intervention made him want to be a particular guitar, and his surprising love for Slayer.
The Wombtone is available to pre-order now, with units shipping in early-mid September. It costs $399.
Head over to Chase Bliss for more details.
