Chase Bliss has wheeled out its latest invention, Clean – a two-stage analog stereo compressor that aims to explore the effect's creative side, and bring fun and excitement to clean players.
The crux of the pedal is “about creating a more lively and interactive version of your instrument that feeds off of your choices” without need for an overdrive pedal, says Chase Bliss. As such, it offers “a bundle of refinements and features you usually don’t find outside of the studio”, all of which thrive with clean tones.
“Many years and many circuit boards” have come and gone during the pedal's design process, resulting in what the firm calls “our most versatile and original circuit to date”.
Interestingly, its versatility is two-fold. The pedal “swells, sags, smooths, pans, filters” and much more, but it does so at the behest of the player’s fingertips and the dynamics of their playing.
It was originally created “to make it as fun as possible to play a clean instrument” and bring distortion's interactive push-and-pull feel to clean tone. As such, it can be utilized as your typical always-on tone enhancer, helping shape clean guitar tones in a variety of ways.
But it doesn't stop there. A total of six dials and three switches are on hand to widen the pedal's scope. Controls for Dynamics, Sensitivity (Ramp), and Wet are augmented by Attack, EQ, and Dry knobs, with the switches controlling the pedal's Release, Mode, and Physics.
Messing with the Physics control brings organic wobbles and fluctuations to the signal, and pushing the compressor results in a tube amp-style sag. Elsewhere, the Dry and Wet knobs blend to unlock parallel processing.
There are three EQ modes, each offering unique stereo motion, with mono-to-stereo switching generating a moving stereo image. The Dynamics dial can flit between classic and feedback limiting, as well as the rare and aggressive feedforward limiting, achieved by activating the Dusty slider on the top of the pedal.
Handily, a noise gate has been built in to exterminate extraneous noise. And, as if the pedal didn't do enough, an external side chain can see the Clean partner up with other pedals for rhythmic weirdness, while MIDI and preset options are on hand for greater personalization and performance.
Naturally, a Chase Bliss creation was never going to be straightforward, and Clean is no exception. Beneath its sleek housing is a world of weird and wonderful possibilities that can make even the most high-gain players temporarily forget the joys of screaming distortion.
The Chase Bliss Clean is available to order now for the fairly lofty price of $469 and will start shipping on November 1.
Head to Chase Bliss to learn more about the mad creation’s capabilities.
