Normal Devices Decay Cascade

Blends reverb and cascading analog amplification stages to create multilayered textures. Inspired by the sound of running reverb into distortion but with much more blending and layering possibilities, this pedal can produce lo-fi subtlety or slabs of disintegrated noise. Or both.

Dial in a reverb model ranging from a light bounce to saturated drones. The reverb mix blends with a versatile drive channel, with a voltage sag gate to add to the deterioration. Mix the dry, reverb, and distorted reverb signals to produce deep and layered tones. This then passes through a preamp stage inspired by 1960s test amplifiers that produces a boost of raw gain and crackling gated textures, as well as an optional low pass filter. Add a little dust and murk, or create the sound of amp death. Thankfully, there is a volume control.

Make sounds like:

- Tastefully gritty lo-fi echo
- Woozy, dying battery overdrives
- Dual tones layering distorted and clean reverb
- A 78 record found buried in the woods
- "Something’s not right"
- Harsh-ambient obliteration

The Decay Cascade is great at broken sounds with gated and dusty reverb artifacts. The drive, preamp and sag settings are quite interactive, with plenty of options for fine-tuning.

Controls:

MODE: Reverb Models/
Hall with slow pitch drift. Dark and woozy.
Spring with very long decay. Bright, full, and textural.
Lofi bucket brigade echo. Primitive and bouncy.

LEVEL: Set a reverb balance between 100% wet and dry signal.

DECAY: Set the reverb time from a short reflection to long drones.

DRIVE: A parallel distortion channel that the reverb mix goes through, ranging from light overdrive to high gain.

SAG: Voltage starve the distortion circuit to produce a gated fuzz effect.

MIX: Create a layered mix of the original clean/reverb mix and the drive channel.

AMP: Preamp setting (top to bottom)
Regular amplification stage. High gain boost with a low pass filter. Very loud and murky with gated “dust” trails. High gain boost with no filter. Extremely loud and harsh with gated “dust” trails.

VOLUME: Output. Loudness. Unquiet.

Specifications:

145mm x 120mm x 39mm
1/4" TS mono audio input and output
Requires 9V power from a centre-negative 2.1mm jack
60mA current draw
No battery compartment.