SEAFARER
Why the name Seafarer?
Behind Seafarer is an elaborate and slightly silly story I’ve told myself a thousand times. As with all Empty Head pedals there’s an imaginary character or concept that sits behind it leading all the creative decisions, determining the names of the controls and ultimately what the pedal sounds and feels like. This pedal should feel like you’re out at sea, perhaps the weather is stormy, or calm, perhaps you’re gently rocking on your boat, perhaps you’ve been thrown into stormy waters and you’re looking down a long dark tunnel with a light at the end. Ultimately, you’re at the mercy of the great ocean and you’re just along for the ride.
Seafarer started life as ‘Dweller’ but heck, those dastardly Americans beat me to it and made an incredible pedal while they were at it. Then ‘Cave Dweller’ but that was probably too close. Then one day I stumbled upon random wave modulation on the 2399 delay chip time control which sounded a lot like a digital version of the lapping of water against the side of a ship in a harbour. The beautifully chaotic lapping ebb and flow of small waves doing whatever they were going to do and thus was borne the watery theme. Settling on the name Seafarer came pretty quickly after that.
“It’s massive!” Yeah, I know. I couldn’t help but include all the controls this time. A big part of pedal design is the usability of the pedal, it’s size and quite literally how easy it is to interact with it. Too many controls can sometimes become overwhelming for the player. Finding the balance here was hard, but the functions that remain became non negotiable. This pedal was more than just ‘a reverb pedal’ I was developing, it was an exploration of multiple electronic concepts, a mathematical learning exercise, a release of the restraint of always removing ‘the unnecessary functions’ and instead just seeing what was possible within one schematic and style and deciphering how many options one could have on a single pedal before it felt completely gratuitous.
With 9 knobs, a toggle and two footswitches, I don’t expect every player to immediately want this on their live board humping it around to every show they play. It’s a big pedal. That said, I design every Empty Head pedal with the belief that if another pedal is removed to create space for one of my pedals, my pedal better be able to give the other one a run for it’s money in it’s functions and sounds. Can Seafarer replace a Strymon Big Sky or a Meris Mercury? Not fully, no, not with all that digital functionality. But if you had to knock off a distortion + a verb to fit it, then it would have a solid run at it. Add an LFO controlled LPF filter as well as a random wave tremolo + pitch modulation for good measure. It can clean up and offer a really nice rich verb, as well as all the other curious marvels it can do. So try not to think of it as ‘just an oversized reverb’, there’s a lot of places that this pedal is willing to take you that you might be unsure about, you just have to be ready to jump in and see where the boat takes you.
If you have any questions about the functionality of the pedal or would like to know more, please drop me an e-mail - nic@emptyheadeffects.com
