Old Blood Noise Endeavors Beam Splitter V2 Warm

Inspired by the sound of a guitar tracked multiple times, Beam Splitter V2’s single input turns into three outputs of varying character and time/feel. With three different takes on overdrive, voiced to work well together, two of them can be delayed in time and all three can be run in parallel. Whether mono, stereo or a proprietary system OBNE calls ‘Trereo’, you can achieve sounds that stretch in time and compress in dynamics with a rich harmonic wash, all without sacrificing clarity.

Beam Splitter V2 features Mono, Mono to Stereo, and Mono to ‘Trereo’ routing via TRS or TS connections depending on your requirements, as well as the ability to have a Stereo input collapsed internally when the pedal is on. The 3 footswitches allow individual drive switching or preset cycling and the overall noise floor has also been reduced.

The Drive section is extremely versatile. The 3 Volume controls allow you to mix and set the overall volume of each section, to more finely tune your sound, while the separate Tone controls help to sculpt your tone even more. Of the three Drive circuits, each has its own voice:

• Drive 1 – a hard-clipping Distortion that is arguably the heaviest and most compressed. As the Gain is turned up, the voicing is also affected rounding off low end and increasing distortion in the mids and highs.
• Drive 2 – an Overdrive with both soft and hard clipping and is the lightest and brightest on offer. Here, if the Gain knob is all the way down, it is almost a clean boost while in the other direction it becomes a medium overdrive with subtle accentuation of the mids and highs in your signal.
• Drive 3 – a transistor Overdrive that has been revoiced with V2 for greater range. Of the three drives, it is the most dynamically reactive, with a fuzz-like gain quality and the Gain control gives an enormous range.

Where this pedal really shines is when the Delay section is activated. Both of the two independent delays feature Time and Feedback controls, a combination of which can create intense comb filter effects through to trailing repeats. A push button chooses which drives pass through the left and right delays, while the Beam Splitter V2 Deviate control allow you to “Split the Beam” and sets the amount of random variation in delay time. Inspired by the playing inaccuracies of a player recording multiple tracks, this can give the impression of flanging, chorusing or broken vibrato. Add in the Spread control and your stereo field can be a wide or narrow as you like and the Stereo Output now also has the option to collapse or spread the stereo field as you wish too.