Caroline Somersault Lo-Fi Modulator Pedal Caroline

Caroline Somersault Lo-Fi Modulator – Chorus/Vibrato/Rotary

This one sparks joy! The Caroline SOMERSAULT is the chorus-y/vibrato-y/faux-rotary device this pedal maker has been asked to make for years. So now it is time!

From seasick wobbles to glitchy bleepbloops and “I think I can” huffs and puffs, the crazy sounding stuff was actually the
easy part for the Caroline engineers. So once you’re done maxing out different settings to hear what kinds of bizarre wowie-zowie sounds you can make with this thing, be encouraged to explore the subtleties of how each control interacts with the others, and the remarkable range of sounds that you can quickly and intuitively dial in. Gentle, lagging vibrato, 1980s style choruses, and even some doubling effects are possible… and then, turn up & go wild again.

SOMERSAULT applies a similar framework similar to Caroline’s popular KILOBYTE and MÉTÉORE pedals. While the digital chip sets the delayed wet signal, the initial gain stage, dry signal, LFO, control set and output mixing stage are entirely analog. The end result sounds rich and fat, with the same robust feel and power their customers have come to expect from the great Caroline work.

Like their other pedals, the controls are a bit visually opaque, but straightforward and intuitive to use. Clockwise from the top right, the binary clock “offset” sets the short delay time of the “wet” signal. This increases the intensity and “width” of the effect. The wave selector chooses between classic 80s triangle waves or more intense square waves. The running devil is the speed control, setting the LFO rate. The waves set the depth of the LFO and how severely it will shift the “offset” control. Think of these as a push and pull – the more you use of one, the less you might need of the other. The tone selector is a standard/dark control for just the “wet” signal again. And finally, the Mix squares are the wet/dry control: all the way left for dry, all the way right for 100% wet.

In this pedal, the Havoc control (right stomp switch) is deliciously simple: it’s a basic “defeat” of the speed control, for instant maximum speed. I think of it as “Leslie speeds on demand” and releasing it returns the pedal to existing settings.

Power is 9VDC, current draw is 30ma. Input impedance is 220k ohms, output impedance less than 1k ohms.

Size is Caroline standard “BB” box, 4.7” x 3.7” x 1.7”.