OBNE Bathing Liminal Delay is a new pedal that takes you into an unusual hybrid delay realm and lets you explore it hands-on.
Guitar pedals are a dime a dozen. Something familiar from the Eurorack world. From classic to sound design gems, there is something for every taste. The latter includes the pedals from Old Blood Noise Endeavors, or OBNE for short.
In 2023, I was able to test the Sunlight, and it was a pretty wild ride. OBNE Bathing Liminal Delay, the latest pedal from the US-based pedal manufacturer, also guarantees this.
OBNE Bathing Liminal Delay
Bathing Liminal Delay is a new stereo digital delay pedal that is not just another classical delay pedal. OBNE promises that Bathing is a delay, a modulation, or even a multi-tap reverb. It takes inspiration from their own phase repetition in the Dweller pedal.
The core of the engine uses a central delay line that is divided into many stages called “all-pass filters”. With the time control on top of the pedal, you can adjust the central delay time.
Next to this is the stages knob that sets the number of all-pass stages that the delay runs through, ranging from two up to twelve. Different settings, different results. At shorter time settings, this raises the intensity of the phase/flange effect.
At medium or longer time settings, more repeats are created both before and after the central delay time. There is also a feedback knob that controls the amount of output that feeds back into the input—a great feature for longer trails and increased resonance.
Then, you have a built-in filter with a dedicated knob that combines lowpass and highpass filtering to the output of the delay and the feedback loop. This allows you to make the sound darker and brighter in no time.
Lovely Modulation
OBNE Bathing also has a rich modulation composed of a multi-wave LFO that affects the character of the delay repeats. Dedicated rate, depth, and shape let you perfectly craft your modulation that stirs up your delays.
At short times, it acts like a modulation effect, like a phaser or flanger. When Time is set longer, it moves anywhere from a single repeat at the central delay time out to a scattering of many diffused repeats around that time.
If you work with stereo configurations (mono in/stereo out or full stereo), you have a distinct behaviour of the LFO. Here, the LFO is offset on the left and right to create a variety of stereo effects.
When all this comes together, you can create very special effects, from subtle modulation to dramatically smeared and warbling delay effects. You can also select between analog-dry through, buffered trails, and true bypass modes.
Additionally, you have a separate subtle stereo chorus control (dimension) and independent controls for dry and wet volume. The settings can be saved in presets.
Connectivity
On the back side, you have a stereo input and output on TRS 6.3mm inputs, and MIDI in and out on TRS jacks. Nice to see that it has MIDI support, so the pedal is also suitable for synthesizers, and you can sync the delays with the synth’s clock
Further, you have an expression pedal input, a USB-C port, and a 9V DC power supply input. Finally, on the bottom of the OBNE Bathing pedal, you also have a clever dual-function tap/aux switch with which you can tap in tempos, trigger infinite repeats, or simply swap presets.
First Impression
At first glance, Bathing Liminal Delay is an exciting, very hands-on stereo delay pedal with an unusual but fascinating sound range. There are no synth demos yet, but I can imagine that they would harmonize very well with the pedal, especially if you want to take your synths into unknown, weird soundscapes.
OBNE Bathing Liminal Delay is available now for $299.
More information here: Old Blood Noise Endeavors
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