The Electro‑Harmonix (EHX) Pico Swello is essentially an attack‑shaping pedal that’s based on the attack feature EHX developed for their POG2. Unlike most other attack‑modification pedals, the Swello applies its effect to each note, whether that be single lines or full chords, so that already‑held notes are not retriggered — in other words, each note is treated to its own attack envelope. There’s also no threshold to adjust — the pedal ‘just works’, and remarkably, if you pick a note really quietly, it still seems to know you’ve done so. Better still, there’s a built‑in, sweeping low‑pass filter that, when active, offers both low and medium resonance modes, selected by the button at the top of the pedal. An LED shows green when the filter is inactive, and either orange or red when active. The LED extinguishes when the pedal is bypassed, and the bypass is buffered. Battery operation is not possible but a 9V PSU is included in the price.
The rotary controls adjust Volume, Attack time, filter Frequency and Mod, the last adjusting the filter to sweep negative or positive in response to the signal. The Attack time setting affects how fast the filter sweeps. But while the preset resonances are sensibly chosen, this wouldn’t be an EHX pedal if there were no option to adjust something! Pressing and holding the Filter button gets you into adjustment mode, in which the Volume control adjusts the Q of the low resonance setting and the Attack control adjusts the high resonance mode. The pedal still operates while the adjustments are being made so that you can hear the results. Once the adjustments have been made, holding the Filter button again for over two seconds saves the settings, which are retained when the pedal is powered down.
The individual notes in an arpeggiated chord are processed individually — just don’t ask me how!
As a creative tool, Swello works really well without being in any way complicated. As an attack shaper, it works smoothly regardless of whether you play chords or melody lines — an important point as the much coveted and long discontinued Boss Slow Gear pedal retriggered the whole envelope every time it detected a new transient. Here the individual notes in an arpeggiated chord are processed individually — just don’t ask me how! And the filter adds enormously to this pedal’s potential, going from a gentle sweep, producing an almost flutey texture, to something approaching an auto‑wah effect. I always liked the gentle filtered guitar sounds that Mike Oldfield used on his album Songs Of Distant Earth, and Swello is able to capture that vibe very effectively.
Creative Tool
The adjustable resonance allows the user to tailor the pedal’s character to their own requirements, and I have to say that of all the ‘simple’ (in terms of feature set, not the underlying technology!) envelope effects pedals I’ve tried, this one is the easiest to use and it produces consistently reliable results regardless of playing dynamics. Whether you’re into ambient music, funk rhythm or wish to combine envelope effects with other pedals to create pseudo‑synth sounds, I think you’re going to like Swello a lot.
Information
£119 including VAT.
$149.50
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