Black Country Customs/Laney Secret Path Reverb Pedal | REVIEW

Black Country Customs/Laney Secret Path Reverb Pedal

MSRP: (UK) £139 / (US) $199

Based on the classic vintage and studio sounds of the past, the BCC Secret Path Reverb is a boutique pedal from Laney filled with lush spring and reverb sounds mixed with contemporary reliability. Billed as a reverb that can provide a deep, dark, mesmerising ambience with a sublime, brooding, dynamically evolving shimmer, Sam Bell takes a closer look at this exciting new stompbox.

Laney is well known for its genre-defining amps, which deliver crunchy British tone and attack. They are now going to be well known for making great pedals with their Black Country Customs series of Guitar Pedals. Their aim has been to make fantastic sounding pedals with plenty of character that doesn't crowd your tone, budget or pedalboard! They have certainly delivered.

In this issue, I'm taking a look at the BCC Secret Path Reverb pedal. I've been using the Secret Path as part of my own rig for a little while now; it's safe to say it still blows my mind. If you're wanting some classic reverb sounds with depth, versatility and some extra ambient mojo, the Secret Path is well worth searching out for. Let's take a look at some of its features.

The pedal is based on three distinctive reverb sounds, Plate, Spring and Secret Path. Plate being a classic plate reverb, Spring being Spring and the Secret Path. The Secret Path reverb is a unique reverb to this pedal; it's a dark, broody reverb. Fantastic for ambient and deep soundscapes.

Each of these sounds can be manipulated via the four control knobs, which allow us to change the reverb's mix, tone, pre-delay, and size. If that's not enough, when holding down the main footswitch, the pedal enters 'enhanced' mode, which allows us to add some modulation to the Plate and Spring Reverbs and an excellent ethereal shimmer effect to the Secret Path reverb. We can control the amount and intensity of the enhanced mode by pressing the 'edit' switch in the middle of the pedal, which allows the 'size' control to be used as an 'enhance' control. Super awesome and very simple.

The Reverb modes are easily switchable with a toggle switch between the control knobs, the three colour LED clearly shows which reverb you're currently on. It also pulses when in enhanced mode. The footswitch is silent, and the build quality is fantastic. My only loving critique would be that whilst the knobs themselves look very cool, its hard to quite make out where you are, especially in a dark stage or studio setting. This pedal, however, is certainly something that can be set and left on as part of a rig, so once you've found your sweet spot, you can leave it and get on with creating music, which is great!

What I love most about this pedal is that it's not afraid; whilst it can add subtle amounts of ambience to your tone, it also can give other famous reverb pedals such as The Blackhole Reverb from Eventide or even the Blue Sky by Strymon (both costly pedals comparatively). Even when we compare it to the similar cost levels of the Boss RV6, the Secret Path still stands out with its features and depth of sound.

For more information, please visit:

www.laney.co.uk/products/collection/black-country-customs