Glowfly's new Flow Decoder is a really smart and colourful Pitch / Warp / Stretch 86 second Looper and Signal Manipulator

As soon as I saw Tom’s artwork for this pedal it brought to mind a tropical reef - and I thought I would be able to do a pretty cool visual around that theme - which turned out somewhat high concept in execution - but beautifully contextual as far as I’m concerned!

Tom is the master of these kinds of signal manipulators and texturisers where I previously reviewed his Retroflect LoFi Tape Simulator / Modulator - which I really love too. The Flow Decoder is a similar pedal in its core utility - in that on the surface it all seems really rather simple - but there are so many cool effects you can deliver with that particular complement of controls - that you always have a more extensive palate than you initially might think to be the case. Tom really gets the most out of his 5 knobs here. Where I particularly like the chirrupy sounds you can hear early in the demo! I use the somewhat more complex Chase Bliss Onward to create some cool choppy randomised pitched chirrupy sounds in a similar vein. There are definitely parallels in those aspects.

Controls - Pitch : < -Octave | Octave+ >, Speed : , Mod (Random Pitch Drops), Volume, Drag (Playback Position) : < towards Loop Start | towards Loop End >, Rec Footswitch, Play Footswitch.

Several of the knobs have dual vectors of control - where you can sort of cut up and accentuate your mini loops in several interesting ways. In some ways I see this pedal as more of an incidental / specialist / impact pedal within your repertoire of groove delivery - very much for signature interludes, intros and outros - to my mind at least - while I’m sure several will be able to work this in and out of a full track!

The below demo is short and sweet, and tells you everything you need to know in the least amount of time - and with some really cool sounds samples along the way.

All of Tom’s Glofwly Effects are very well priced - where this Flow Decoder goes for £145 on the Glowfly Webstore. I’m certainly looking forward to getting my hands on one of these in the not too distant future.

I was due to check out the Glitchwave567 too at some stage - where the latest edition looks amazing (I reviewed the very first version of that pedal under the previous Wraa Defects brand). Now that I’ve reconnected with Tom - there are plenty more cool pedals here for my to check out over the coming months!