Old Blood Noise Endeavors's ingenious Float Dual Moving Parallel Stereo Filter takes the Filter Pedal Format to new heights

OBNE seem to be on something of a roll this year - with a hat trick of killer releases now - the V2 Excess, Screen Violence, and this revolutionary Float Filter! 

Controls - 2 x (Filter 1 + Filter 2) Cutoff, Sensitivity, Volume, Rate, Resonance, Filter : LP / BP / HP, Shape : Triangle, Sine, Square, Ramp Down, Ramp Up, Random, + universal Sync : On/Off, and Envelope Trigger : Min/Max, Right Footswitch Filter 1 Engage, Left Footswitch Filter 2 Engage.

So we essentially have 2 full-featured filters - which you can route in series or parallel, stereo or mono - depending on how you cable it up. Each side has 7 controls, and then you have 2 central toggle-switches which impact both sides.

The Sync switch essentially syncs the Filter 2 LFO with Filter 1 LFO - but you can still speed it up - while it remains in perfect proportion to filter one - so really a matter of rate divisions and multipliers - double time, triple time etc.

The Min / Max switch in conjunction with the Sensitivity and Rate knobs allows you to trigger dynamic changes based on your playing style - such that harder playing speeds up or slows down the LFO or intensity - depending on how those controls are set.

Such is the prowess of this device that you can do all manner of pseudo modulations with it - sort of phaser and harmonic tremolo sounds in particular. And all the usual Filter types sounds including of course auto-wah.

There are other devices which concentrate more on step-filtering, while the combination of features here and having them doubled up gives you all kinds of possibilities and capabilities that you really don’t get with anything else.

You can then acquire the matched Expression Slider ($44) and Expression Ramper ($69) for a most formidable Filter of mass destruction / deviation - I will for sure try to pick up all 3 matched devices when I get around to acquiring one!

The Float unit goes for a pretty reasonable $299 - while if you go for the full matched set of 3 it amounts to $412 which is a pretty significant outlay. All available right now via the Old Blood Noise Endeavours Webstore and at leading dealers.

I feel this is one of those pedals you really need to allow to bed into your routine for a good month or so to get the most out of it. There are so many different options in routing and deployment here - and cool combinations with expression control.

This is a very different kind of Filter where I thought I was about done with them by now - in terms of my capsule collection. But I’m not aware of anything quite like this out there - while others do offer more patterns as such individually - but really not all the smart combinations of the Float. I feel there is something of a learning curve to getting the most out of this - while getting up and started is really very simple. It’s the sore of pedal that has immediate basic uses and a number of more complex ones too.

Because of its form-factor - which is still incredibly slim, but horizontal BB-style enclosure - it would still be something of a bit-player for me within my setup - as probably I would have to drop a couple of pedal slots to accommodate it - but probably still worth it!

Key  Features

• Dual Moving Filter effects pedal
• Two independent filters, each with control over filter type, cutoff frequency, LFO rate, envelope sensitivity, LFO shape, resonance and volume
• True stereo, parallel mono, or series mono operation via top-mounted jacks
• Min/Max toggle for precise sculpting of LFO and envelope range
• Sync toggle to link the LFO or envelope elements of Filter 1 to Filter 2
• Expression jack to externally control Cut-off or Rate for each filter
• Soft touch switching with true relay bypass
• Hidden settings for LFO phase and envelope speed
• Pedalboard friendly size
• Made in the USA
• Powered by 9V DC PSU, (centre -, 2,1 mm, ~100 mA current draw)
• Dimensions : 117 x 92 x 60 mm
• MAPP / RRP : $299
• Matching Expression Slider : $44
• Matching Expression Ramper : $69