The Swindler Effects Red Mountain is a highly potent Stereo Harmonic Tremolo with some unique and handy features

The Red Mountain is my 29th Tremolo, my 13th Harmonic style of tremolo, and one of just 4 stereo Tremolos - alongside the Flower Pedals Sunflower, Kinotone Sparks, and Walrus Audio Monumental.

This one has been on the wishlist a while - as for a long time it was a little ahead of the curve in terms of its advanced features, but other pedals have since caught up. Overall the Red Mountain is still a compelling option.

It has a few less Waveforms than most - but a cool Stutter / Kill Switch variety - which you manually trigger - and which you can deploy as a pattern tremolo of sorts.

The ramping features are great, and the Ping-Pong out of phase mode is very unique. Seemingly my stereo harmonic tremolos don’t tend to be as flavoursome as some of the mono ones, and the JAM Pedals Harmonious Monk is pretty much in a category of its own as regards the richness of its output texture.

That said, the Red Mountain sounds pretty glorious too - but you have to fairly crank the Depth and Level dials to get to the flavour!

And I really like the ramp features here - where I’m very used to that typically Leslie style of ramping - across 3 variations - slowdown, speedup and alternating slow / speedy each time you press that footswitch.

Controls - Speed, Depth, Level, Division : Quarter / Dotted Eighth / Eighth / Triplet / Sixteenth, Ø Phase / Mode / [Ramp] : Ping-Pong, Amplitude / Hamrmonic | [Ramp : < Slowdown / Alternate / Speed-Up>, Waveform : Sine / Triangle / Square / Ramp Up / Ramp Down / Stutter, Tap | Hold - Ramp | Manual Stutter Footswitch, Bypass | Hold - Favourite Footswitch.

Press both footswitches together to save Favourite Preset, Press-hold Tap / Ramp Footswitch and adjust Ramp Speed via ’Speed’ control.

For sure you need to read the manual a couple of times for everything to settle in - in fact I only noticed some of the Stutter elements on later read-throughs - where the Ø switch controls the impact of the stutter - whether it’s low to start with and you tap-in (Middle), or whether fully engaged and you tap out (Left), when that switch is on the right hand side - you flip between the 2 stereo channels - the other two modes target the full output, while the right switch cuts just one channel at a time in alternating fashion.

As you’ve gathered - there is a slight learning curve here, while overall the pedal is very straightforward to handle - once you know what you’re dealing with. My only criticism here is the teeny tiny legends - which are barely legible up close and personal - and entirely invisible when viewed from a typical standing height. I personally would endeavour to make those a touch more legible. Otherwise this is a really decent take - with a number of its own advantages.

Drew Swindle has not been active on social media for quite a while - and I was concerned that I might have left this acquisition too late. But the site still takes orders, and as it mentions on said site - my pedal was duly shipped within the 3 week production cycle target. Drew most definitely does not like to be chased - and he will just refer you back to the FAQ that tells you the approximate timings - and that if you’r impatient - you’re probably on the wrong site! I read all that in advance and just let it flow - and I was not disappointed. The pedal itself is $250 from the Swindler Effects Webstore which seems very reasonable, and I paid a further $38 for shipping to the UK.

I’m just waiting for my Rounder Sounds Zebra-Trem to land, where following that review, I will be doing my full 30-strong Tremolo Pedals Rundown. Where I will get into more comparative and head-to-head details. In any case I really like this Red Mountain - it sounds very elegant - perhaps it could have been a touch more ’syrupy’ but really it’s very decent as is!

The backdrop to the pedal is actually not a Red Mountain exactly - but rather Peru’s Rainbow Mountain (Vinicunca) - it is mostly red though!