DRAUME

[counttherings]

I was lucky enough to get one of these. I really hope more are on the way very soon for those who weren't so lucky and the flippers eat the loss. There are Fabrikats on Reverb right now marked up $100+ while they're available direct right now.

Edit: Just saw this on IG for those who missed out!

Sorry about the messy release. Thought the updated site would be up for the task this time around. More Draume in March!

[Pladask]

Yeah sorry about the crash. Contacted my domain host after the last crash and thought their fix would stop this from happening again. Next batch scheduled for late March. Will have more Tåken and Fabrikat too at that time (and maybe BAKFRAM).

[raj007]

Congrats on another successful release! Inspiring stuff going on over in Norway

[cantremember]

Congratulations on the successful launch! Very excited for the Bakfram!

[brecht]

Had to work overtime. Reading the comments here I didn't make any chance.

[elefontpress]

Draume arrived yesterday! My first impression was that it isn't what I thought it was. I was thinking it would be a flickery ambient reverb machine and might replace my Afterneath for cavernous echoey drones. But that's not what it is. It is not a generalist reverb at all.

It's grittier, noisier, and sharper. Knut's Lynch/Badalamenti vibe is spot on.

I ended up switching around pedal order this morning and thinking of it as a replacement more for the Shallow Water role on my board (which I sold a few months ago because it was too subtle for live use). It plays the role of a f*cked up gritty, crumbling, "aged" treatment to my sound. It mangles things in a really interesting way. Seems like it can get me to a dark, moody, drones place faster than anything else on my board. Weirdly it seems like I should be able to do this with the combination of the Generation Loss and Afterneath, but it's a very different vibe.

The pure reverb sounds alone are good, but that's not where the pedal shines. The FM/AM/Texture/Clock combinations are where the magic is at. It will get noisy and distorted quick. The FM starts introducing distortion almost immediately. If you want pristine sounds this is not your pedal. It's almost at the opposite end of the spectrum from a Meris or Strymon reverb. Closer in spirit to Death by Audio reverbs, I think. Not striving for hi-fi, because embracing imperfection = character.

The more I embrace that approach (hoping for weirder noises rather than looking for pristine sounds), the more I'm getting into its vibe. The Metal setting is a beast. It's louder than the other two and unpredictable in its swells and resonance. It gets into distortion all by itself with little encouragement. This makes it also feel the most improvisational. I have to listen to what it's doing like a duet partner, not knowing what will happen next. This is really fun, but "predictable" is not what you'll get out of the Metal setting, so expectations are key.

That's my first impressions. Curious to hear if anyone else is getting similar vibes.

[shikawkee]

Draume arrived yesterday! My first impression was that it isn't what I thought it was. I was thinking it would be a flickery ambient reverb machine and might replace my Afterneath for cavernous echoey drones. But that's not what it is. It is not a generalist reverb at all.

It's grittier, noisier, and sharper. Knut's Lynch/Badalamenti vibe is spot on.

I ended up switching around pedal order this morning and thinking of it as a replacement more for the Shallow Water role on my board (which I sold a few months ago because it was too subtle for live use). It plays the role of a f*cked up gritty, crumbling, "aged" treatment to my sound. It mangles things in a really interesting way. Seems like it can get me to a dark, moody, drones place faster than anything else on my board. Weirdly it seems like I should be able to do this with the combination of the Generation Loss and Afterneath, but it's a very different vibe.

The pure reverb sounds alone are good, but that's not where the pedal shines. The FM/AM/Texture/Clock combinations are where the magic is at. It will get noisy and distorted quick. The FM starts introducing distortion almost immediately. If you want pristine sounds this is not your pedal. It's almost at the opposite end of the spectrum from a Meris or Strymon reverb. Closer in spirit to Death by Audio reverbs, I think. Not striving for hi-fi, because embracing imperfection = character.

The more I embrace that approach (hoping for weirder noises rather than looking for pristine sounds), the more I'm getting into its vibe. The Metal setting is a beast. It's louder than the other two and unpredictable in its swells and resonance. It gets into distortion all by itself with little encouragement. This makes it also feel the most improvisational. I have to listen to what it's doing like a duet partner, not knowing what will happen next. This is really fun, but "predictable" is not what you'll get out of the Metal setting, so expectations are key.

That's my first impressions. Curious to hear if anyone else is getting similar vibes.

Great review! Thanks for that.

[cosmicevan]

Anyone with buyers remorse, hit me up before the next drop.

[elefontpress]

Friend here in Canada didn’t gel with it and resold on Reverb this morning within hours for $600 CAD. For reference it was about $460 CAD all told to get it here.

[shikawkee]

Friend here in Canada didn’t gel with it and resold on Reverb this morning within hours for $600 CAD. For reference it was about $460 CAD all told to get it here.

$600 CAD is around $450. US so that sounds about right.

[Pladask]

Thanks for the review! That made me glad

Next batch is well underway and should be ready for late-ish March. Will be bigger than the first batch so hopefully there's enough to go around for all of you.

[raj007]

So, I was lucky and got one as well. Though, I was "nice" and let Ed buy mine as he prepares for his UK departure soon! But, before sending it to him, I played it first, of course. And let me tell you, I plan to get one again in the future. I share a lot of the sentiment of the above review.

This pedal is pure freakin' texture. It's haunting, beautiful, edgy, dreamy...It can do Gen Loss, it can do Fabrikat, it can do RM1N, it can do some of the Cooper side of Dark World...in its own way, of course! But it can approach sounds that I adore from those pedals in its own unique way.

Hall and Grain are pure knockouts. I like Metal as well, but it's a bit more niche for my use. The modulation is dialed in perfectly...the texture knob is hnnggggggggggg.

Each knob offers so much range and options -- but it's so intuitive to use.

Brilliant work.

[elefontpress]

Day 3: it is all about the Clock knob! Swings these reverbs from bright and sparkling to dirty dark and dusty. There are 100 reverb sounds with the Clock and mode switch alone.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B9SoHrvnM1E/?igshid=kc2b2sf58sax

[shikawkee]

So, I was lucky and got one as well. Though, I was "nice" and let Ed buy mine as he prepares for his UK departure soon! But, before sending it to him, I played it first, of course. And let me tell you, I plan to get one again in the future. I share a lot of the sentiment of the above review.

This pedal is pure freakin' texture. It's haunting, beautiful, edgy, dreamy...It can do Gen Loss, it can do Fabrikat, it can do RM1N, it can do some of the Cooper side of Dark World...in its own way, of course! But it can approach sounds that I adore from those pedals in its own unique way.

Hall and Grain are pure knockouts. I like Metal as well, but it's a bit more niche for my use. The modulation is dialed in perfectly...the texture knob is hnnggggggggggg.

Each knob offers so much range and options -- but it's so intuitive to use.

Brilliant work.

Me very excite.

[elefontpress]

Draume

Ok so I ended up keeping the Draume for about a week, putting it through the paces in two different positions on my board to see if it was a keeper. Sadly, it’s not for me, and I just sold it at break even to a fellow ILF member (hey Aaron!). So I thought I’d add my final thoughts here for others to think about.

What I loved about it:
- Having a clock knob on reverb was mind-blowing. This is honestly the best part of Draume for me and the feature I’ll miss the most. So many different tones from clean and sparkly to moody and aged. Love this.
- The FM/AM/Texture settings are fun to play with, especially in conjunction with the clock knob. There’s a lot to like in here, and feels like having a Generation Loss in the FX loop of a reverb, which is fantastic. Feels like a way more sophisticated take on CBA’s Mod Dark World setting. I could not get this feel any other way, even with a Gen Loss and other reverbs on my board.
- The touchy nature of Metal setting is fun to improvise with. You don’t know what will happen, and when it will freak out at you, and that’s super cool.

Here’s ultimately why I didn’t keep it:
- The grain setting is too close to what I can get with the Fabrikat or Particle with a little reverb after it. It’s way too similar to other sounds on my board.
- The FM knob is cool, but it generally introduces its own distortion and noise. I would rather be able to get warble without distortion, and just use the texture when I want grit.
- The Hall reverb is nice but it is very vanilla. I found I preferred the Afterneath set to smooth reverb settings to this reverb. Although I did love it at low clock settings due to the dark nature, the hi-fi version was a little bland, as reverbs go.
- At least with my setup, there’s a lot of white noise in this pedal, especially with long trails. I find as the note slowly fades I can hear the noise start to build up. I have similar problems with other FV1 pedals (like the Afterneath, to a slightly lesser extent). But this limits the appeal of the otherwise amazing 5-minute trails for me. It also made it impossible to use trails mode, because that engaged a degree of white noise in my chain all the time. (I did take the pedal off my board and just ran guitar > Draume > amp to trouble shoot the noise issues. Power supply is a Cioks DC7, so power is clean. Flipping between trails/bypass some noticeable white noise was already audible.)

So there are things I’ll miss about Draume. And if I didn’t have an Afterneath on the board (which shares some of the pros/cons), I may have kept it. But when it came down to it, the Afterneath with its slightly lower noise floor and better overall reverb sound won out. The real flaw wasn’t Druame, though, but my board. With a Particle, Fabrikat, Afterneath, and Gen Loss, there was too much overlap for it to carve out a unique spot for itself, so something had to go. The problems in the cons section meant it was the pedal I had to kick off. But on the right board, it’s a heck of a tool. Particularly if future versions cleaned up the FM grit, lowered the noise floor, and found a more unique take on the Hall reverb sound.

All that said, Knut is making some of the most unique pedals around, and Draume is still a very inventive reverb. I’ll surely keep trying more Pladask stuff as it hits the streets.