The first iteration of the Automatone pedals from Chase Bliss Audio, the Preamp MkII, was one of the most innovative and exciting pedals the world has seen. Upping their game, as they always seem to do, CBA have just released their 2nd flying-fader-infused sonic marvel, the CXM 1978 Automatone Reverb. Reaching back to a glorious year for reverb, 1978 produced massive trails, infinite decays, hifi/lofi re-imaginings and gorgeous sonic imperfections. The CXM 1978 was designed in tribute to the coveted Lexicon 224 Digital Reverb – you know why you’re here, let’s get to it…
As with the Preamp MkII, the main focus of the CXM 1978 is the front-and-center faders. The Cross fader sets the crossover point of the Bass and Mids faders, acting as a sort of frequency splitter. The crossover point here is 362Hz: everything above that point goes to the Mids control, everything below to the Bass. Set all the way up, Cross produces a thin reverb with short decay; as you move it down, the decay time and EQ start to expand. These faders are all extremely interactive with each other, making experimentation (and a bit of patience) key to dialing in your favorite sounds.
The Treble fader darkens the reverb reflections, relying on the other EQ settings as well. Mix blends your dry signal with the wet reverb effect, and Pre-Dly sets the delay before the onset of the reverb, and is set by the Clock button. This button sets the fidelity and length of the Pre-Dly control, giving you HiFi (clean, modern), Standard (retro, pleasantly flawed) or LoFi (textured, filtered and degrading). Next to that, Tank Mod lets you adjust the amount of modulation present in the reverb tank. Low, Med and High options offer a nice range of differing mod effect, including chorus and rotary speaker emulation.
Continuing with the buttons, Diffusion is a deceptively multi-faceted control that sets the smearing amount for the initial attack of the sound. Low gives you an uncolored, clear sound; Med is a softer, gentler attack; High introduces Regeneration, and is dependent on the pre-delay time. We then move to Type, where you select Room, Plate or Hall, for three distinct types of reverb character.
The Jump button makes another appearance here on the CXM 1978, as it did on the Preamp MkII, allowing you to jump instantly from one preset to either Preset 0 to Preset 5, or toggle between those two. You can even create custom groups within a bank for quick scrolling capabilities. Speaking of the banks, there are three of them, each containing 10 preset slots, for a total of 30 saved preset options. You can access these banks and presets via the Preset button, or add in a MIDI controller for extended flexibility.
You can assign control to the sliders via an external Expression pedal, and this jack can also be used for 0-5V Control Voltage and a TRS cable. The CXM 1978 also features optional ultra-low-noise, fully balanced I/O, stereo inputs and outputs 32-bit AD/DA conversion and internally boosted +/-15V rails for line level use. This pedal is a collaboration with the fine folks at Meris, and their pro-audio level sound design, coupled with the industrial housing and interactivity of the Automatone shell, give the CXM 1978 the potential to be the reverb to end all reverbs. We’re astounded once again, and want to offer congrats to Joel and the entire Chase Bliss Audio team on yet another marvelous creation. We’re gonna dive in and check out some sounds and functionality in the demo below, please come along and join us!
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