Horrothia FX Berkeley Vibe

The Teeth Overdrive and Type One Chorus from Horrothia FX were two of our favorite pedals of last year, so when they announced the release of the Berkeley Vibe, we were super stoked. Turns out, they know how to make an incredible vibrato pedal, too, and we’ve got it here for you today. Bringing all the vintage glory of the vibe machines from decades past into a smaller enclosure with some modern options, this little black box pushes the limit of modulation to the brink…

The Berkeley’s signal path is almost exactly identical to the original late 60’s vibe. Carbon film resistors, Mylar caps, transistors chosen for very very similar or identical characteristics to the originals. Some small key changes have been made in line with mods that were done in the late 60’s to open up the low-end and add more liquid movement. There are 4 photocells, but no bulb. Hand chosen Vactrols are matched one by one in a custom test fixture to make sure that every component works within a well defined ‘sweet spot’ range. No guessing here.

The LFO shape is the real key to getting the right behaviour from a vibe. There are several interdependent things going on here. The originals’ bulb led to beautiful organic nonlinear waveforms when plotted on an axis. The faster the rate, the more the wave ‘leans’ or ‘skews’ giving the notorious throb. Also, the intensity changes as the rate changes, again down to bulb characteristics. The ‘trend’ or ‘bias’ of the waveform also moves as the intensity AND rate changes… a complex picture. All of this behaviour was taken in and modelled digitally. The LFO that controls the photo-cells is digital but analogue smoothed so there are no uncharismatic spikes or glitches.

3 internal trimmers let you further sculpt your sound – Phase Notch Depth allows you to fine tune the balance between the wet and dry signals in chorus mode. The Voicing control is more complex – at the Vintage extreme, the LFO shows the full idiosyncratic behaviour of the vintage units. Dialing it back to the Modern extreme, the Berkeley shows less and less of these characteristics and the depth becomes as wide as the unit can operate. Wider sweeps paint a more contemporary picture.

You can use a TRS-to-3.5mm cable to connect an Expression pedal as well, letting you set the speed hands-free. You can even choose the Bypass mode as well – either just switch off the LFO, or change to relay true bypass. Classic sounds infused with some modern perks, the Berkeley Vibe is one of the best vibe re-creations to ever come through our doors. Cheers to Horrothia FX on another gem of a pedal – head to their website for more info and ordering, and don’t forget to check out our demo video below!!

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