LOTUS YELLOW
BY JOE CHARUPAKORN
Sean Erspamer founded Lotus Pedal Designs in 2009, when—like so many
pedal makers—he couldn’t find stompboxes
that sounded just the way he wanted. Since
then, he has designed a line of eight no-frills pedals including the recently released
Yellow delay featured in this review.
Handbuilt in Bob Dylan’s hometown of
Duluth, Minnesota, Lotus pedals seem to
reflect that region’s hardy spirit—or perhaps
the subdued hues of a Minnesota winter.
You won’t see Lotus pedals covered in flashy
paint or sporting cryptic names for knob
functions, yet within the Yellow’s unfinished
enclosure, you’ll find such top-quality components as Neutrik jacks, Alpha pots, Teflon-coated wiring, and all-analog circuitry.
Straight to Business
Depending on your mood, the Yellow can
exude understated elegance or seem utili-
tarian to the point of frustration. None of
the knobs are labeled, and apart from the
company logo, there’s no sign of print or
graphics. The only visually distinguishing
feature on any of Erspamer’s creations is
the color of the knobs and the
LED, and each pedal is named
accordingly. There are three—
you guessed it—yellow pointer
knobs on the Yellow that con-
trol (from left to right) Time,
Blend, and Repeat. At times, it
was slightly aggravating to try
to remember which knob did
what, so I ended up just mak-
ing a cheat sheet and leaving it
under the pedal. (I pulled out a
few other delay pedals to see if
there’s a universal arrangement
of delay pedal knobs I had for-
gotten about. There isn’t.)
A single footswitch rounds
out the pedal’s simple control
layout with the input and out-
put jacks located on the left
and right sides of the pedal,
respectively. The Yellow runs on
one 9V battery. However, given
that delay units tend to eat bat-
teries and you have to remove
the back panel to change out the
cell, you’ll probably opt to power
the Yellow with an adaptor.
Elegant Echoes
Using a Parker Fly Deluxe, I
ran the Yellow into the effects
loop of a Mesa/Boogie Lone Star
Special head driving a Marshall
Rating:
Buy If...
you want a simple, but sweet-sounding
delay made with top-shelf components.
Skip If...
you need features that are commonly
found in digital delays, such as long delay
times, looping, and tap-tempo capability.
Lotus Pedal Designs
Street $249
lotuspedaldesigns.com
CLICKHere…
or scan this QR code with a
mobile device to hear audio
clips of this pedal at
premierguitar.com/nov2011.
1x12 cabinet, and also straight into an
Ampeg SJ-12R Super Jet with an Ibanez
Tube Screamer before the delay. In both
setups the delay was nothing short of gorgeous. Repeats were ultra warm with a perceptible tape-like treble roll-off and natural
decay. Although the repeats tend toward
slightly dark and soft sounding, they never
muddied my tone.
The Yellow sounded especially nice
through the Lone Star’s loop when I had
the amp set for a smooth lead sound, and
the Yellow set with Time at 2 o’clock, Blend
at 1 o’clock, and Repeat at 3 o’clock. Long
sustained bends sounded thicker and fuller,
and when I played faster flurries of notes,
the Yellow’s mellow repeats did not invade
my sonic space the way a more defined
digital repeat might. Compared to my vintage Ibanez AD- 9, one of the benchmarks
of analog echo, the Yellow sounded more
musical and natural.
The Verdict
There aren’t any fancy features on the
Yellow, and you don’t get an insane
amount of delay time (the Yellow’s range
is from 10 ms to 580 ms). But the high-quality craftsmanship and parts on this
barebones Lotus box combine to produce
beautiful natural tones. If you’re out to
avoid digital sterility and value a simpler
approach to delay, this very unobtrusive
pedal might be all you ever need.
