Anasounds' description of the Anasounds / Jack White / Third Man Hardware La Grotte spring reverb
THE MIDIUM® CURATOR'S NOTE: Signature Edition
CAM: Recognizing the people behind a musical instrument's creation is as vital as recognizing the artist who plays it, and the audience who appreciates it. In that spirit, The Midium® asked co-inventor of La Grotte and owner of Anasounds Alexandre Ernandez to please sign a run of the La Grotte pedals he developed with Jack White. It is The Midium®'s hope that you feel a deeper connection with your La Grotte Signature Edition, with the knowledge that Alexandre himself added a personal touch to the units in our collection. We hope you enjoy this special pedal, which represents thousands of hours of work between Anasounds, Third Man Hardware, and Jack White.
JACK WHITE'S IDEA FOR A SPRING REVERB.
Welcome to the depths of La Grotte, the “all-in-one” spring reverb designed by Anasounds in close collaboration with Third Man Hardware and thus, Jack White.
We hope this pedal inspires you as much as we enjoyed dreaming and developing it, for Jack White and for you.
TL;DR.
La Grotte is an analog spring reverb collaboration between Third Man Hardware and Anasounds. It is a mechanical reverb with an integrated three-spring tank, but there is also a very warm preamp with a strong character, and an ultra-effective two-band EQ (which only affects the reverb itself). Separate volume controls for direct sound and reverb sound give you access to the ideal mix you've always been looking for. Whatever your sound aesthetic may be, vintage or modern, blues or pop, garage or soul, you'll get that tone with this reverb.
Features
- La Grotte includes new tonal sounds pulled from the Anasounds element pedal and le bon pedal in one single box.
- 100% analog and mechanic
- Dry/Wet setting
- 2 band EQ
- includes an embedded preamp based on Tampco’s Tone Oven.
- High quality spring tanks from Accutronics/Belton in Korea
- A gain control is available inside to crunch even more or even less.
- A -10dB pad is available inside to plug any line input easily
- You can activate or deactivate it internally
- The EQ has a low cut of 700Hz and a high cut of 1.6kHz
- Tons of headroom available.
- The bypass has 2 modes : True bypass or buffered bypass
- You can select them with a toggle switch in side.
- On buffered bypass, when you bypass the pedal, we let the tails die with elegance.
- On true bypass, when you bypass it, you shut down everything abruptly.
- Input impedance is very high and output impedance is very low which makes the system not sensitive to any other pedals. Then you can plug it anywhere in the signal chain, which is uncommon for such a vintage effect.
Sounds
- Versatile sound for any genre
- Sounds more ambient than a classic spring reverb thanks to the 3 springs
- Includes a fade in / fade out mix technic to avoid any splash from a wild and strong footswitch activation on stage.
- Plenty of dB from the preamp to crunch either the Dry or the Wet section
- Ability to choose the time of a crossover to kill the splash.
THE STORY: JUST A REVERB?
La Grotte combines a high-headroom preamp designed with the help of the other French brand Tampco and a three-spring reverb tank. Two separate volume knobs control the dry and wet signals, and a two-band EQ that only affects the reverb sound. This is a pedal born out of a sonic need on White’s part, which means we’ve had to spend a lot of time fine-tuning it to get a deep, spongy, boingy, bright and natural spring reverb sound ideal for a classic surf and garage vibe but that can also work in a more modern context. Thanks to the input level pad, it is also a tool that can be used on bass, synth or as a studio tool for your mixes. Beyond the pride we feel having collaborated with an artist as demanding as Jack White, La Grotte represents the best possible version of our spring reverb, and it should find its spot on any great pedalboard.
Spring reverb was invented back in the 1930s to try and get close to the ambience of a church with a Hammond organ at home. But then the unique sound, the harmonic richness and the depth created by that process has become an integral part of most vintage amps, and even musical genres like surf music or garage rock.
Despite the evolution of very powerful processors with the sole purpose of getting close to that gorgeous spring sound, nothing really gets close to the analog and the mechanical, which accounts for the Anasounds Element continued success since 2019. La Grotte is based on the same technology, but the three-spring tank the size of a Le Bon unit is built in the main pedal for a smoother integration to a pedalboard. Also, the circuit of La Grotte is quite different to allow for a wider sonic range as well as a cleaner sound that is still extremely deep.
Even though it is a signature pedal for the modern garage rock master Jack White, La Grotte will also be the perfect asset for musical genres such as soul, post-rock, reggae, blues and even pop that will greatly benefit from the added soul of an analog spring.
THE POWER OF THE BUILT-IN PREAMP.
A big part of the appeal of iconic spring reverbs like the Fender Reverb Unit or the Roland Space Echo also come from their built-in preamp. A good reverb, or even a great spring reverb, never sounds as rich and full than when it is being pushed by a preamp before the gain stage of the amp.
The deadline for the design of La Grotte was a tricky issue, which is why the Anasounds team called upon an engineer who knows pedals as well as anybody, Rodolphe from Tampco. He used his own Tone Oven as the basis of the design that he came up with in collaboration with Alexandre Ernandez (founder of Anasounds). Then the resulting preamp was fine-tuned in the studio by White and his team to get the exact sound they were looking for. But you don’t have to agree with Jack’s sweet spot, the gain can be controlled with an internal trimpot.
HOW WE MET JACK WHITE AND THIRD MAN HARDWARE.
Fascinated by the Element’s sound, White approached us with the idea of a collaboration between Anasounds and Third Man Hardware, his brand of gear, merch and other goodies. It wasn’t long before we received the first sketches and La Grotte’s project began to take life.
From then on, there were many exchanges with the Third Man team, represented by Dan Mancini, Jack White’s guitar tech, who looked after the technical side of things, and Christina Inman, who ran operations. Call after call, ideas flowed.
La Grotte is a record-breaking project for Anasounds: no less than 400 hours of development, some 9500 hours of production for the first thousand pedals, and +200 components needed to build it.
Thank you for taking part in this adventure, and we hope the result will inspire you. It’s time for you to explore La Grotte and to meet us there.
SPECS.
- Dimensions of La Grotte : 15 x 12.3 x 6,2cm – 5.9 x 4.9 x 2,5 inches