Review: Caroline Météore Reverb

TL;DR — A great, musical reverb, albeit one that definitely lives up to its ‘lo-fi’ moniker.

Rating — 8/10

RRP — £199

In the boutique pedal stakes, the reverb and delay market is somewhat less crowded than the distortion and fuzz scene, probably because of the level of extra work required to implement one of these circuits. As a result, at least to me, there often appears to be a little more innovation in this area — beside the fact of course, that timbrally and dynamically these types of effect are often more interesting to begin with.

The Météore certainly seems to conform to this broad assertion. A PT2399 and Belton-brick topology, it follows in the footsteps of a number of DIY spring reverb emulations, as well as delay circuits like the modded Deep Blue that offer momentary oscillation.

As a result of this lineage, it’s probably somewhere in the ballpark circuit-wise of the original EQD Ghost Echo, and to my ear the ‘slap’ of the pre-delay on the reverb circuit certainly has some of the same character. Obviously a dedicated oscillation control opens up a wealth of opportunities for sonic chaos, and it proves something of a USP for the pedal in terms of expressive capability.

In terms of pure tone however, the USP is surely the ‘grittiness’ of this delay. The lo-fi badging refers to the controllable dirt; at its most extreme, the effect is almost that of running a reverb into the front of an amp’s drive channel when it’s on the edge of breakup, and if you’re into that kind of slacker shoegazing sound, then having it in pedal format is surely a win.

If however, like me you’re more prone to experiment with those kind of tones when recording, but prefer a clearer, more pristine reverb tone live, then you might find the Météore somewhat cramps your style. Worse, you might find it to be something of a one-trick pony.

This cuts to the heart of the matter — to fully enjoy the Météore, you have to play in the way that it wants you to play. Going against the grain, or indeed, playing styles of music that don’t suit the pedal well bring up its shortcomings — that it’s loud, it’s noisy, it’s unsubtle, and that it doesn’t always play that well with other drives, depending on their placement in your chain.

As a result, it’s a bit of a ‘marmite’ pedal — you’ll either love it or hate it. In spite of that, and in keeping with my contrarian credentials, I found that I loved the pedal but didn’t really have a use for it, basically for the reasons outlined above.

That said, it’s an inspiring and original piece of gear with a sound that’s pretty distinctive. If it sounds like your kind of thing, then you probably can’t go too far wrong.