The Old Blood Noise Endeavors Setback is a reverse delay pedal. But that’s underselling it. A normal delay stores your signal and plays it back after a set time. The Setback captures your signal and plays it back — backwards.
The “tail” of a normal delay or echo is reversed so it becomes a swell. This is a pedal built entirely around reverse playback.
OBNE describe their aim clearly: something that can be textural and off on its own timing or totally tempo synced, gritty and characterful or clean and tidy, intuitive and controlled and yet fun and surprising — all in the smallest possible enclosure.
Old Blood Noise Endeavors have been working with reverse effects for a long time — the Rever, the Minim, the BL-44, and elements of the Parting. Each pedal refined their approach to what a reverse effect can be. The Setback is the culmination of all that research and experience.
The result covers an enormous range. At one end the Setback produces clean, rhythmically precise reverse delays. At the other, you get crumbling, pitch-shifted lo-fi sounds with reverse times of up to 24 seconds.
The Controls
- Mix: Sets the wet and dry blend from 100% dry at fully counterclockwise to 100% wet at fully clockwise, with equal blending at noon.
- Speed: Changes the playback speed of the reverse engine, creating pitch-shifting effects. Seven fixed positions from counterclockwise to clockwise: octave down, fifth down, fourth down, unison, fourth up, fifth up, octave up.
- Div: Sets the subdivision of the reverse timing against the tap tempo. Seven fixed positions from counterclockwise to clockwise: Sixteenth, Eighth Triplet, Eighth, Quarter Triplet, Dotted Eighth, Quarter, Half.
- Clock: Adjusts the sample rate of the reverse engine from 500Hz to 48kHz. At 48kHz the signal is clean with a maximum delay time of 0.25 seconds. At 500Hz — a very low sample rate — the signal is heavily degraded and delay time extends up to 24 seconds.
- Aux footswitch: Assignable to tap tempo mode or preset mode. In tap tempo mode, press twice to set tempo and hold for feedback — output feeds back into input creating pads of rising, falling, or degrading delays. In preset mode, press to cycle through the three onboard presets and live mode.
- On/Off footswitch: Soft-touch relay switching — short press latches on or off, long hold is momentary. Selectable true bypass or buffered bypass with trails.
Alt Controls
Accessed by holding Aux while turning a knob:
- Volume (via Mix): Adjusts overall output volume from -6dB to +6dB, with unity at noon.
- Time (via Clock): Linearly adjusts the delay timing within the current Clock setting, from ring-mod fast up to maximum available delay — without changing the Clock sample rate.
Routing
Select Mono, Stereo, or Mono-In-Stereo-Out by holding the On/Off switch and pressing the Preset switch to cycle through options.
In Mono-In-Stereo-Out mode, Setback acts as dual mono — the same signal is sent to both left and right outputs. It does not create stereo spread, but can be used to split the signal to drive separate amplifiers or feed stereo effects further down the chain.
Routing and trails settings save globally.
Presets
Three onboard presets are accessible via the Preset switch. Via MIDI, 127 presets are accessible via Program Change messages. Expression settings are saved per preset.
Key Features
- Reverse delay engine — signal captured and played back backwards in real time
- Four controls — Mix, Speed, Div, Clock
- Speed: seven fixed pitch positions from octave down to octave up
- Div: seven fixed subdivisions from Sixteenth to Half note
- Clock: sample rate 500Hz to 48kHz — delay time 0.25 seconds (clean) to 24 seconds (lo-fi)
- Alt controls for Volume (-6dB to +6dB) and direct Time manipulation
- Three onboard presets — 127 presets accessible via MIDI
- Aux footswitch — tap tempo with held feedback, or preset switching (user assignable)
- Momentary or latching on/off via On/Off footswitch
- Selectable true bypass or buffered bypass with trails
- Mono, Stereo, or Mono-In-Stereo-Out routing
- Analogue dry-through
- Stereo TRS input and output
- Expression input — TRS, assignable to any combination of knobs, saved per preset
- MIDI input — 3.5mm TRS Type A, full CC control, MIDI clock sync, 127 presets via PC
- External tap tempo via OBNE Scooch or similar momentary footswitch (uses expression jack)
- USB jack inside enclosure for firmware updates
- 9V DC centre-negative, 2.1mm, 350mA — no battery
- Dimensions: 3.25″ W x 5″ H x 2″ D
Who Is This For?
Now you know what it does — this is probably fairly obvious. If you want a thorough reverse delay, it’s for you.
The tempo sync, seven tap divisions, fixed pitch intervals, and three onboard presets make it practical for live use. The 500Hz low sample rate opens up genuinely useful lo-fi, ambient and atmospheric territory that most reverse pedals simply can’t reach.
Watch It In Action
FAQs
It captures your playing and plays it back backwards in real time. Rather than hearing an echo of what you played, you hear a reverse swell
It changes the playback speed of the reverse, creating pitch-shifting effects.
It adjusts the sample rate of the reverse engine from 48kHz to 500Hz. This ranges from “hifi clean” to very lofi!
Yes. Use the Aux footswitch in tap tempo mode or sync via MIDI clock input.
Three onboard presets and 127 via MIDI
Yes. Use stereo TRS input and output with analogue dry-through. Three routing options are available: Mono, Stereo, and Mono-In-Stereo-Out. In Mono-In-Stereo-Out
The BL-44 had four controls: Mix, Volume, Speed, and a Clock slider. It had no tap tempo, no presets, no MIDI, and no expression input.
The Setback adds tap tempo with seven subdivisions, three onboard presets plus 127 via MIDI, expression input assignable to any combination of knobs, full MIDI CC control including clock sync, Alt controls for Volume and Time, selectable routing, selectable true bypass or buffered trails, and stereo I/O. It’s a substantially more complete pedal built on the same reverse engine concept.
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