That’s true. That’s why many people go with an all-in-one solution, but they do have their disadvantages. I won’t get into the disadvantages of AIO vs. individual pedals. That’s outside the scope of this discussion, but I’ll mention a couple of things.

First, many pros who have the finances to purchase a top of the line AIO solution, not to save money but for convenience, DON’T. You look at their pedal boards and most of them have multiple pedals whether they just have a few, or many. There are many reasons for this, but just consider that going with individual pedals is clearly not a BAD idea because many (most?) people end up doing it.

But, let’s address the price issue. One important advantage with individual pedals is that you can start off with a small set and add other things over time without giving up the quality and flexibility of the individual effects. As you already mentioned, you can probably get by with the spring reverb in your amp. Is it a real spring reverb? If so, that’s actually the holy grail of many digital reverbs, including the Holy Grail, hence the name. If you have a real analogue spring reverb tank, then you should be pretty happy with that. Even if it’s not, you can at least live with it until you can budget something else.

Still addressing price, the EHX Nano pedals, like the Small Stone (Nano Chassis) ( https://www.ehx.com/products/small-stone ) and the Nano Looper 360 ( https://www.ehx.com/products/nano-looper-360 ) are very affordable pedals that provide the most important core functionalities that you need. More deluxe versions give you more control and flexibility, but the Nano versions give you the ability to dial in the most popular and generally useful settings.

The Nano Small Stone is selling for $71.60 on Sweetwater.com and I’ve seen them gently used for around $50 with free shipping on Ebay. The Nano Looper 360 is selling new for $91 on Sweetwater.com and I just bought an open box demo for $75 with free shipping on Ebay. You can find deals on these if you’re a bit patient. So, really it comes down to spending maybe $150 or less for the initial setup which will give you what you want and you’ll be able to expand it after that.

If you have a real spring reverb that you’re happy with and you still have money left in your budget, then you can consider getting a Memory Toy delay instead of a reverb. That would be the next pedal I would recommend – a simple analogue delay.

As for trying them out, that’s always the best way, but Electro-Harmonix has lots of videos on their pages demonstrating their products, and you can also see many third party videos on YouTube comparing their products to each other and to other manufacturers products.

I would love to see a really nasty 8 bit pedal from EHX, maybe with a PLL synth too.

Gentle, slow, “swirling” effects are generically referred to as “modulation”. This includes

tremolo – a cyclical change in volume.

vibrato – a cyclical change in pitch.

phase shifting – a cyclical change in the phase of the signal, like an ambulance approaching then leaving.

flanging – simulates pressing on the flange of one tape reel while playing back two unison tracks.

chorus – straight sound blended with a pitch shifted sound to make it sound like two instruments playing.

Usually, when you’re hearing a “swirling” sound, it’s either phase shifting, flanging, or chorus. The earliest and still most popular “swirling” sound is phase shifting because it’s more subtle and doesn’t involve any detuning. Flanging, especially after distortion which makes it even more pronounced, is very popular in hard rock and heavy metal. All of these effects can also be used with acoustic guitar, but none of them seem to be as useful, or at least as popular, with acoustic and hollowbody electrics as phase shifting. All can be used with vocals and other instruments, but again they seem to be a bit much, except for maybe a light chorus for other acoustic instruments like voice. So, again, I would say that a decent phase shifter is a good place to start experimenting.

Yes, that’s always the issue isn’t it?

You’ll need TWO EHX effects to do what you’re looking for, the first to create the swirling sound. We’ve already talked about that. The second, to “clamp/sustain” or hold the drone (that’s what a sustained chord is anyway right?) underneath your solo.

EHX has a couple of solutions for setting up a drone. The first, which is specifically designed for that is the Freeze. You press it and it holds that sound until you release it. You CAN set it to “Latch” so that it will hold the sound until you press it again. It’s basically taking a few milliseconds sample and “looping” it over and over again until you tell it to stop. To use it you would need to set up the swirling AFTER the Freeze because the Freeze captures the sound it hears when you step on it. If you set up your swirl before it, it will freeze the swirl when you step on it. In other words, it will stop swirling. Your solo guitar would still be swirling, but your frozen guitar would be “frozen” in mid swirl.

The other EHX solution for setting a drone is one of their loopers. The 360 is the least expensive. It’s the easiest to use, and it does what you need. With a “looper” you can set up drones like with the Freeze, but you can also loop entire chord changes – up to 6 minutes with the 360. Using a looper takes a few more clicks and it will take a bit of practice to set up, but it give you the option of capturing the swirl and things like gentle, slow, arpeggiation of the background chords. You would be able to set up the drone, then change effects for your lead. For instance, you could capture the swirling drone, then turn off the swirl and turn on a delay (echo) for the lead. Loopers have many other uses as well – rhythm machine, practice, effects testing, etc.

So, my amended recommendation is a Holy Grail (or related) reverb, a Small Stone (or related) phase shifter, and a Nano Looper 360. If you think you can get by with your existing spring reverb, the do the phase shifter and the looper.

It is possible to make a pure analogue clean(ish) octave down circuit like the Electro-Harmonix Octave Multiplexer. These can only be monophonic and even the very best ones ever made can be “glitchy”, meaning that they don’t track perfectly and will jump between octaves. They tend to have a sweet spot and tend to work better with low notes. Being monophonic and working better with low notes makes these popular with bass players.

It is possible to make a DIRTY NOT CLEAN, octave up circuit like the Electro-Harmonix Octavix. I don’t think the Octavix is pure analogue, but it is possible to make the circuit purely analogue. These can also only be monophonic (mostly) and they also tend to have a sweet spot which is about the top third of an electric guitar fretboard. You can play double note parts, but you quickly get harmonic interference that sounds like ring modulation.

Some companies combine the clean octave down with the dirty octave up. The Electro-Harmonix Micro Synthesizer does this. You can blend in an analogue octave down, an analogue octave up, the original signal, and a “square wave” which is really just a massively clipped signal – basically distortion. You can then apply filters to them. It’s all analogue and gives you both an octave up and an octave down.

To get anything other than an octave with analogue circuitry, you need to use a phase-locked loop (PLL). This DOES NOT give you the original sound raised or lowered by some arbitrary interval. It allows you to control the pitch of a generated tone, like an analogue synthesizer, with the pitch of an input, like a guitar. So you can have a synthesizer that plays along with you at some arbitrary interval that you can set. It doesn’t sound like a guitar harmonizing with you. It sounds like a synthesizer harmonizing with you. Earthquaker Devices Data Corrupter is all analogue PLL INTERVAL up and/or down device that does this.

If you want GLITCHLESS and CLEAN octave up and/or down, the only way to go is DIGITAL. The Electro-Harmonix Micro POG is a clean octave up/down machine. It is digital. The digital circuit allows algorithms that are smart enough to handle chords and make them sound good by preventing harmonic interference. The Micro POG only gives you octaves, but they are clean, they track perfectly, and they are POLYPHONIC.

The Pitchfork is kind of like the Micro POG, but for any arbitrary pitch. It’s also clean, glitchless, and polyphonic. It’s also DIGITAL. Why would they make both a Micro POG AND a Pitchfork? The algorithms are slightly different. The sounds you get when you mix the intervals together is slightly different. Some people prefer the tracking and tone of the POG and some people prefer the Pitchfork. Most of the reviews I’ve seen comparing the blended octave up AND down polyphonic response or just octave up of the POG and the Pitchfork give the POG a slight edge in terms of tone. People who have both seem to think that there’s room for both on their pedal board. People who choose between the two tend to pick the Pitchfork because it’s much more flexible.

Both of these (and their relatives), by necessity, are DIGITAL circuits.