Fairfield Circuitry Shallow Water Demo

Been drooling over this pedal ever since it came out! By now I've tried a bunch of lo-fi pedals, but the shallow water stands out as a unique one.
The damp and LPG knobs are a huge deal to its sound. At first I didn't make the connection to how much influence the damp knob has over the perceived intensity of the modulation… it was pleasant, but subtle. Buuuut once I did it really opened up the pedal and I understood just how interactive all the controls were. At lower settings, the modulation wave shape is more sudden and rigid, and at higher settings it smooths out for a more smooth sound. This makes for a lot of possibilities for interplay between the damp, rate, and depth knobs. I love a high rate with low damp and depth settings for amazing flutters, or a high-ish damp setting with maximum depth and a slow rate for blurbs of tiny little “imperfections.”
LPG provides the main tonality from muffled, dark, and murky to bright and delicate. I love how far it can sweep and how it makes the pedal respond differently to small variations in pick attack or what's stacked before it; can add a lot to the random nature of the pedal. It does do a good neutral sound though at around 1-2:00 which I liked a TON for the chorus sounds. It actually surprised me how much I liked the mix set around the middle (give or take a bit). Before getting this pedal I had read how dialing in chorus on it was nice, but erring on the side of too subtle. And it can be if you want it to… but you can also dial it in for a really solid nice jangly indie chorus that I loved - showed a few of my favorite chorus settings off in the video.
And lastly, the random modulation! My favorite place to put the shallow water is nearly last in the chain; after delay but before reverb (or even after reverb if using it more neutral/subtle). The randomness is great because it doesn’t do the predictable up/down thing that can make other chorus/vibrato pedals sound… “dull” after a while. I wanna say the shallow water doesn’t loose it’s charm even if it’s on more often than not. I’d actually say it does great as an always on pedal. It melds super well with the signal and becomes a part of it (no pre-delay on this one!). And like I said, it’s a great sound placed after delay if you want that imperfect tape sound. Definitely one that adds a certain something that you can miss if you turn it off.


Gear: Fender thinline jaguar, Fender '65 princeton reverb reissue
Pedals: Fairfield shallow water and accountant, SS/BS mini, DBA reverberation machine, Boss RE-20, EQD ghost echo


*Thanks so much to Fairfield Circuitry for sending me this warbly wonder!


Background art is from Studio Ghibli's The Secret World of Arrietty (2010)