Review : Keeley Caverns
Ok this is just my opinion, but I think that there are two classes of pedal effects. The common and relatively inexpensive that do a decent job and are the mainstay of many pedal boards, and then the more esoteric or refined choices that are used in a lower volume, cost a bit more and provide a different soundscape. I am an admitted pedal geek, having more than I really need. I’m not Dan Steinhardt of That Pedal Show in terms of owned quantity or knowledge but I have been playing guitar for a long time (adequately at best) and know what I like.
Robert Keeley is the man behind Keeley Effects. As of this writing, I only own three Keeley products, the D&M Drive, the excellent 30MS Double Tracker and today’s write up, the Caverns.
My friend and long time guitar specialist tweaker Darryl Bradley of The Arts Music Store in Newmarket Ontario turned me on to the Caverns. I had mentioned in passing that I was moving my TC Electronic Flashback Mini and TC Electronic Hall of Fame Mini Reverb to my bass rig and would want to replace them in my practice rig based around the Blackstar HT-5R Mk II amplifier. Darryl advised me that I needed to try out the Caverns from Keeley, and arranged for a test period.
Let me say that the testing period was over really quick because this pedal just fit right in. It combines delay and reverb in a what looks to me to be a two sided pedal, not unlike the D&M Drive.
The Delay side offers three voicings, Off, Deep and Light along with controls for Time, Rate, Repeats and Blend. Very intuitive and quick to master. It is based on the proven Keeley Magnetic Echo model which has a very analog tape feel to it. The voicings allow introduction of wow and flutter effects common to analog tape delays of yore.
The Reverb side offers Spring, Modulated and an amazing Shimmer mode. I would say that the Shimmer is the best that I have heard outside of Eventide’s SPACE or H9 MAX pedals. They are of course, excellent but quite a bit more money, being built to do more. The controls are Blend, Decay and Warmth with a Rate control that applies when the Shimmer voicing is used.
The switches are positive and not overly clickey or super resistant. I’m running my unit off a pedal board power supply. The inputs and outputs are TRS type so if you have only a single chain or amp it works great but if you want to use two effect chains or two amps, you just need a TRS male to dual TS female adapter cable
There are also internal DIP switches to enable True Bypass or Trails if you wish. The device manual is really a cheat sheet as is common for stomp boxes.
Even though it is a single page, the necessary info is there to get you going if you happen to be one of the kinds of folks who actually reads the documentation on a product.
My use case is for practicing at low room volumes. That’s why the Blackstar HT-5R Mk II in the first place. While the amp has decent reverb, I prefer the reverb options in the Caverns and it’s pretty much always on. What I particularly appreciate is that when the delay is kicked in, it doesn’t fight with the reverb and there is none of that wallowing soup pot tone found when you mix delay and reverb in other scenarios.
I have bought and tried a lot of delays over the years and own some really marvellous ones, but will propose that you will likely find it hard to beat the functionality and tone in a Caverns with anything else near this price point. Definitely recommended.