Gear Test – Maneco Labs Otterley

Now that I have a few of the requisite cables to get my Make Noise synth back in playing shape, I decided to run a quick test of a couple of modules in the support Pod to make sure they would fit well in this system. My first intention was to make this a Make Noise only zone, which it may well still become, but I also wanted to integrate a small bit of gear that I thought might fit well with the Make Noise system comprised of a 4-Zone CV Bus Case and the 0Series. This small 48hp support case isn’t anything special. A couple of Knob Farm Ferry Send/Return modules for interfacing with a few pedals, a couple of blanks that will be replaced by either VCAs or attenuators to condition hot audio, and since I wanted my recording setup for this synth as close as I could get to Subsystems, I added an Expert Sleepers ES-10 ADAT Interface that connects to my audio interface and allows for easy multitrack recording.

But one not-Make-Noise module that is also in the support case is a noisy reverb that I’ve had for about a year, the Maneco Labs Otterley, but didn’t use it much because it’s pretty noisy at anything past about nine o’clock on the reverb dial. The controls are quirky, with no real wet/dry control, but a Reverb 1 control that affects every aspect from the wet/dry mix, to size, to decay, a Reverb 2 control that isn’t really a reverb at all, but a sort of reverse granular delay, and a Feedback knob for Reverb 2. It also has a set of secondary control trim knobs for the granular engine. I don’t think Otterley sold well, I bought mine on a very deep discount, and I’m pretty sure it’s been discontinued. I’ve never really seen much about it, and my initial observations over the last year weren’t necessarily that great. I figured it’s just not very good.

But for some reason I can’t wholly explain, I kept it. I’m certainly not afraid to move gear I don’t gel with quickly. My Reverb shop is fairly active, with almost always something for sale. I move a lot of gear out, and this module should have been something I sold long ago for real lack of use. But something about it interested me. It was noisier than I’d like, but something about that noise was interesting, so I held on to it hoping that one day I might have a spot for it. And what’s more is that generally speaking, I don’t like reverb modules because, in my experience, modulating reverb hasn’t been productive. Reverb is more of a set-and-forget effect, and not something that benefits from modulation outside of a few edge cases for sound design. It’s precisely why I favor reverb pedals, and use three of them with Subsystems, while having zero racked reverbs outside of those found in modules like the Mutable Instruments Clouds and Beads. That I decided to keep the Otterley when you consider that I don’t like Eurorack reverbs, didn’t particularly care for this one in specific, and have the tendency to quickly sell modules I don’t like, really baffles me. But once I knew I’d have a dedicated space for a Make Noise synth, particularly after my first encounters with a Strega, I knew the Otterley would be perfect. At least paired with the Make Noise synth is a spot where it has a chance to succeed, rather than a spot where it was sure to fail. It seemed to me that at worst, the noise would be indistinguishable from, or masked by the noisy nature of the Strega. In a better scenario that noise could add to the Strega in a positive way. And although I don’t know yet my ultimate determination, I can say that the noise of this really weird reverb is at least masked by the Strega, and Reverb 1 adds a very interesting stereo field without being terribly noticeable. The size and decay can become very long, carrying on seemingly infinitely, or at least until I got tired of waiting for the tail to resolve and turned down the knob.

I’m still yet not at all decided whether I like Reverb 2, the reverse granular delay. I’m sure that it’s highly dependent on the material fed to it, but I’m not sure that I understand it when used in context of a standard Strega drone. It seemed most interesting when pitched up an octave or two, but there’s still a whole lot of testing to do with this section. It’s possible that it’s simply not all that useful, though if not, it doesn’t bode well for the AC Noises Ricorda that is currently the system’s reverb pedal and has similar granular controls (although not only in reverse).

I very much look forward to further exploring the Otterley.

A Note:
The faceplate of the Otterley is quite interesting. Not simply the design, but that the design is on an upraised section atop a normal faceplate, giving it texture and depth. It’s really cool.

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