The Keeley Memphis Sun gives you a wealth of tones for capturing that classic Rock-and-Roll sound as well as sounds you’ve not heard before. It’s NeoVintage. It’s an Echo and Reverb pedal. This is Keeley’s second studio themed pedal. Like the Keeley 30ms ADT this pedal gives you a wealth of tones for capturing that classic Rock-and-Roll sound as well as sounds you’ve not heard before. It’s NeoVintage. It’s an Echo and Reverb pedal.
Think of this pedal as three different effects:
- ECHO 600 – Echo for Long Delays
- SUN MODE – Auto Track-Doubling and Slapback with Short Delays
- REVERB – Room Reverb – Full Studio Studio Simulation.
- Both of the ECHO 600 and SUN MODE effects have a Room Reverb. It’s a one-knob, rock and roll type of room reverb.
Room Reverb
The Room Reverb simulates a small 33' by 18' asbestos tiled room so filled with music the sounds actually get compressed. Keeley added a slight amount of 'room compression' to the reverb; it almost lives and breathes. They even took into account the frequency response of the mics used then. The RCA 77 is loosely simulated by a group of filters including a HPF = 300 Hz and LPF = 8 kHz. Many artifacts are incorporated in the room reverb. In fact, second and third order harmonics are added to make sure it sounds Just Right.
Sun Mode
No automatic double tracking was available in the 1950s, but it’s been added in here because it makes a wonderful sound. And, if you lengthen the time it goes right into slapback territory, which is at the foundation of Country and Rock and Roll guitar sounds. The Keeley 30ms is a very unique double tracker that creates two pristine voices in stereo. This is mono only. Adjusting the Time Control lets you easily create anything from Double Tracking to Slapback with up to 180ms of delay time.
Slapback 600
Filtering in the Slackback Mode is done in stages. First Keeley heavily filtered the response at 1 kHz then compress the thing. Next they filter it again at 1 kHz! Sounds like Rock and Roll, right? They’ve added 2nd and 3rd order harmonics to this mix that simulate tape response and equipment distortions. Waves folded back on themselves.