Caroline Guitar Company Parabola Solid State Tremolo

Last year, Caroline Guitar Company announced that a limited batch of its new solid-state tremolo effect pedal, the Parabola, would be for sale during the then-upcoming holiday season, before its wider release in 2018. Though only a few lucky players got their hands on the holiday batch, the Parabola has finally come to the mass market. Today, Jake Hawrylak is in the studio taking a closer look at what this new circuit can do.

During the company's Reddit AMA last October, founder and chief product designer Philippe Herndon foretold of the company's "gentle dip into modulation," and now we're seeing what he meant. The Parabola features two modes, AM and FM, based on vintage Schaller Tremolo pedals. AM mode gives users a solid, standard tremolo sound, while FM mode makes for a creamier trem effect that sits behind your playing.

Once players have dialed in their trem settings, they can step onto the Havoc footswitch, which raises the Depth and Rate controls, infusing the signal with bursts of tremolo beyond the range of the speed knob. Use the Parabola's Invader preamp to add extra dirt before your tremolo effect, or turn the Depth knob down entirely to use the pedal as a drive.