Ask any guitar player and they will likely tell you the same thing: You need reverb and delay pedals on your pedal board. Not only are they versatile and you will likely hear both of the effects used from Pop and Blues, to Punk, Grunge, and Metal. A Majority of Guitar players will use Reverb in either an amplifier that has built in Reverb, or use a pedal while Delay is the most commonly used when you want to add some Ambience to a song. If you want to have individual pedals for each effect, there is that option, but Keeley Electronics have made the Caverns pedals to help save space on your board and have both effects in the same pedal.
Keeley Electronics, founded by Robert Keeley in 2001, has become known for high quality Boutique pedals along the same price range as JHS, Walrus, and Earthquaker Devices. A new company, but has picked up attention from many pedal enthusiast, guitar players including Eric Johnson and Dweezil Zappa, and recently announced some new pedals in collaboration with Andy Timmons. Maybe I will talk about those pedals, if I can get my hands on them. Let's get back to the Caverns though, because I love this pedal.
The Caverns V2 is not too different from the V1. The knobs are a little bigger and the artwork on it is different, but they keep the majority of the setting options and changed very little, so if you prefer the V1, good luck finding one on Reverb, because the V2 has officially replaced it on Retail stores that carry Keeley Electronics pedals.
For this test, I used both my Boss Katana 50 and Marshall DSL40C, and my most recently playthrough of the pedal was used with a Squier Contemporary HH Strat that has been modified with Seymour Duncan Pickups and a previously reviewed Gretsch Streamliner Centerblock.
The pedal is still available for $199 through a majority of retailers. Making it a little more affordable than it would if you bought 2 separate pedals, unless you were buying something from TC Electronics or Mooer. Which is an option, but it is worth the price.
The Caverns features individual on/off buttons for each effect, so if you want only Reverb or Delay, you can do that without any issue and they work very well by themselves. The Reverb side offers 4 control knobs (Blend, Warmth, Decay, and Rate) and a switch for Reverb Type (Shimmer, Spring, and Modulated). My experience with this has me going from a simple background Reverb that is subtle and works well with Fuzz and High Gain, to a crazy Ambient reverb you would hear on a 90's U2 album. The Delay side also having 4 control knobs (Blend, Time, Rate, and Repeats) and a Modulation selection switch (Off, Light, and Deep). Just like the Reverb side, this is very versatile, especially with how the Mod select switch works, making either crazy delays that can last for minutes on a single note to a subtle delay you would hear from someone like Mark Tremonti or Eddy Van Halen.
