The Catalinbread Soft Focus is an instant shoegaze button. It’s a heavily modified plate reverb inspired by the “Soft Focus” patch from the Yamaha FX500 rack unit, the one Slowdive leaned on for Souvlaki. Catalinbread’s version splits the reverb signal into three parallel paths: a multi-voiced chorus modulator, an octave-up blended into the wet signal, and an untouched plate tail. The result is a washy, shimmering texture that doesn’t sound like any other reverb pedal.
The panel reads left to right across two rows. Top row: Symph, Mod, Verb. Bottom row: Mix on the left, Vol on the right.
Symph sets how much of the octave-up mixes into the wet signal. Mod controls the chorus rate and affects reverb oscillation frequencies, so higher settings get wobblier. Verb sets decay time. Mix blends wet and dry. Vol adds gain to the dry signal and sits at unity around 9 o’clock, leaving serious clean volume on tap to push an amp’s front end.
In the demo above I’ve set up sweeps for the Symph, Mod and Verb knobs so you can hear exactly what each one does in isolation.
All five controls are very interactive, and the good news is it’s hard to land on a bad setting. The “Washy, Modulated Reverb” preset has Symph and Mod both maxed at 10 with Verb at 6 and Mix at 8, which is the full shoegaze treatment: lush, swirling, and dripping. Pull Symph back to 2 and Mod back to 2 with Verb at 10 and you get “Space Pad Verb,” a long, still decay with very little shimmer movement. Set Verb to 0 and push Mod to 8 (the “Magic Room” preset) and you hear how much the chorus modulator stands on its own even with almost no reverb tail.
I’m thoroughly enchanted by the sounds this thing makes. It’s so tasteful and lush no matter how you set the controls, and it doesn’t really sound like any other reverb I know.
It also works beautifully as an early-chain reverb. In front of a distortion like the Black Mass 1312, it creates a rich and textured noise rock sound without being harsh or uncontrollable. That combination is the “Obviously it Shoegazes” preset in the demo: the 1312 at gain 6, filter 6, and level 7, followed by the Soft Focus at Symph 10, Mod 10, Verb 5, and Mix 8.
I found the Soft Focus to be very inspiring. Every guitar track on this demo has some reverb from it, either before or after distortion. It’s very versatile and easy to tweak, but at the same time it doesn’t really matter how you set the knobs because all settings sound beautiful.
The Soft Focus Deluxe takes the same core concept and expands it considerably. The Deluxe restores the digital delay from the original FX500 patch (which was omitted from the original Soft Focus to preserve circuit memory for better reverb quality), adds six distinct programs covering infinite reverb tails, deeper modulation, shimmer verbs and pitch delays, a footswitchable distortion circuit, and a multi-function expression/tap-tempo jack.
The original Soft Focus is the right choice if what you want is exactly that one classic patch, with simple analog-style controls and no menu diving. Five knobs, one sound world, and it nails it every time. If you want to stay in that sonic territory but need more flexibility across programs, tap tempo, or that integrated distortion, the Deluxe makes the case for the upgrade.
Shoegaze and dream pop players are the obvious audience, but the Soft Focus is genuinely useful for anyone who wants a lush ambient reverb with harmonic shimmer baked in. It works beautifully as an always-on texture pedal, as a late-chain washer, or pre-distortion for that soaked-then-saturated noise rock sound. The honest caveat: if you’re after a clean, transparent room or hall reverb with precise decay control, this is not that pedal. The modulation and octave are part of the DNA, not optional extras.
Main Guitar
Guitar Overdubs
I tried to create a little shoegaze homage, so I’ve made extensive use of the Descendant Vibrato on my Stellarosa.
I’ve double tracked pretty much all overdubs with different pickup configurations and hard-panned them left and right. For the second half of the loop, I used lots of Soft Focus reverb into the Black Mass 1312.
For lower gain sounds, I’ve used the Calamity Drive into the Soft Focus.
I also used the CBA MOOD together with the Soft Focus and the 1312 to create modulated pads with a bit of noise. I hard-panned a few tracks and mixed it down very subtly. I do this a lot for backing tracks. It just creates an extra layer of ambience and widens the stereo image a little.
Bass
I’ve mixed the processed signal with the unaffected D.I. signal. I applied an aggressive low-pass filter to the D.I. bass. This was just to get back some low-end that was lost because of the distortion.
Drums
The whole mix was “mastered” with exciter, limiter and mild compression in the DAW.
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Get detailed specs on Catalinbread's website
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