DryBell Vibe Machine

The intro to “Machine Gun” from Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys, or the splashy chord rakes at the beginning of Pink Floyd’s “Breathe”. To me, there are no sweeter sounds in rock history, and that’s the reason I had to get my hands on a univibe pedal.

For several years now, a small company in Croatia called DryBell has made what has been consistently been reviewed as one of the best univibe pedals on the market, the Vibe Machine. Now, DryBell has released the V2, which keeps all the character of the original but has revamped the pedal with some new additional features.

One of the most important features the V-2 keeps is the original’s size – as classic univibes were often huge pedals, they could be pretty tough to fit on your pedalboard. DryBell has managed to fit a ton of useful features into a standard small pedal size while keeping an authentic univibe sound – something other manufacturers struggle to achieve.

Like its predecessor, the VibeMachine V-2 is easy to plug and play, by using the two adjustable dials: Speed and Intensity. As with classic univibes, you can choose between the Chorus or Vibrato modes. The V-2 keeps the “original” and “bright” choices from the original but have added a “custom” setting that uses a trimmer to adjust between original and bright giving a much wider spectrum of sound and tone.

But for those looking to really dial in their tone, the additional switches and internal trimmers allow for a lot of versatility and tonal options. Chorus trimmer for the “chewiness,” grit for the pedal presence, range and symmetry for the throbbing, as well as input impedance and output gain can all be adjusted using “set and forget’ trimmers. And using an external expression pedal can really unlock a whole new range of sounds, or you can use the optional DryBell footswitch to control tap tempo, Leslie fast/slow mode, two-speed mode or to engage the cancel function.

DryBell makes all of their pedals by hand, demonstrating this is a labor of love for them. It all started when founder Zvonch was introduced to his friend Kruno, guitarist of the popular Croatian rock band Majke, who was in search of a good vibe pedal. In his words, “When I figured out that making a good vibe pedal isn't easy at all, the whole thing became fun." Challenge accepted!

It seems that DryBell ascribes to the “do one thing and do it well” philosophy, since they currently make only the Vibe Machine, but we asked them about their future plans:

"We've tried many other pedals and it's a very fun world to explore. At the moment we're into something rather unique, we will keep the details away from public for now, but stay tuned to drybell.com!"

Compact size, authentic univibe tone, and wide variety of options make the Vibe Machine (for us) the best univibe pedal on the market today. And it's hand-made right here in Europe! Check out the demos to hear it for yourself....