Cornerstone Aquarium | Vibe

We all love Vibes don’t we? Their wobbling sound is unique and unmistakable. But we’re also sure you don’t really like some of the limits that the classic circuit used to have such as volume loss and tonal change, which often happens in classic Univibe-based pedals.

The Aquarium is Cornerstone’s take on the classic Univibe sound. Their goal was to design a pedal that creates the beautiful three-dimensional chorus/vibrato tones of an original ‘Vibe, fixing some the common issues of the classic vintage units yet maintain their commitment to simplicity of operation, tonal flexibility and beautiful modern pedalboard-friendly design.

The Aquarium features true 100% analog circuitry, dual speed controls, true bypass switching, board friendly top mounted jacks, and runs on 18V, key to obtaining those classic rich deep ‘Vibe tones from the analog bulb circuitry within.

Vibe pedals often suck volume and get lost in a mix when engaged. That’s a fact. That’s why Cornerstone felt the need for a master output volume to cut or boost it where necessary. Unity volume is around 55% rotation, this makes it very useful to boost the front end of the amp with the Vibe itself (highly recommended!).

In many Vibe pedals you can notice a slight ‘tone change’: your tone can often become overly ‘dark‘ because of the complex phase shifting effect. And especially when you put a fuzz in front, it can become muddy. With a dedicated Tone control you’ll be able to resolve this.

In a professional recording Studio, many pros with Vibe pedals often split their guitar signal and do parallel mixing to preserve the integrity of their dry signal and just add a little bit of vibe on top of it. The Cornerstone Mix control allows you to do this within the Aquarium itself. This ability to be blend the dry signal with the wet gives a huge range of versatility. You can choose to switch between blend mode or mix mode. Blend mode allows everything from 100% full wet effect with the knob all the way up to 100% dry with the knob fully down, and all points in-between to find your own perfect balance of sound. With Mix mode, the dry signal is always at 100% and the Mix knob just controls the volume level of the wet vibe sound added on top of it. This mode maintains all the integrity of the clean sound with its bottom end and attack, yet creates a different approach a classic vibe sound with many more subtle sound shades available.

There are two independent speed controls which can be chosen using the dedicated footswitch. But this is not all, with the Inertia switch you also choose how fast you want to morph between the two speeds by selecting Instant, Medium or Slow, allowing you to create beautiful classic rotary speaker like effects. There’s also a ‘Momentary Speed Change’ function: you just press and hold the ‘Speed1/Speed2’ footswitch to momentary swap between the two speeds controls with a Medium inertia. 

Please keep in mind that the Aquarium runs at 18v only.