Hologram Electronics -Microcosm Review
Is it the best pedal ever created?
Well, the Microcosm needs no introduction. Unless you’re living under a rock. Hologram Electronics made an iconic pedal back in 2021 and since then a ton of people got one and earned a permanent place on their pedalboards (or desks). We were lucky enough to receive the Microcosm a few weeks ago and I’ve been using it daily since then on pretty much anything. And I’ve been blown away by how inspiring and magnificent it is!
But what makes the Microcosm so special? I believe that while being a very deep and feature-packed pedal, Microcosm provides instant gratification for anyone that plays a sound through it. In any mode, the results have a wow factor without messing with the knobs. You just set your mix at noon, choose any mode, and play a sound. And you’re done, you’ve now created a rich and marvelous soundscape.
So let’s try to explain what the Microcosm does and how you can get the most out of it.
Microcosm is essentially a delay pedal with a looper and a reverb. Delay in the sense that it repeats the sounds you play in 44 (!) completely different ways. Yes, it has 11 effects with 4 variations each so you’re getting 44 different presets to tweak and adjust to your taste.
To make things a bit easier to process those 11 effects are grouped into 4 main categories.
Micro Loop: Here, your sound is played back with a new rhythmic pattern with notes being sequenced, pitched up or down, with glides between them, etc. Probably the most famous effect of the Microcosm lives in this category, is the Mosaic. Mosaic does a lot of pitch shifting and creates a beautiful melodic pattern even if you play just one note. It’s, like most people, my absolute favorite of the bunch.
Granules: This is a granular mode where small chops of your signal are played back creating a swarm of small fragments. It’s much like a reverb but with more texture and variations.
Glitch: As the name implies, in this mode the sound is re-arranged in different intervals, creating glitchy sequences and patterns. Another great mode is ARP which works like an arpeggiator adding a lot of movement.
Multidelay: The last one is the only category with 2 effects and it’s similar to Micro Loop. In this case, you can get some “standard“ delay effects with PATTERN while with WARP you get darker & pitch-shifted delays.
On every effect, you can press the Mode selector knob, to have the effect reversed. As we all know, everything sounds better in reverse!
Another core functionality of the pedal is its Looper. As expected, you can record and overdub layers but it gets way better once you start playing with the playback speeds. You go as far as 4X and 1/4X of the speed, you can reverse it, have the loop before or after the effects, or even just use it as a standard looper by enabling the Looper-only setting. In Quantize mode, your loops are quantized to the tempo to reduce the gaps you accidentally create while looping and in Burst mode you can create short micro loops for some glitchier stuff! A lot of delay pedals include a looper, just for the sake of having a looper, but in Microcosm’s case, the Looper is 1. An amazing fully featured looper in itself and 2. A great way to use the pedal hands-free and explore its sounds and different modes.
Let’s also do a brief walkthrough of the knobs:
Activity: The Activity knob is a macro control for different parameters on each mode. In general, it controls the density of each effect but that’s an oversimplified answer. Sometimes it adds a bitcrusher and sometimes it will affect the grain size, etc. You’ll have to tweak it for every effect to find out since it works differently for each effect type.
Time & Repeats: In a nutshell, these controls will handle your delay time and feedback. The Repeats knob also has a secondary functionality of the Mod Depth.
Shape: With Shape, you can change the waveform shape. But what does the waveform does? It’s applying a contour to the effect’s volume and filter adding some extra movement. Its secondary function, it’s the Mod Rate of the Pitch Modulation.
Filter: A very nice Low-Pass resonant filter. By holding Shift, you can increase its Resonance. The filter is super useful since some effects are very prominent, even in very low Mix settings. So, having the ability to cut some high frequencies is much appreciated.
Space: Space is the control for the Microcosm’s reverb. Microcosm has 4 different reverb algorithms (you can change the algorithm by holding shift and using the Space knob) and they all sound great. The reverb itself is so lush and beautiful, it could be a pedal on its own. If you don’t have a reverb pedal, this one might be enough since it sounds that good. The only thing to keep in mind is that it drowns the sound fast so keeping it to a low setting will be best to maintain some clarity to your signal.
Mix & Loop Level: Mix is the dry/wet control and in its secondary function controls the effect’s volume (very useful) and Loop level controls the Phrase Looper’s volume and the loop fade time in its secondary function.
Ok, enough with the specs. Note that, the Microcosm comes with an excellent and easy-to-read manual that you can have with you as you learn the pedal.
Is it worth it?
The Microcosm is not a cheap pedal, as it retails for about 460$ with a power supply included. But in my opinion, it’s definitely worth every dollar. It is hands-down the most impressive and satisfying pedal I’ve ever used (and I’ve played lots of pedals).
I see a lot of people saying that it’s a great choice for ambient music, which is definitely true, but I think that the Microcosm is almost for everyone that makes music. Ok, maybe not if you’re playing black metal but for any type of electronic music, pop, indie rock, you name it, it’s a great option. Even if you just use it to add some background ambience to your sounds, it’s unmatched.
Does it have any cons? After playing with it for a while, the only two things I can think of as a con would be that sometimes you just tweak knobs and nothing special happens especially with the Shape knob. A lot of things are happening on every preset so there are times you feel that the pedal’s knobs are not that responsive. The second thing is a very short delay to get the preset rolling. When you turn it on, sometimes it needs a couple of seconds before the effect kicks in so you may have some issues recording short parts with the pedal on.
On the other hand, the presets are so well-made and carefully dialed in that you won’t have to do any programming at all. You just pick a preset and play. And the results will be amazing every time. So if you think that it’s a very difficult pedal to use, with lots of tweaking and programming, you’re wrong. Despite its size, knobs, and secondary functions, the Microcosm is very straightforward and easy to use. And that’s because of the hard work programming all those presets by Hologram Electronics.
I believe that this is Microcosm’s superpower. Making a pedal that produces crazy complex sounds without being hard to use or program. Anyone can take it and start making beautiful sounds instantly, even without touching the manual. The looper is not “just a looper” and in combination with the main effects can become a powerful song starter, the Reverb is amazing, the Modulation is very useful, and the Filter gets the job done. Overall, the Microcosm is a perfectly balanced, inspirational effects unit for everyone.
In future updates, I would love to see an editor for Microcosm. Having more in-depth access to each algorithm, being able to tweak things in detail, and possibly combining algorithms would make the pedal even more powerful. For example, a combination of Mosaic’s pitch shifting with Blocks sequences would result in some crazy and fun effects.
Conclusion
In my opinion, the Microcosm is one of the best pedals ever created and will retain its title for years to come. While it’s expensive, there’s actually no competition for the number of features you get vs what you pay. It is feature-packed, has a ton of controls and algorithms, and will stay on your desk (or pedalboard) and signal flow forever so it’s worth the investment. It makes everything sound beautiful, creamy, and lush and will give you so many ideas and sounds it is hard not to recommend it.
I would say that it’s not just an effects unit but more of a sound expander. It takes a small idea and turns it into a whole new world. Or Microcosm to be exact. And even if the genre of your music is not ambient or electronic, the Microcosm can be more useful than you’d think. It can provide a ton of ear-candy sounds that make a track sound more interesting and polished and that’s something that a lot of producers forget or cannot easily do.
The Microcosm is a beautiful, colorful world every musician should explore. And the more you explore it the more you love it. So if you are still thinking of buying one, consider this post as a sign and go for it. And if you don’t like it I’ll buy it from you and have two of them.
