SOMA calls Cosmos a “Drifting Memory Station,” and this intrigued me, this idea of drifting memories. Are memories tangible things? Where do lost memories go? Do they ever fully disappear? I had these thoughts linger in the back of my mind when I turned on SOMA's Cosmos for the first time. It wasn’t long until I realized these questions would probably not be answered by Cosmos or SOMA, even when Cosmos was entrancing me with its sublime, sometimes perplexing, yet luxurious winding down and intermingling of sound. Cosmos is an instant magic machine, and it can transfix; you can lose yourself in it.
Yes, Cosmos is a looper, but it’s not a looper in the traditional sense. It’s one whose goal is to not repeat itself; to not make the same mistakes over and over or re-live its glory days over and over. Mistakes and highlights merge, combine, blur into one. Cosmos makes beautiful mistakes; gems, like birdsong, floating in the air, suspended, diminishing with distance, hopeful. Cosmos can also make walls of noise, annoying rhythmic bursts, and indecipherable mishmashes of sonics. But I like to stay glued to the beauty it creates.
Cosmos is a well-built tank of a machine, housed in a solid metal housing (the one sent for review was pink) where the main control is a switch that selects one of four algorithms, of which have three variations each: Two Delay, which has two delay lines of either 2.5, 9.5, 22 seconds of delay; Four Delay, with four delay lines of 2.5, 8.5, or 11.5 seconds available; Giant Reverb with Huge hall, Super-huge hall, and Insanely-super-huge hall options (their titles, not mine); and Granular Delay that has small, medium, and large grain sizes. Blur, Drift, Drive, Sup|Com (Suppressor, Compressor), Feedback, and Mix shape your sound while Input and Output level controls help to keep things in check.
Since it’s designed as a pedal, there are footswitches (with secondary functions) for HPF, LPF, Erase, Reverse (Select), and Record (Erase All). LEDs throughout Cosmos signify level amounts, on/off status, and parameter settings, such as which filter is active. The back panel has mono/stereo ins and outs, a headphone out, a flash drive USB port for updates, and a DC plug and on/off switch.
Recording a loop is as simple as hitting the Record button and playing something. There are four different record modes: Off, First delay group recording, Second delay group recording, and All delay group recording. I won’t go into detail of the differences between the three, but I kept it at All-group almost the whole time as that’s where the most cosmic of Cosmos’ highlights happen. Cosmos creates its effect by recording multiple loops at the same time at different lengths, so that there is offset in the playback of each delay, with more and more offset as time goes along; the drifting part. Even though the delay times are fixed—which might seem strange since we’re all used to being able to adjust that aspect at will—it works perfectly fine as Cosmos isn’t really for syncing or traditional looping or delay use, anyway. Not to mention that part of Cosmos' charm—SOMA's charm, really—is that they impose their will on you. They are the inventors; you are the user. You have no choice but to play along with what they give you. As with much of the design of their instruments (like TERRA, for example, review in Waveform, Issue 12), they hardwire their designs so that more focus can be spent on creating and playing and not endlessly tweaking or programming by the user. SOMA love fixed systems, and you have to a) respect that, and b) tip your cap to SOMA. It’s not like it’s a “my way or the highway” mindset, so much as it is that they want you to submerge yourself in their creation so that you can create and experience their vision. Their instruments are truly unique, as is their mindset. Everything in its right place, according to SOMA, and in this vein there is no undo button or going back, so it’s almost as if SOMA is doubling down on their stance, to where if you record something you don’t like, you need to learn to live with it, or start from the beginning. That is as much of an earthly ideology as it is a cosmic one.
Living with something, not being able to undo, is interesting in that you have to consider what you have and whether it’s worth pursuing further. In Cosmos you can change the direction of a loop, control its dynamics using things like the compressor (which adds gain and gets noisier without getting louder) or the suppressor (which acts more like a sidechain compressor, so that old sounds/loops make way for new recorded sounds), and keep things under control in terms of frequency with the filters. The filters? Again, fixed. Love it or leave it. Both filters do have three modes each for sculpting tone, and again, they might be fixed instead of having variable cutoffs, but they’re very serviceable. Further sculpting can be had through the Drive, which adds a little push to the sound, as do Blur and Drift. The latter two are interesting in that Blur is a destructive effect, so it changes the recorded audio (remember, there’s no undo function!), which means you can change your looped signal via Blur to create lusher textures, melding and combining, to create some drowsiness, and then once you find what you like, turn Blur off to stop affecting your loop, while still retaining what you’ve just done. Drift is similar, and lives up to its namesake where things drift apart, get loose, stumble around, and distort timelines. Both Blur and Drift operate differently, whether you’re in a delay mode or granular (again, they have no effect in Reverb mode), but it sorta feels the same in either for the most part, and Cosmos is all about the feels.
The Erase button is interesting in that it erases recorded parts in the delay line, so you can use this like a stutter effect, cut, slice, and erase large swaths of your recorded delays. It’s a pretty interesting effect, constantly cutting out your loop, until you think there’s nothing left, and then BOOM! it comes around again, this tiny snippet you didn’t erase, didn't know was left. I was always surprised by erasing in Cosmos. You can easily erase the entire loop at once by pressing Erase and Record/Erase All simultaneously.
Vocals, guitar, modular…everything and anything that I put into Cosmos, in any of the algorithms, turned into, at the very least, something interesting, and at the best, wonderfully loose and dreamy, if given enough time to mature, to develop. Some of the percussive nature of the input signal and repetitions would often threaten to overpower, but engaging the filtering, adjusting the feedback and compressor or suppressor, as well as the output level, worked wonders to tame the signal and keep things in check. Vocals were a revelation, perhaps my favorite use of Cosmos, and something of a secret weapon that I'm almost reluctant to put in print, as it worked so well for unique background tapestries. Mostly I was singing oohs and aahs, but spoken word was a trip, and when I would add Drift and mess with Blur, the monologue turned into a rant which metamorphosed into a buzzing din, which is what my head usually sounds like internally, anyway. It was nice to finally have an outside example with which to explain myself to others. Feel the help.
Playing guitar into Cosmos and you felt the Frippertronics influence, one of the inspirations for the device, taking place. Modular was similarly frippered, but I tended to notice when I’d put a sequence into Cosmos that it was best to not overdo it, to keep it light. Cosmos is very easy to get too loose, and with no turning back, it took—and takes—a subtle and elegant touch to maintain some sonic dignity. At the same time, dignity is way overrated, which is why I liked to obliterate a souped up frenetic sequence into Cosmos and watch as the world lost control and burned to the ground. In this way, you can both a) live with it until it burns, and then b) start over from the beginning. Very biblical.
I mostly lived in the delay algorithms, but using the Reverb algo brought more girth, and the Granular did somewhat the opposite, which I suppose isn’t so strange, but it feels so writing it now. Either way, the grainy sounds produced by Cosmos were really interesting and, adding reverb after, was like dropping stones into a well that led to the other side of the world, with repeats like stars; what you’re hearing is already gone; the light shined millions of years ago. You’re hearing something that no longer exists. How is that possible? With Cosmos, it is.
There are a few caveats with Cosmos. First, as mentioned, it’s not designed to be a normal looper or delay pedal, though SOMA has released several different types of firmware, one of which makes it more syncable, so it’s easier to use it in a more traditional manner. And while Cosmos is an effect in pedal form, I hesitate to call this a pedal. You’re not going to get the most out of it using your feet, so really, despite the way it looks, it’s more a desktop device that you’ll use with your hands.
Whatever it is, Cosmos is a wonderful machine. A textural instrument, a layering device, an ethereal backdrop creator, Cosmos is something you can lose yourself in, in the most beautiful way.

Price: $699

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