There are many times when a worship leader may not have a full compliment of musicians to help lead worship. This is not a problem – but sometimes I have found myself wanting to have a bit of tonal support when I’m leading with just a guitar.
For a time I was using pre-recorded pads or loops. These were fine, but they were very limited as to what I could do. I was either stuck in a particular key or to a track (which can be tough with a congregation who has difficulty finding 2/4).
However a while back I found a pedal that works brilliantly to add a bit of ambient tone into the mix for worship.
The Neunaber Seraphim Mono Shimmer. It is a reverb pedal which also has a wonderful knob to add “shimmer” into the mix. The shimmer adds a wonderful “choir of angels” into your sound that can be dialed to exactly how much is desired. The tone is created by magical fairies inside the pedal using octave generators, harmonics, delay, chorus, and awesome sauce. The fantastic thing about this pedal is how it uses the chords or notes you are playing to create the ambient pad shimmer effect, following what is being played. This allows you as leader to shift between modes, keys, songs – without limitations. Plus the reverb also sounds great!
I use it with my acoustic rig and the Seraphim is a sweet reverb/pad pedal. It allows me to lead solo but create a full range of sound – the pedal simply gives a few more tools for the worship leader. The shimmer provides a magnificent canvas of tone behind the songs.
Neunaber has a few variations of the Shimmer and other wonderful pedals, feel free to check them out.
Below is a wonderful video review of the pedal by Curtis Kent (who does the best guitar/recording gear reviews online), it gives a great overview.
If you’re looking for a bit of gear I’d highly recommend the Seraphim Shimmer.
Red Chair Music 