SuperCharged OD The audio equivalent of a forced induction high displacement big block make up the heart of the SCOD's "distortion powerplant". It is designed like a tube amp, fine tuned cascaded gain stages cause the distortion, not diodes. We knew we had a winner when it made our 5W 6V6 amp push air like a full stack. This pedal rocks harder than a Heart 8-track in a Hemi Cuda outside of a high school in 1978!

The tone for leads is balanced, focused, and sustains forever. Chords are chunky, tight, and resonant. Turn the GAIN and CONTOUR down for hi-wattage British sounds. Increasing the GAIN brings you into more modern saturation teritories without un-natural compression.Crank the CONTOUR knob and you tighten up the lowend adding resonance of a sealed 4x12.

The SCOD is capable of huge amounts of output and the gain can be down right METAL. Inspite of this the noise level is remarkably low. The distortion is natural without the buzzy "chopping" or "squaring" of your guitar's signal as often associated with high gain and metal pedals. This means you can play chords with your SCOD and not cause bizarre intermodulation.

Don't be surprised to find your daily 30 minute practice session lasting an hour or more with the SCOD. This pedal is truly inspiring.

In essence, the DLS is a ‘foundation’ pedal – a sonic platform to build the rest of your sound upon. It reacts to your playing dynamics and respects the character of your guitar’s pickups just like the classic British amplifiers it emulates. Use it to set your base crunch rhythm sound into a clean amp, roll your guitar’s volume back for cleans. Notice how treble boosters sound like shards of brittle glass or how fuzzes sound cheesy & thin into clean amps? The DLS seamlessly integrates treble boosters and fuzzes with clean low volume amps, delivering a thick cranked sound at reasonable volume levels.

What is surprising to people experiencing the DLS for the first time is that we’ve managed to capture the same dynamic interaction felt between a player and an amp but in a pedal. The DLS cleans up with light picking attack and volume knob changes – it reacts in the same way as those amplifiers do. It crunches when you hit it hard, cleans up when you play softly, and has that punchy cabinet ‘air movement’ thing happening even at low volume levels. By the same token the DLS respects your guitar’s characteristics. The result doesn’t sound like a typical ‘amp in a box’ pedal because it doesn’t feel like you’re playing a pedal – it feels like an amp.

The controls are simple and effective – Loudness governs output, Tone morphs from smooth and fat to crunchy and cutting, Gain goes from clean and clear to full crunch with harmonics, and the Rock/Rawk switch selects 60s - 70s JTM/JMP sounds (Rock) or ‘80s JCM tones (Rawk).

Since the DLS was designed to emulate two classic British amplifiers, let’s get into each mode setting and what they have to offer in variety of sounds.

Rock Mode is your classic 60s - 70s rock sound. Chords are crunchy with lots of string definition and punch; single string playing is more clean than hairy and sounds clear and articulate. Picking dynamics are very apparent since there isn’t a ton of gain compressing your signal. The lowend “cabinet” resonance is at your chest, loose but NOT flabby.

In Rawk mode, you’ll notice more gain and a more focused response – chords are thick, single strings have more smoothness and harmonic content. The cabinet feel is still there - tighter and more immediate. It’s quicker to decay into controlled harmonic feedback too.

Another aspect of the pedal we put a lot of thought into was how it reacts to different power supplies. There are significant differences to be had in tone and playing feel response based on what voltage is used – just like if you were running your amp with a Variac. Running the DLS at 18 volts, you’ll experience lots of dynamic movement happening – Kerrang! - there is a resonance to the sound giving the impression that you are playing through a 4x12 cabinet. At 18V you will get quite a bit more output than at 9V. At 9 volts, the pick attack is a bit more soft and smooth than running it at 18v but there is still plenty of punch and articulation. Using a battery, you’ll get a spongier playing feel and creamier sound.

The Formula № 5 was inspired by old tweed amps, most notably the 5E3 circuit. The character of the 5E3 is very unique. It has very minimal power filtering, low plate voltages, elemental tone stack, and does next to nothing to control the low end between gain stages, not to mention the under-rated output transformer and speaker. The entire system runs inefficiently resulting in a loose bass, greasy mids, cutting treble, and incredible grit – none of these qualities were ideal or intentional back in the day. In spite of this, over the past five decades the amp inspired some of the coolest, most sought after guitar tones ever recorded.

We’ve captured the unique qualities of these amps in the Formula № 5. For this circuit we felt cascaded JFET gainstages yielded the best result. They have a softer sound than MOSFETs. JFETs also have much more natural attack/decay than diode clipped rigs which are pingy on the attack and fizzy on the decay. We chose capacitor types that enhanced the midrange and burnished the treble.

We’ve recorded some clips that highlight the qualities of the Formula № 5. For an amp we used a Quad Reverb (basically a 4x12 Twin) VOL=3.5, TRE=6, MID=6, BASS=3, REV=2, MAST=10. The microphone is a Royer 121 placed 3" from one of the cones.

Let’s start out by presenting a reference clean sound with a Tele. Big & clean all day! Keep coming back to this clip as necessary to clear your pallet!

Next is a general gain sound of a Tele into the Formula № 5 with the Gain @ 3 O’clock, Tone @ noon. This showcases the “loose bass, greasy mids, cutting treble, and incredible grit” mentioned above quite nicely. Listen to how chords decay – just like an amp. No pingy attack. No fizzy decay.

Now we’ll demonstrate the amp-like clean up with a Tele into the Formula № 5 with the Gain @ 3 O’clock, Tone @ noon. I usually leave my Formula № 5 on all the time and get my clean sound by rolling back the instrument’s volume knob.

Like the 5E3 the Formula № 5 GAIN and TONE are highly interactive. The tone circuit is such that it functions as a bright cap or treble rolloff depending on where the GAIN is set. The higher the gain the TONE becomes nullified and less effective. Conversely, the lower the gain the more effective the tone sweep becomes. We felt this behavior was crucial to reproduce for an accurate tweed-in-a-box.

The Formula № 5 can run at 9V or 18V. At moderate gain settings you will find an increased bass tightness and volume @ 18V.

The difference between a great dirt box and the average run of the mill distortion pedal is how well it respects your pickup position. Here is a showcase of a humbucker equipped LP: First, is a little boogie, starting off clean and a bit sterile, but when the Formula № 5 is engaged you can hear how well it encourages the playing attitude. Next, is the LP in the bridge position, demonstrating how well it retains the bridge pickup character. The final humbucker clip is the LP neck position. Listen to how sweet and singing the Formula № 5 is while maintaining articulation and detail.

In addition to pickup position a great dirt box respects your pickup type. The following set of clips showcase the Strat.

The bridge position has a vocal quality that can cut through a mix.
The middle position is a tad fuller than the bridge with every bit as much detail.
The neck position is noted for its fullness yet glassy character, the Formula № 5 does not obscure this

Sheer raw power. Dynamics that feel like a roundhouse kick to the chest. Incredibly responsive clean up with the flick of the wrist. This is the WIIO.

The WIIO is an overdrive inspired by the powerfully unforgiving British amps from the ‘70s. Its all right there at your fingertips - your picking attack determines how much gain is delivered to the speakers. There is none of the typical compression found in most other overdrives to hide behind or to soften the blow - this is brass knuckle to the jaw type sonic impact we‘re talking here - you literally feel as though you plugged straight into the power section.

Like the amps, the WIIO has a wide freq spread so if your amp can deliver you’ll be rewarded with crisp clear highs and a very full tight low end. Lower gain settings are very clean and linear - you can hear every pick stroke and fingerprint, and the headroom allows for some very rich sounds when using modulation pedals. As you crank up the Gain the breakup is aggressive, powerful, punchy, and immediate then it decays quickly to a full clean sound. The midrange bark particular to the amps on which we based the WIIO is right there too as you crank it up. This pedal cuts like a broadsword so no need to fear being lost in the fray. It respects the integrity of your pickups, and loves being slammed with other overdrives or your favorite fuzz too.

The EQ controls on the WIIO are interactive with the Gain knob - increasing the Treble will not only give you more highs but also more grit to the gain. Likewise, increasing the Bass control will not only deliver more lows but will also alter the feel and attack. Plenty of output to smack your amp into submission as well.

The whole point of the WIIO experience is the dynamic interaction between you and the pedal. It reacts immediately to your picking hand, so cleans are easily attainable just by lightening up your attack. Conversely, you can get to the raging power chord stuff just by hitting the guitar harder. Running the WIIO at full gain will give you pushed transformer-style saturation for leads as well, so in reality you can have three levels of gain available just by using your wrist and your guitar’s volume control. It was designed to be intuitive with a minimum of tweaking, freeing you to follow your inspiration to wherever it takes you.

The WIIO won’t be for everybody and we‘re cool with that - hell, Nic has the real deal 100w full stack with eight Fanes and many of us in Teh Bunker cower and lose continence when its at full bore. Its unique sonic structure is very unforgiving and due to the responsiveness allows EVERYTHING you put into it to come through. But as the players who have had the experience of playing the amps know, there are great rewards to be had once you’re able to grab hold of the reins and attempt to ride the mighty beast.

When we originally set out on our quest to make the best Bass overdrive ever, we never imagined that it could also sound so amazing with guitar – but then we got to thinking about some of the classic late ‘60s/early ‘70s ‘Ya-Yas’ era tones and thought we should take a stab at them. And heck while we’re at it, it would be really cool if it worked for the more modern drop tuned heavy stuff too. Made sense since those tones were due in large part to guitars being played through amps designed for bass, right?

And what about the Bass tones? We wanted a pedal that FINALLY let you control the amount of grind solely based on your finger attack. You know the feeling - full and rich and clean when you brush lightly and some nice wooly edge when you dig in. At the other end of the sonic spectrum we wanted a drive pedal that could deliver bone-crunching grind and still hold together without sounding thin or turning into a sludgy mess no matter how hard you hit it.

So we did a LOT of listening – listening for the dynamics, how the pedal responds to pick or finger attack. The cornerstone of those particular amps is their dynamic sensitivity – the feeling that you plugged directly into the power amp, that there is always more potential on tap. It’s a big, lively, responsive tone – you feel completely connected to it and control it all through your hands, nothing gets in the way. So we worked on the input sensitivity until it turned our rather sterile solid-state test subject into a warm and responsive vintage-sounding tube amp.

We also listened for that classic EQ voicing – the ‘right’ midrange was crucial and it was absolutely critical that we got it right. So we scoped it out and found it, and it was good. Then we added some really flexible Treble and Bass controls so you can dial in the right amount of feel - if you wanted a more edgy grind or a looser bottom it was super easy to dial it in with a minimum of tweaking. And those were good too.

We had to get the drive character right as well – meaning that it had so be clean but really full sounding when you picked lightly, and blossom into that huge rich grind when you hit it harder. It had to decay in a certain way, no fizzy stuff as the notes or chords die off. It needed to respond in a very dynamic way just like the amps do – no generic smothering of the transients, it needed to breathe.

So after months of listening, testing, listening some more, and fine-tuning these are the results. The SFT was a real labor of love for us – we wanted a killer, super-versatile bass pedal the likes of which nobody has heard before, and for guitar we wanted a faithful recreation of those classic Taylor-era tones with the ability to morph into more modern heavy sounds and we finally feel we’ve nailed it.

We hope the SFT inspires you to do what you do best – make our music!

Most octave pedals in the past have been thin and glitchy, you needed to run them into a cooking amplifier to get any beef or sustain out of them and even then it was a challenge fighting the thing to ride out a note. When we set about developing the original Ottava Magus we wanted to address those issues and make a pedal that was more friendly to use. So we did that and it was good.

But we wanted more. We wanted the ability to mix in some more fuzzy goodness if we wanted so we added a new Saturation control to the OM2. This new feature alters the attack response allowing you to morph your pick attack into a more saturated (duh!) and elastic feel. It also adds some more gain into the mix giving you those “Holy crap! - MAH AMP IS FIXIN’ TA ‘ESPLODE!!!” sounds that all the cool kids are into nowadays. If you roll back the Intensity control, you can decrease the octave effect giving you old school fuzz tones to boot. Righteous! We also altered the original circuit a bit allowing it to sound even better going into a completely clean amp, a little more meat and less rasp. But if raspy is your thing (weirdo!), fear not - with the new 18v capability you can wrassle with it and get the more glitchy sounds too.

Like the original, you can bend a note and hold it without it dropping out using any pickup you wish and playing anywhere on the neck you want. The input sensitivity is the same, so you’ll get a variety of tones just by using your guitar’s volume knob. Those dissonant double stops still turn into huge polyphonic screams, and it’s still capable of the subtle ‘flutey’ high octave tones or crazier full-on ring mod sounds - and now you can mix in more gain using the Saturation control for ’60s ’Thuper Fuzz’ type stuff too.

And speaking of the Intensity control, it has been intensified too - we gave it a wider range for even more over-the-top intensities. To add to the intensitude, we even threw in a little secret lightshow for you to trip on while you make Jimi faces in the dark - groovy man!

Oh, and it still has purple knobs. You still like purple, right?

Catalinbread presents the new & improved Teaser Stallion. This old favorite has been shrunk down to a standard sized enclosure, using a toggle switch for the oscillation circuit instead of a second foot switch. Though the size may have shrunk, the circuit has been amped up, making this lust pent beast even more aggressive and chaotic.

The distortion ranges from mellow to blistering. The feedback loop thickens your tone, adds a unique texture to your sound, and even functions as a controllable synth. This pedal turns heads, offends traditionalists (and cats), but most importantly open doors to truely unique sounds and creative possibility.

What do you call an effect that isn’t quite a Bit Crusher, or an Octave, or a Harmonizer, or a Ring Modulator, or a Lo-Fi dirt box/fuzz – but a bit of a blend of each?

Yeah – we don’t know either, so we came up with “Harmonic Pixelator”.

The Heliotrope is an "analog bit crusher" of sorts. Since there is no analog to digital conversion happening it isn't a true bit crusher, hence the name "Harmonic Pixelator". It works with guitar, bass, keyboards, etc. We designed the pedal to be intuitive and easy to use even though what it is capable of sonically is actually quite complex and varied.

The Heliotrope can be powered from a 9v-18v adapter or a 9v battery. At 18v you’ll notice more output volume and headroom is available.

The controls work like this:

Your instrument of choice (aka: Program Frequency) feeds the Heliotrope an input signal. From it is subtracted the Carrier Frequency. The Carrier Frequency is set by the Hi/Lo switch and the Sample Rate knob.

These are the rough ranges of the frequencies governed by the Hi/Lo switch:
Hi: 1.44kHz - 6.66kHz
Lo: 333Hz - 1.58kHz

So if the Carrier Frequency is tuned using the Hi/Lo switch and the Sample Rate knob to around 440Hz and you play a high E string at around 320Hz the output is roughly 110Hz or an A String. With a little thinking you can break down all these intervals and harmonize with the pedal - or you can just have fun and set it to an interesting resonant sound and see where it takes you.

The Resolution control determines the duty cycle or the ratio of on to off time of the Carrier Frequency. The effect of this control is somewhat like focusing the lens on a camera, you can make it as sharp or as blurry as you’d like.

Volume makes it go loud.

Gain distorts and compresses the signal. You can get a decent amount of grit and fuzz out of it for more squarewave synthy type stuff.

Enough math – let’s rock this thing!

Here’s an example of the interval/octave stuff we were talking about. Notice how the Heliotrope responds to the input signal – you can play anywhere on the neck with any pickup you choose. No dropouts or glitching and you can get as much sustain as you wish with finger vibrato.