Earlier this year, Death By Audio's Ollie Ackermann and Heather Bickford, the duo that head up the beloved, New York City-based pedal company, contracted the coronavirus. While they've both now fully recovered, it made them incredibly grateful for the healthcare workers in NYC that treated them and so many others.
To give back, they've enlisted their network of artists—and dug deep into DBA's vaults—to put up some incredible pieces of gear that will raise money toward further COVID relief efforts. They've dubbed the special, online pop-up shop Protection By Audio. And you'll find it right here on Reverb.
Featuring prototypes and rare gear owned and signed by Queens of the Stone Age, The Flaming Lips, Spaceman 3, Xiu Xiu, and more, the Protection By Audio shop is raising money for Get Us PPE, an organization created by healthcare professionals that outfits frontline healthcare workers with necessary protective gear and advocates for more PPE production.
There are 25 items in total, including:
- Death By Audio Prototype Total Sonic Annihilation 2: This prototype was built in the final-stages of the Sonic Annihilation 2's development. It's the only one made in this colorway—which ended up not becoming the final color of the production run.
- DBA Flaming Lips Space Ring Signed by Wayne Coyne & Steven Drozd: This pedal—designed in coordination with The Flaming Lips—is also signed by Coyne and Drozd.
- DBA Reverberation Machine Hand Drawn by Nels Cline of Wilco: This chassis includes Cline's own doodles.
- Acid Fuzz Sonic Boom Prototype Owned by Peter Kember of Spacemen 3, Spectrum: Kember says, "I was given this pedal by John at Acid Fuzz when he was first prototyping this pedal based on the Dick Denny designed VOX effects built into my VOX Starstream guitar, which I used extensively on Playing With Fire LP and Recurring LP in the lates '80s."
- EQD Bit Commander Owned & Signed by Troy Van Leeuwen of Queens of the Stone Age
- '60s Ludwig Tambourine Owned by Britt Daniel of Spoon: Daniels says, "This is a 1960s Ludwig tambourine that was first used during the recording of our album Gimme Fiction. ... Later the tambourine was brought on tour where it lived in Jim Eno’s percussion case and was played by Jim and Alex Fischel at live shows for years. The tape was applied to cover rough edges of the tambourine’s wood that were painful to grasp."
- Arsenal V14 500 Series Owned by Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu: Stewart used this module on Plays the Music Twin Peaks, FORGET, and Girl with Basket of Fruit. He says, "It is easy to immediately improve anything you run it through. It is full of horrible and beautiful sounds."
Find these items and more in the Protection By Audio shop now.