Boss was really onto something in 1977 when it released the OD-1, a relatively simple circuit that would begin life anew as the Tube Screamer. This simple box proceeded to prompt thousands of forum-dwellers to wonder if every overdrive pedal was based on it. Mostly, and unfortunately, these forum dwellers were onto something. This normally baseless accusation was predicated on the fact that, even in the immediate years following its release, many overdrive pedals were, in fact, slight variations on this circuit.
Now, in the year 2016, we ask this same question, but it has spread to many other effects. “Is this a Big Muff?” many users ask when a fuzz pedal has three knobs. A simple two-knob fuzz will give way to Fuzz Face plagiarism accusations. However, these pedals are reinvented umpteen times because they sound good, and they often transcend genres. These are the tools of our music, no matter what type.
But what about those pedals that defy placement into any genre? When will their days come? What follows is a list of 10 pedals that defy genres, to the point where they belong to no genre at all. The very type of these pedals is also wildly disputed, to the point where they may very well be original effect types. Get into it.
Jen HF Modulator/Gretsch Playboy
Even though Gretsch released this box under the name Playboy, this odd duck is known worldwide as the Jen HF Modulator, part of Jen’s awesome “tongue shaped” pedal line with sliders in lieu of knobs. At the time, players rightfully dismissed the HF Modulator—it sounds like complete and utter garbage. The HF Modulator may well have played a hand in sullying the world of pedals to many a musician at the time of its release. As far as what the pedal actually is, it’s almost like a ring modulator that’s on its last legs. When turned on, a coughing, sputtering dial tone leaks out at all settings. However, all bets are off when a fuzz pedal sits before it. Any fuzz transforms the HF Modulator into the rightful Gretsch name, coating the tone in a rich bath of octaves and harmonics that sounds otherworldly.
Shin-Ei Siren Surf Hurricane Wah
Shin-Ei certainly made some head-scratchers in its day, but this one absolutely takes the tonal cake. While some users may dispute its inclusion into this hall of wonders solely based on its wah circuit, I invite you to check out the other words in the title and note that these words aren’t a clever model name, but instead separate modes on the same unit. For reasons unbeknownst to anyone other than the CEO of Shin-Ei, the pedal contains a white noise generator that feeds through the wah circuit, which is supposed to sound like a powerful, gale-force wind blowing through one’s amp and obliterating the audience. If that’s not enough, there’s also an ear-shredding siren sound—which is a tinny, shrieking oscillator—that rips through the speakers and pulverizes anyone in its path. Just imagine, with two of these, a player can simulate a tropical maelstrom, complete with warning sirens!
PAIA Quadrafuzz
Craig Anderton is one of the godfathers of our industry. After penning the definitive DIY tome Electronic Projects for Musicians, his work has been felt throughout our niche. One of his more ambitious designs was the Quadrafuzz, a multi-band distortion unlike anything previously seen, especially since EPfM was published in 1975. The pedal takes the incoming signal, runs it through a preamp, then splits it into four frequency bands. It then distorts each band individually, and the result is a monster of a distortion pedal that sounds completely unique. Yes, it’s still a distortion pedal, but it achieves its final effect in an entirely different way. The Quadrafuzz was sold as a rack kit by PAIA, and briefly as the QF2 by Iron Ether.
Pefftronics Super Rand-O-Matic
The Rand-O-Matic—the only pedal ever made by Pefftronics—is a true denizen of the list of unclassifiable effects. Granted, the sounds made by the Super Rand-O-Matic don’t sound all too “Rand-O,” when kept low, as its lower settings resemble an LFO-swept resonant filter or subtle phaser. However, whoever came up with the name “Super Rand-O-Matic” wasn’t doing so in an effort to goad players into buying it. When nearly any combination of knobs is turned up past the halfway point, chaos ensues. Some settings sound like robotic duck on the edge of sentience, and other settings resemble an inside-out flanger. Once players blast off into the upper regions of the knobs, all bets are off—up is down, down is up, dogs and cats live together. It’s a real shame and a genuine wonder that the Super Rand-O-Matic hasn’t been cloned yet.
GS Wyllie Moonrock
Mr. Wyllie sadly passed away in recent years, but not before he left us with a whole mess of unique circuitry that was criminally unheard of outside his nearest and dearest fans. One such pedal was the Moonrock, an octave fuzz pedal that was so much more. Two knobs adorned the piece of space detritus: Volume and Fuzz. Such a rudimentary control scheme does call its inclusion into question, but let me explain. The Fuzz knob is nowhere near a typical fuzz control—past noon on the dial yields some decidedly alien swell effects, nearly two full seconds elapses between picking and bloom on its highest setting. This arrangement makes the fuzz tone sound like it’s being reversed due to a complete absence of attack and solidifies the Moonrock as a unit worthy of its name.
Electro-Harmonix Ambitron
True story: The Ambitron was originally designed by Howard Davis (see also: Man, Deluxe Memory) not as a pedal, but as a way to play his mono LPs in stereo. Not much is known about the Ambitron’s true sound because they’re rarer than a five-leaf clover, but when Howard Davis wants to design something, he accomplishes it. That said, the Ambitron works by splitting the signal into two identical copies, then delaying the second one. The controls on the Ambitron apply to the second signal, with the Delay control providing the delay range and the High Rolloff knob slightly decreasing the fidelity to accomplish the “vinyl feel” of the delayed signal. The Ambience knob is a mystery, but the writing is on the wall for the Ambitron: it’s a genuinely confounding box.
Z. Vex Machine
One of Mr. Vex’s boxes that never got a Vexter version is the Machine, an ungodly cacophonous dirt box that confuses almost every player with which it comes into contact. Much like the Jen HF Modulator discussed earlier, nobody buys the Machine to run it singularly; its biggest strength is in its stacking prowess. You see, the Machine is called a “crossover distortion.” This means that instead of distorting the peaks of a waveform like 99 percent of dirt boxes out there, it distorts only the stuff “in between” the peaks, such as the ramps up and down. When using the Machine by itself, players can hear the clean signal sort of “floating” over the distortion, and this is why. Stacking the Machine with any dirt box distorts the entire waveform and obliterates one’s tone in the best way possible.
Schumann PLL
Admittedly, all of Schumann’s designs are original, but most of them are distortions and overdrives with a few interesting hiccups. The PLL—which stands for Phase Locked Loop—is a monstrous unit with double-digit knobs and switches, plus separate inputs for a Drone switch, a “Moment” switch and an external arpeggiator. The pedal is the size of a small loaf of bread and doesn’t sound like anything else on the market; the closest comparison to the PLL is an all-analog harmonizer with a built-in squarewave fuzz, but this meager description in no way does the PLL justice. In its higher settings, the PLL can force a guitar to abandon all harmonic content and force itself into a purely mechanical timbre that simply defies classification.
Keeley Absolute Wurst
Announced on April Fool’s Day, 2015, the Keeley Absolute Wurst was initially deemed an April Fool’s prank because of its highly unusual topology. However, it’s not—Robert Keeley designed the Absolute Wurst as a strange filter and harmony machine, but there’s no way it stays true to either of those two types. Despite its odd metallic clamor, the circuit is actually highly advanced and employs the use of an expensive Spin FV-1 chip, the current standard in boutique digital processing. The Wurst was engineered to screw up one’s signal in the most dissonant way possible, without any straightforward path to do so. The resulting din is unlike any other pedal before it, and likely after it.