DOD: Gonkulator

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DOD: Gonkulator

As time has gone by some of our favorite effects pedals have left a lasting legacy, some more infamous than others. Introduced in the 90's by DOD, the Gonkulator was a wacky mix of ring mod and distortion. Like the DOD Meat Box despite being discontinued, the Gonkulator had developed its own reputation, increasing in value and inspiring multiple clones. Well, Pedals and Effects is here with not one, not two, not three, but four different versions of the Gonkulator! Let Nick Reinhart be your guide, as we explore one of the weirdest pedals to come out of the 90's. 

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Malekko Heavy Industry: Downer

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Malekko Heavy Industry: Downer

Summer is right around the corner, but you know things are heating up with Pedals and Effects! I've got nothing but mad love for Malekko, but young blood Nick has never played anything by them!  I had Malekko send him their latest "Downer" pedal to see if he might get hooked on Malekko. The Diabolik (shouts out to Justin Meldal-Johnsen), the Scrutator, B:Assmaster, and now Eurorack stuff? Malekko is full of mad scientists that know their stuff, and they're all homies. 

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Hamstead Soundworks: Odyssey Subspace Driver with Simon Francis

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Hamstead Soundworks: Odyssey Subspace Driver with Simon Francis

We are so happy to welcome back to Pedals and Effects our homie, Simon Francis. Last we saw Simon, he was playing bass with Ellie Goulding and now he's playing with Kylie Minogue too! Even when working with these pop stars he has been allowed the experimental freedom to get gnarly with his bass tones. On the LA date of his tour, Simon was kind enough to drop by and even bring me a gift. He brought a Odyssey Subspace bass driver by Hamstead Soundworks all the way from Cambridge, UK. Check it out as we catch up with our good friend Simon, and give this boutique distortion/overdrive a test run!

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Fender: Pugilist Distortion

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Fender: Pugilist Distortion

Diving deeper into the new Fender effects pedal line, today we're checking out the Fender Pugilist Distortion! The Pugilist has not one, but two distortions, which you can A/B, stack, or even blend. Like a pushed Fender amp, the distortion is well defined, but you can absolutely get gnarly when you start to stack the distortions. In case you were curious "Pugilist" means "boxer", and this pedal is a knockout!

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EarthQuaker Devices: Pyramids

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EarthQuaker Devices: Pyramids

New to 2018, the mighty EarthQuaker Devices have announced the debut of the Pyramids stereo flanger pedal! If you know me, I LOVE Flangers, so I was super stoked for this pedal when we caught wind of it. There's a lot that's new to the Pyramids, EarthQuaker has gone out of their way to change the flanger game. There's a lot to dive into with the Pyramids, so let's get to it.

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Fender: Santa Ana Overdrive

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Fender: Santa Ana Overdrive

Earlier this year at NAMM, Fender announced that they were putting out a new line of effects pedals. Fender went all out! The entire line includes Overdrive, Distortion, Reverb, Delay, Compressor and Buffer pedals. (All with appropriately California themed names!) If the pedals are anything like their instruments we knew they would be worth checking out, and they absolutely were. Nick and I got to playing with the Santa Ana Overdrive, and we dug what we heard!

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Fuzz Wars 2018

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Fuzz Wars 2018

Nick is out on tour and I'm backed up with fuzz pedals! I decided to roll solo for this one, and shoot out some cool new fuzz pedals. On deck we got Dusky Electronics, AC Noises, Way Huge, and Spruce Effects. We haven't done one of these in a while, but I'm super stoked to see what's new in the fuzz world!

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Rainger FX: Reverb-X

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Rainger FX: Reverb-X

Mad scientist David Rainger of Rainger FX is consistently conjuring up crazy cool monstrosities in his laboratory. Whenever we catch wind of something new from Rainger FX, we do our best to keep our eyes peeled. Previously we've rocked their Dr. Freakenstein fuzz on Fuzz Wars and we got to play around with the incredibly unique Deep Space Pulsar side-chaining pedal too. We missed out on NAMM this past year because we were on tour, but we definitely weren't going to miss out on Rainger FX's newest pedal, the Reverb-X. 

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Red Panda: Tensor

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Red Panda: Tensor

Pedals and Effects has nothing but love for Red Panda, we've featured just about every pedal they've put out! Kurt and the crew in Detroit are on the cutting edge and we always make a point to stop by when we're passing through on tour. So when we caught wind of something new brewing in the lab, we were super curious and we knew that whatever it was, it would be great. That time is now, and the next great Red Panda effects pedal is the sampling and time warping, Tensor. 

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