Pearl Jam in a pedal? Funny Little Boxes' 1991 overdrive seeks to recreate the iconic tones of classic album Ten

UK pedal builder Funny Little Boxes clearly loves the classic grunge alt rock sounds of Stone Gossard and Mike McCready on Pearl Jam's Ten album as much as we do, so much so it's named its debut original overdrive pedal after the year of its release.

The FLB 1991's initial preorder has already sold out since it went on sale on 19 September, such is the draw of the proposition here. 

1991 pedal

(Image credit: Funny Little Boxes)

Mid forward; sparkly in the top end and easy on the low end

"The 1991 is a dirt pedal that will provide everything from sparkly clean boost to face-melting distortion and has been specifically designed to capture the spirit and prevalent sound of the awesome music released in 1991," says Funny Little Boxes. "The overarching aim was to capture the sound of the Ten album by Pearl Jam and the blue print for the sound is a mid forward drive pedal being pushed into a cranked, high gain amplifier."

We're talking Tube Screamer, Klon and Marshall territory here, then. The 1991 has two gain controls that can be used both independently and together. There's a master volume and a three band EQ with an inherent character that is "mid forward; sparkly in the top end and easy on the low end".

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Pearl Jam

(Image credit: Gie Knaeps / Getty)

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Judge for yourselves in the clip from Pearl Jam fan and YouTuber Let's Play All above, and he also tries it out for Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, Nirvana and Janes Addiction tones from the same era. 

We're liking what we hear and we especially admire the Norwich company's ideology of accessibility with its creations; "never charging more than £100 for any effects pedal." It doesn't get any Vedder than that. 

Find out more at Funny Little Boxes

Rob Laing
Guitars Editor, MusicRadar

I'm the Guitars Editor for MusicRadar, handling news, reviews, features, tuition, advice for the strings side of the site and everything in between. Before MusicRadar I worked on guitar magazines for 15 years, including Editor of Total Guitar in the UK. When I'm not rejigging pedalboards I'm usually thinking about rejigging pedalboards.