Here is a new one even for the most die-hard guitar effects pedal geeks: Indianapolis rock band Brother O’ Brother have released their new album in two special vinyl editions in which the discs themselves double as overdrive or delay units.
That’s right. Place one of these on your turntable and it will play the riotous sounds of Brother O’ Brother’s new album, Skin Walker, for your audio enjoyment, but these vinyl releases have been engineered so that you can run an electric guitar signal through them.
This holy union of two of our favourite things under the sun, was brought to us by Chris Banta of Romanus Records in collaboration with Audio Disruption Devices, aka ADD Pedals, which specialises in stompboxes with particularly interesting enclosure designs. This time around, ADD Pedals has outdone itself.
As mentioned above, one of the vinyl editions of Skin Walker doubles as a boost/overdrive pedal (or disc, really). The other is a delay pedal. You will also notice that these discs are heavier than your typical 180gm special edition.
They are look a little like film canisters, are maybe a little thinner. As Banta says in the introduction video, “These are definitely the thickest records ever made.”
You can watch Banta demo them both above using a Guild S-200 Thunderbird and an Egnater Rebel-30 112 Mark II tube amp combo. They sound impressive, with the overdrive offering a woofy, fuzz-like drive, with switchable channels for an alternate flavour of drive, while the delay offers a quartet of modes “with tons of modulation”.
Controls are mounted on the label. Pedalboard integration looks tricky, and do note that these will only play on turntables with vertical angle tracking (VTA). But then most DJ turntables should be set up for that.
Both go on sale this Saturday 17 September via Romanus Records and are limited to 35 units apiece. This run will be US only, but Romanus intends on doing another run for the international market.
Brother O’ Brother’s Skin Walker will also be available to pre-order from Saturday, and is available on a variety of collectible editions, including splatter, tri-colours, and glow-in-the-dark sand-filled vinyl. You can check out the video for new track Elixir below.
For more details, head over to Romanus Records.
