We know Death By Audio always bring the heavy and the wild, so its fuzzy "love letter to sticking a pencil in your speaker" with the Germanium Filter is exactly what we'd want to hear from the US company.
It's built on a console-style drive circuit, "a dash of obsolete germanium transistors" a super intense DBA-style filter. It's claiming to deliver a sound "heavy enough to crush on and sharp enough to slice a tomato".
A huge gain range is promised that should deliver plenty of usability beyond extremes with mild overdrive if you don't want to unleash a full fuzz pedal blast.
Indeed, DBA stress that in true Germanium fuzz fashion you need to be using your guitar's volume control to get the best out of the dynamics this true bypass pedal can offer.
The Filter control on the pedal is said to be 'extremely unconventional'; "it’ll take you from bottomless, sub-woofered out lows to super searing and brittle highs, with a universe of tone in between," says DBA.
"The Gain knob starts with a dirty boost that then spans through saturated drive, spitting distortion, and a blistering fuzz tone," the company continues. "Get ready for your sound to be cranked up to infinity-and-a-half and captured on tape by the most incredible recording engineer you’ve ever heard - only there’s no engineer and no studio. Just you, your guitar, your amp and the Germanium Filter."
The Germanium Filter is $225. More info at Death By Audio
NAMM 2025: “The all-new Hypersonic Mode will kick that pitch shift straight into the stratosphere”: DigiTech and MonoNeon team up for a radical new Whammy Pedal for guitar and bass with three-octave range
NAMM 2025: “You place the wah, and leave it there, and that’s the tone”: With a little help from Bob Rock, Dunlop honours David Bowie’s maestro of the cocked wah, Mick Ronson, with signature Cry Baby
