The notion that things were better in the old days rings especially loud in guitar circles – but what about distortion pedals? After all, the trailblazers such as Link Wray (opens in new tab)and The Kinks' Dave Davies (opens in new tab) literally ripped their speaker cones to get the sound. And that's the inspiration for Electro-Harmonix's new distortion / fuzz pedal (opens in new tab)… yep you guessed it, the Ripped Speaker.
It even has its own Rip knob – a bias control that sets the amount of clipping to the top and bottom of your signal's wave form. Set at noon, the fuzz is fat with just enough bite. Turn it clockwise and E-HX says it produces a "hard grating effect" – things get spluttery. Turn the Rip control the other way and its a smoother affair with the signal fading out quickly.
The pedal's active Tone control delivers a tilt-shift EQ. Clockwise from noon, its gets brighter and counter-clockwise is get darker with more low end.
Sounds like fun – with plenty of modern applications for an old school inspiration.
The Ripped Speaker is priced at $99. More info at Electro-Harmonix (opens in new tab).
