Haunted Labs and Dirty Haggard Audio's Hell Horse is one beastly Fuzz/Delay
An all-in-one pedal for dreamy shoegaze or a thoroughbred doom option for riding on out beyond the wall of sleep?
Haunted Labs and Dirty Haggard Audio's Hell Horse have combined circuits and thrown all their PT2399 chips in a ball for their new collaborative effects pedal, the Hell Horse Fuzz/Delay.
Not another fuzz/delay, you say? Yes, very funny. And yes, isn't it unusual to see both effects housed in one enclosure. This one is a left field stompbox that is sure to appeal to the adventurous player, those that might wish to stray off the left hand path to take the road less travelled.
The Hell Horse has a single footswitch, with controls for Tone, Shift, Delay Mix, Delay Time, Fuzz and Volume. A PT2399 integrated chip pulls the strings under the hood.
The Tone control operates as an EQ boost/cut and can add or subtract 15dB either way. Set it too noon and it takes the Shift control out of play.
Now, the EQ is interesting because it operates on two frequency peaks – one for the low end, the other for the high end, and you use the Shift control to set how far apart these two frequency peaks are.
Presumably turning it anticlockwise brings those peaks together and focuses the midrange but it will be interesting to see how this plays out depending on your setup.
As for the Delay Mix, this sets how much of the repeats you hear in the signal, with Delay Time setting the time between repeats. Haunted Labs describes the delay as "a savoury, sinister analog-style echo of up to 460 milliseconds," with the shortest delay time a slapback friendly 50 milliseconds.
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Volume, meanwhile, sets the output level and Fuzz how much fuzz you want.
The Hell Horse is designed and made in the USA, is true bypass and takes a 9V DC power supply. Priced £174.49 / $220 it is available now. See Haunted Labs for more details.
Jonathan Horsley has been writing about guitars and guitar culture since 2005, playing them since 1990, and regularly contributes to MusicRadar, Total Guitar and Guitar World. He uses Jazz III nylon picks, 10s during the week, 9s at the weekend, and shamefully still struggles with rhythm figure one of Van Halen’s Panama.
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