Today on Pedals and Effects, we’re doing a dirt pedal shootout! We’ve been hella busy with our touring schedules, but we finally found the time to catch up with some new dirt/distortion pedals as well as ones we finally got around to checking out. We’ve got a great lineup today of Chase Bliss, JAM Pedals, Spiral Electric, and Death By Audio! It’s 2019, more and more dirt pedals are starting to have MIDI and expression options. It’s a very unique take on a staple in effects but, you never know if you can reinvent the wheel unless you try. Not quite a fuzz war, but you know how we roll at Pedals and Effects.

Death by Audio: Interstellar Overdriver Deluxe

The Interstellar Overdriver Deluxe has got SIX fully fleshed out dirt/distortion options. You can go from overdrive, to octave fuzz to tremolo. You ever heard an Oscillating Fuzz before? We love Death by Audio’s aesthetic and we love their experimental take on dirt. The Interstellar Overdriver has definitely got some bang for your buck, it’s weird, fuzzed out, and we love it.

Spiral Electric FX: Black Spiral Fuzz

Our longtime homie Tom Cram is back in action! Formerly known as Rose Pedals, Tom rebranded his new effects pedal company as Spiral Electric FX. Tom is still killing it in the effects pedal game, the Black Spiral Fuzz has some really aggressive low end and you have the option of switching between Germanium or Silicon transistors. We have to mention that the Black Spiral has additional clipping via the “Wafer N2’s” as an extra option, and it sounds really dope! You have different modes for clipping styles, tight and aggressive or open with less compression. But most importantly, there is plenty of definition. We’re glad to see Tom is still doing his thing. Check out Spiral Electric FX!

JAM Pedals: LucyDreamer Supreme

We covered the Red Muck Bass last time on Pedals and Effects, and we can’t get enough of these guys. Lots of cool stuff coming from Greece! The LucyDreamer Supreme is a 3-in-1 pedal with an overdrive/volume/boost under the hood. The LucyDreamer is a pretty dope sounding transparent overdrive. If you’re into gain staging you can switch to whether you want the boost before or after the overdrive. The pedal can work as a pretty decent signal boost, but the overdrive is where it’s at.

Chase Bliss: Brothers

In keeping with other Chase Bliss pedals, the Brothers is an overdrive with settings, and possibilities you didn’t know were possible. With six standard overdrive, fuzz, and boost options, the knobs and dip-switches let you come up with a limitless amount of settings. Fuzz into overdrive, overdrive into fuzz. You can save presets via the pedal itself or via MIDI. Chase Bliss has provided a canvas for you to paint the distortion of your dreams.

The world of effects pedals is large and far reaching. Don’t be afraid to get dirty every once in a while!

-Juan