The Coolest Custom Effects Pedal Ever?

The answer is a resounding and totally biased 'yes'   11-Apr-12

As loyal Amped followers will know, we have a slight affinity for effects pedals. That is to say, I would remortgage my home 1000 times over and sell almost everything I owned, as long as it meant I had the cash to improve my pedal collection.

So when Matthew Zuckerman (not to be confused with Mark Zuckerberg) came to me last year and asked me to check out his boutique pedals, I obviously said yes, and it wasn't long before I did an interview with Matt, which you can read here.

The main thing that stuck out in the interview was the fact that Mr Z is just a massive fx nerd, he doesn't build pedals because he wants the money, he builds them because he couldn't imagine anything better to do in life.

We got to talking about boost pedals, and I mentioned my ultimate pedal would be a boost pedal with two separate clean boosts, and then a Box of Rock style overdrive, with a Foxx Electronic Tone Machine style fuzz. Low and freaking behold, Matt said he could make it easily, but that he'd like to do it in two pedals.

Now, the idea of having multiple stages of break-up in one place is cool, so I wanted a theme to gel these two pedals together. The idea hit me when I was stargazing one day, the moon was completely dominating the sky, and was in a cool diagonal alignment with Jupiter and Venus. I went for a moon-themed pedal, with a half moon on each pedal, when you put them together it's a full moon and completes the theme.

Matt took the idea another step further by naming all the knobs after a moon-related phrase. Thankfully he will also be provding a list of what each knob actually does, so I will be able to control the pedal with some certainty.

The two boost stages are a mosfet and an LPB based boost, the drive stage is also mosfet based, but with the added parameters of gain, volume, and tone. The fuzz, I am told, is based loosely on the sound of the Wolly Mammoth by ZVEX. I already have a Foxx Electronics Tone Machine, so not much point having another one!

I am incredibly excited to get my hands on this and make some crazy noises. It will make the perfect partner for my Gibson BR6 amplifier, which is from the late 1940s and sounds so swampy and filthy when you overload it with a nice mosfet boost.

I will obviously be demonstrating the pedals when I receive it, and should you want to purchase the pair for yourself then you can get in contact with Matt through the NoisekickFX Facebook page.

Oh and if you think the moon design is stupid, don't worry, I've already been told by my girlfriend.

Amped Editor
@sonicamped

We are on Facebook!