Electro-Harmonix has unveiled its new Ripped Speaker fuzz pedal.
In line with its name, the Ripped Speaker aims to emulate the vintage fuzz tones achieved by the exploitation of loose tubes and faulty channels on recording consoles, and by guitarists who slashed their speaker cones with razor blades (a lá Dave Davies on the Kinks' "You Really Got Me").
The pedal boasts controls for Volume, Fuzz, Tone, and RIP. The former two set the volume and the fuzz level, of course, while the Tone knob is an active control providing a "tilt-shift type EQ." Setting the Tone knob to noon flattens the EQ, turning it counter-clockwise boosts the bass and cuts the treble, and going clockwise does the opposite.
RIP, meanwhile, is a bias adjustment which sets the amount of clipping at the top and bottom of the signal. Setting RIP to noon is, again, neutral, while turning it clockwise produces a hard gating effect and sputtering signal before the gating fully engages.
Turning it counter-clockwise produces a much smoother gating effect, where the signal fades out quickly.
The Electro-Harmonix Ripped Speaker fuzz pedal comes with a 9 Volt battery (it also accepts an EHX 9 Volt power supply), and is available now for $99.
For more info on the pedal, stop by ehx.com.
