3 Drives / Preamps inspired by Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme signature sounds
This post was prompted by the new Funny Little Boxes Skeleton Key Distortion - a follow-up to their hugely successful and popular 1991 Pearl Jam style Dual Overdrive / Distortion. This marks the 3rd gain pedal to have been inspired in some way by Josh Homme’s signature sound - while in some ways this one goes even further than the previous two with its QOTSA tie-in. While to date I believe the only one that Josh has actually used in his rig - is some version of the Stone Deaf FX PDF Low Gain Distortion Filter.
So we have have the Funny Little Boxes Skeleton Key Opamp Distortion, Acorn Amps Compact Solid State Preamp, and Stone Deaf PDF-2 Low Gain Distortion.
The pedals are arranged reverse chronologically which coincidentally tallies with a climbing scale in price. Hopefully there is something for everyone here!
Here follow the usual details :
Funny Little Boxes Skeleton Key Opamp Distortion - £99 (c.$125)
Controls - Gain, Tone, Volume.
So another collaboration between Andy Ilgunas (FLB) and Matt Webster of Let's Play All. Where the main inspiration for the pedal is the sound of the constantly hammered chord heard throughout the first track on QOTSA's debut eponymous album - 'Regular John' as referenced above. This was the sound that Andy had in his head when he set off on this project - where it was all about getting that texture and tonality - and nothing really to do with amp topologies or the like. The circuit was then tweaked to cover as much of the QOTSA back catalogue material as possible.
Matt Webster made it even more authentic by reaching out to Bone Face - QOTSA's latter years album artwork artist - who evolved his signature skeletal style to create the incredibly fitting Skeleton Key artwork.
Andy remarks that the circuit topology is fairly unremarkable and not particularly unique in that regard - while it totally nails that signature QOTSA sound that fans know and love so much. Looks like said partnerships is on to another winner here!
Weirdly, I thought I properly connected with Andy at the Brighton Guitar Show not so long ago, and thought I had established a rapport - while I did not get any sort of press release or notification for said release - and had to do all the digging myself!
In any case a great sounding Josh Homme style pedal with properly authentic artwork and a killer price tag of £99. Pre-orders are open already on the Funny Little Boxes Webstore - and there is likely to be a growing waiting listing building up already - as happened with the 1991! It certainly goes straight onto my wishlist!
Acorn Amps Compact Solid State Preamp (based on Peavey Decade) - $179
Controls - High, Mid, Low, Post-Gain, Thick : On / Off, Pre-Gain, Normal (Green) / Saturated (Red) Footswitch, Bypass Footswitch.
You should have noted that I've covered this one a couple of times on this site - and in fact this is the only one featured here currently in my possession. Everything about this pedal screams quality - from the quality choice of components, knobs etc, to how it lights up. And it has that fantastic slightly raw sounding gritty texture - which so well captures the preferred Josh Homme tonality.
All in all a really well design and well-priced offering with two different gain channels onboard - Normal and Saturated where the Acorn logo lights up correspondingly in Green or Red. This is a perfect encapsulation for me of that killer Josh Homme sound!
Been available for a while courtesy of the Acorn Amps Webstore, and at International Dealers - where I got mine from good friend Joe Light's Joe's Pedal Boutique.
Stone Deaf PDF-2 Parametric Low Gain Distortion - £160 (c.$199)
Controls - Height (±20dB of Frequency Cut / Boost), Gain, Frequency (35Hz - 6kHz), 5-Position Bandwidth (Q), Clean / Dirty Channel Footswitch, On/Off Footswitch.
In some ways the most 'authentic' of all of these as I understand the Stone Deaf PDF is the only one of these 3 to have been actually included in Josh's rig for a time, and thus actually played by the great man himself. So in this case not just 'inspired by' but 'used by'.
Like the Acorn Amps Solid State this has two channels, while it has a fairly unique EQ section - consisting of a single Parametric Control - Frequency, with ±20db Cut or Boost (Height), and then Q Bandwidth Refinement.
As I've mentioned before - the only issue I have with some of those Stone Deaf pedals is the over-sized very 90's style format. My favourite Stone Deaf pedal has long been its Tremotron Tremolo which lives in a much more compact enclosure - I've always hoped that Stone Deaf would shrink most of their pedals down eventually to more pedalboard-friendly dimensions, but that has alas not happened yet.
The PDF 2 can be acquired direct from the Stone Deaf FX Webstore and at International Dealers - where I've seen it as low as $179 - at Vintage King Audio.
12 Degrees of Saturation 2023 Compact Edition
