Cusack Music's Project 34 Selenium Rectifier Pre/Drive delivers a genuinely new and uniquely richly textured breakup character

You would have thought that I would have been long since bored of 3-knob overdrives, considering how many of those have crossed my path over the years. But every now and again something special comes along which makes you park those prejudices.

And the Project 34 Selenium Rectifier Pre/Drive is just one such magical pedal - verily sounding like it’s loaded with tubes and other primo amp components - so lively is its character. There’s a massive hint of Vox in its tone profile, alongside a touch of cocked wah, and a just superbly rich breakup character.

The various demos adeptly show how you can make this pedal sound like so many different amp variants - via just those 4 controls - which include a smart 3-way Low-End Contour switch.

Via manipulating those 3 dials and switch, you can get yourself into the ballpark of many of those most celebrate amp variants - Fender, Marshall and Vox voicings among them, a bit of Matamp, and several more.

Controls - Level, Gain, Tone, Low-End Contour : More / Neutral / Most.

As soon as I head the first few bars of the first demo I encountered - I knew that I wanted one.

They’re currently up for Pre-Order on the Cusack Music Webstore - where they go for a pretty reasonable $240. Those Selenium Rectifiers are pretty rare 1930’s components, and which are in incredibly short supply - so these will inevitably be a limited edition run.

I tried to order one from Cusack Music - but was presented with "Unfortunately one or more items in your cart can’t be shipped to your location. Please choose a different delivery address"!

Meaning that since Brexit occurred, Cusack Music no longer ships to the UK - may the flees of a thousand camels infest everyone who voted to impoverish our country in that manner!

Fortunately there may be a saviour in the wings - as I contacted Simon at Guitar FX Direct - the UK Dealer for Cusack Music - on the suggestion from Cusack’s Ross. Ross said that Guitar FX Direct may get some if any were remaining! But hopefully I got Simon involved early enough to ensure that a handful of those are secured for UK customers.

We get so many varieties of classic overdrive clones every year, that it’s a genuine nice surprise when we encounter something wholly different, and that is spectacularly great sounding in its own way.

For the Project 34 it’s not just about its super richly textured core breakup character, but also how versatile this pedal is overall. I sincerely hope I manage to land one of these - as nothing is certain, until it finally happens!

Note that the visual’s background of course consists of Selenium pellets!