Dirty Boy collaborates with Warm Audio to deliver a more affordable pedalboard-friendly Dirty Boy Jr Series - featuring a Booster, Overdrive and Fuzz, based on classic Dirty Boy Circuit Designs

The Alex Saraceno x Danny Gomez Boutique Brand joins forces with Warm Audio - to deliver more accessible, compact and pedalboard-friendly versions of 3 of its best loved pedals - the Ball Buster Boost, Preamp / Overdrive, and Afro Fuzz. The 1590BB Dirty Boy originals go for $349 each. So there are significant savings here for your wallet, as well as your pedalboard real-estate.

It would be interesting to see a component breakdown here - as the originals feature high fidelity primo components, including vintage Germanium Transistors in the Afro Fuzz. Would be interesting to know where compromises have been made.

Presumably these are SMT circuits - so the $170 / £170 price tag is not really fully affordable territory - sure it’s more affordable than the Dirty Boy originals, while I feel you can get better quality independent boutique pedals for the same price or less! Often with better components and more traditional hand-made construction.

I’m not against bringing expensive pedals to the masses, while the Scandinavian side of me wants to see the numbers / calculations and overall ingredients lists here - so I can properly evaluate the worth and value of these pedals - and decide what their degree of appeal is!

I always felt that for their price range - the Dirty Boy pedals could have had more refined finishing and aesthetics. I believe they deliberately try to evoke a sort of DIY Pedal aesthetic - while there’s often a thin line between artistry and artifice. For sure I admire much about Danny Gomez, but for whatever reason - I’ve not yet quite gelled with the Dirty Boy Brand / Aesthetics / Pedals.

I picked up another earlier Danny Gomez pedal - the Massive Unity 1964 TAE Preamp back in 2018 - and I didn’t get on with that pedal at all - it didn’t seem to have the vibrancy of a Vox Amp, not the range, and was decidedly underpowered for my preferences. I still hold onto that device as a cautionary tale and a warning for me to do more due diligence (It was an impulse buy at the 2018 Birmingham Guitar Show!). Perhaps it just doesn’t work well with clean pedal platforms - that is for sure sometimes the case. But said experience didn’t exactly endear me to the what followed on from there!

I’m slightly ambivalent about Dirty Boy pedals so far - I feel I can get better for less, and more to my preferences. These Dirty Boy Jr pedals are for sure a more suitable format for me - but I’m not yet convinced that these are entirely right for me!

This Warm Audio Jr series is obviously diminished to some degree from those originals - it doesn’t make sense to make exactly equivalent sounding and feeling pedals - smaller, and for half the price of the flagship originals. So I’m a little cynical here. Is this genuinely altruistic - or is it more like a Michael Kors outlet bag - which looks like you’re getting a high street classic at bargain prices - while a closer look reveals those are not the same bags at all - they look very similar from a distance - while up close they deploy cheaper materials and assembly, and forego many of the design details of the originals (inner lining pockets etc.) - you’re actually paying over the odds for a cheaper inferior bag - and those are actually less good value than the dearer high street originals! 

The whole outlet system has been abused by the American brands from the start - for European brands you were buying genuine - end of season / end of line bargains - but then Michael Kors and others started making cheaper shittier Outlet Lines - solely to be fake-discounted in outlets - to con consumers into buying cheap facsimiles of their own classic bags! This is why I tend to steer clear of outlet shopping - as most of the time you don’t really know what you’re buying! Where I would classify some of those as being tantamount to officially authorised fakes!

I sometimes get the same feeling with Pedal Collaboration Roll-outs. And I’m always a little cynical when it comes to Warm Audio - who often make claims which cannot later be fully substantiated - including the authenticity of some of their components. (Warm Bender!)

I’m always interested in authenticity and transparency - and there’s not seemingly too much of that here - overall a little opaque on the details. The marketing talks a good game - but all the proper little details are noticeably absent!

I got a little excited for a moment that you would be able to get a Germanium Afro Fuzz for just $170 / £170 - but that doesn’t seem to be the case - the blurb makes no mention of the components used - or how they managed to replicate that hairy / aggressive / textured fuzz with silicon SMT parts.

As an exercise it’s quite nicely done - those are relatively attractive pedals - and I don’t mind those knobs at all. But the actual circuit details are very scant here - I’m interested in the journey of converting those primo-components originals into mass-manufactured SMT types. I want to know the provenance and process here - which remains occluded.

Like I said - the Fuzz has the most appeal for me - but without the bona fides - it’s still something of an outlier.

The excitement curve did blip briefly - but it flatlined pretty quickly too after some initial enthusiasm. I’m just not entirely convinced about the honesty of this endeavour. Is it about bringing more affordable pedals to the masses - or is it just a quick cash-in and money-grab. I remain to be convinced  in any case. I still remain open-minded, and open to persuasion, but right here and now I’m just suspicious of this whole endeavour - as I would be if it was carried out by Uli Behringer’s outfit too!

All 3 pedals are @ $170 / £170 - which is less than half price of the Dirty Boy 1590BB Originals.

These are the 3 on offer :

• Booster - based on the Dirty Boy Ball Buster
• Overdrive - based on the Dirty Boy Preamp
• Fuzz - based on the Dirty Boy Afro Fuzz

They are widely available now, I first spotted them at Andertons. Like I said - I was initially excited and intrigued - but currently need more salience and evidence to be convinced!

Further details and demos below!