EarthQuaker Devices Revives and Expands their Speaker Cranker as New and Evolved Special Cranker General Release
The original Speaker Cranker was very much a personal project for Mr EQD - Jamie Stillman - where he originally built the discrete Transistor-based circuit to serve as a preamp to go in front of his then favourite solid state amp. To this day he still holds this as his favourite Overdrive - where he described it then like having an extra tube / valve on your amp.
The original design simply had a single knob labelled ’More’ which was actually a sort of Bias control - and which increased the gain and grit when cranked clockwise - while output level remained fairly constant. He had not necessarily intended to release it as an EQD product - but such was the fan demand at the time - that this was launched back in 2011 to a very positive reception. Of course as product cycles go - demand eventually tapered off and the pedal was discontinued some years later.
In conversation with a Japanese dealer about one year ago as I understand - the subject arose to create some sort of special edition pedal just for the Japanese market. As many readers will know - there have been a slew of limited EQD colourway editions only made available in Japan - including several unique colourway variations of the Plumes. Jamie’s Japanese acquaintance raised the subject as to whether a limited re-issue of the Speaker Cranker would be a good idea. While over the years Jamie had actually done several mods to the circuit - and their existed various one-offs in the wild which took the circuit in a more expansive direction. So it was decided to combine the best of all of those in an extended-features premium 3-knob edition - with Germanium Clipping option also added. Only 100 were made in total - 25 in Black Sparkle Colourway, and 75 in Gold Sparkle Colourway. As explained in the below video :
Obviously that limited re-issue struck some kind of chord - and the American EQD fans - who were acutely aware of what had gone down in Japan - kind of persuaded Jamie that he should make a version of the expanded Cranker more generally available.
Controls - Level (Output), Tone, More (Bias / Grit / Gain), Clipping : Germanium (More rounded & warmer) / Silicon (Grittier and with more Harmonics).
And so here we are today with yet another version of the pedal - alas not Sparkly like the limited Japanese variants, but still a pretty appealing orange and pale yellow colourway as pictured above - which kind of reminds me of a Solero Ice Cream! Even though the Pedal looks very similar to the Japanese edition - with the same expanded feature set, this is yet another new variant- re-tooled even more efficiently and with slightly more range - in order to hit the same sort of sweet-spot appeal as the Plumes - and at that very appealing price-point - which is considerably more attractive than the Japanese special editions were sold for.
The range of the pedal has been greatly extended from the original one-knob wonder - with significantly louder output / Level, a new Tone control, and a wider ranging 'More' control - which kind of covers off Bias, Grit and Gain to a degree. You also have an additional Warmer and Rounder Germanium Clipping option - in addition to the Grittier and More Harmonic original Silicon Clipping Diodes.
Jamie refers to this very much as an All-Discrete Analog Overdrive (meaning Transistors!) - which reaches mid-gain levels at its peak. It stars off almost as a Clean Boost - especially with the 'More' dial wound right down, but is really rather more of a sort of Dirty Boost and then Gritty Overdrive. It can deliver some suitably amp-like tones and textures for sure - which is the foundation of its original appeal.
These are priced at a very reasonable $99 / €129 / £109 and available direct right now on the EarthQuaker Devices Webstore, and imminently at world-wide dealers.
It's not like I'm short of an overdrive or two - but I feel this is a great proposition and really good value - I see it as sort of an Harmonic Overdrive - and of course will for sure be looking to secure one for the collection fairly soon!
Key Features
- Gives your signal extra grit and boost without drastically altering your tone, and retains all of the natural nuances and character of your amplifier
- Two distinct clipping modes that are both exceptionally responsive to playing dynamics: Germanium and Silicon
- Germanium mode delivers a softer, more rounded response with tamed highs and lower output
- Silicon mode delivers a brighter, more modern response with higher output
- At maximum gain, the Special Cranker can achieve explosive overbiased tones depending on the output of your pickups
- A flexible Tone control gives the user full command over the treble frequencies for excellent tone shaping and clarity All-analog signal path
- True bypass
- Silent relay-based switching with Flexi-Switch® Technology
- Powered by regular 9V DC [-] PSU ~15 mA current draw
Demos
12 Degrees of Saturation 2023 Compact Edition
