Xploration • Curation • Recommendation
Two Recent Cool Double-Down Pedal Specials
Drunk Beaver Hello Beaver Distortion
I rarely go for duplicate pedals - with some obvious exceptions - like the DS-1 - but that is mostly about circuit variations - very rarely just a straight up re-skinning of the same circuit as is the case here.
I covered the Hello Beaver Special Edition of the Drunk Beaver Distortion - back on the 5th of March. Where a customer had asked for a pink variation of the Distortion pedal - and I guess Vitalii took some inspiration from the Fender Hello Kitty Edition - also in pink.
So the Hello Beaver insides are exactly the same as for the most recent iteration of the Drunk Beaver Distortion Pedal - a massively expanded range take on Boss’s most popular DS-1 Distortion.
I’m a fan of the Kawaii style of cutesy merchandise - and for me the Hello Beaver Distortion and matching T-shirt is a really cool thing! You get an additional placebo impact by having one of those on your board - somewhat more so than for the original!
This is possibly the very best take on the DS-1 - while the VFE Dark Horse is pretty phenomenal too! I think less than 50 of the Hello Beaver Distortion have been made to date! There are still some available on the Drunk Beaver Rocks Webstore.
Controls - Level, Tone, List, Clipping : Silicon 1N914 Sym / MOSFET / Silicon 1N4001 / Germanium D9B / ’94 IN914 Asym / Red LEDs / ’78 1S1588 Silicon / Boost, Mids : Stock Scooped / Less Scooped / Flat EQ, Op-amp : Vintage / Modern, Muff : Off / On.
ThorpyFX Purple The Dane MKII Overdrive + Boost
The other pedal - 'The Purple Dane' has been very recently covered - you really need to see this one in the flesh - it's a really vibrant and luminous metallic purple on every surface - an absolute stunner from every angle.
You get extra good vibes from this pedal - which is internally identical to the current MKII edition of The Dane Overdrive + Boost. I understand there are a handful of extra special editions out there with a 3-way boost switch (actually just 1!) - with a 'No Clipping' middle option. Only one of those has been discovered in the wild so far. I was a touch disappointed that my unit was entirely standard! Would have been cool to have the extra mode - I almost always love the No Diodes clipping option on a wide variety of pedals.
The Dane was already a pretty magical pedal - particularly for Single Coils and Telecasters - while it's even more special in this limited edition 200-run. Most - if not all of these are sold out already - they kind of got snapped up really rapidly, and understandably. You can read up more on the ThorpyFX Website.
Controls - Level, Boost, Boost typed : High Capacity (Ge Diodes) / Danish Pete (Original Smooth Dane Boost), Gain, Tone, Lows.
