The LiberaToe Blue Crow, a compact stompbox that can be embedded in a modular, cable-less pedalboard with other units by the same builder, is a versatile two-channel analog dirtbox delivering, at the flick of a toggle switch, classic overdrive and vintage-style distortion inspired by the hard rock tones of the ’70s and ’80s.
Its eight knobs allow the player to fine-tune each with precision, the red ones setting the overdrive tone, the green the distortion one. The pedal also delivers enough output to get any amp’s input stage to saturate, further contributing to the resulting sound.
Liberatoe Blue Crow, Builder’s Notes
Blue Crow Overdrive Distortion Combination is a twin channel effect that integrates classic overdrive and vintage distortion. It includes an overdrive that acts like a preamp inside a large tube amp head, and a distortion that acts like a power amp that produces a tenacious break-up through massive output. Blue Crow not only acts as an overdrive for the amp’s dirty channel, but also utilizes its own crunch gain to faithfully reproduce the overdrive’s inherent peaking dynamics and boost the built-in distortion behind it. The mid-high gain vintage distortion perfectly expresses the rock spirit of the 70’s and 80’s, providing a wide range of driving sensations, from crisp to creamy tones thanks to the high headroom from 18V. On low and high presence setting for large amplifiers, or relatively high presence setting for small amplifiers, the tone can be balanced to produce a wider distortion in the British amplifier itself.
?When the toggle is turned up, the LEVEL and BOOSTED functions of the distortion can be set up independently, for example, each for the backing and lead volumes. In other words, on the red channel, overdrive and distortion are stacked similarly to the overdrive pushing the amplifier. This method is used to minimize the gain of the overdrive together with the appropriate DIST level, or to slightly reduce the DIST of the distortion and increase the gain of the overdrive.
Thus Blue Crow is a versatile analogue effects with 3 usages, boosted distortion, as well as overdrive and distortion, a revelatory improvement from the single effect, providing you with thick and powerful gain.
