At the 2018 Brooklyn Stompbox Exhibit, pedal and amp builder Chris Rossi from Dusky Electronics showcased a new pedal prototype, a fuzz with lots of coloring controls, called Hypatia. The pedal gathered many fans since then (see the long string of videos below), and it also made the cover of Premier Guitar’s Best of 2019 issue after receiving a “Premier Gear” tag.
The Hypatia boasts a wide gain range, an adjustable low end, a specially designed input buffer, and a MOSFET-based output buffer to get you plenty of volume to drive your amp. The gain range can deliver anything from crunchy to blown out fuzzy tones, with the Meat knob allowing you to adjust the low end for any style.
Here are the vidoes of the Dusky Electronics Hypatia.
Dusky Electronic’s Chris Rossi took this demo in person at our Stompbox Booth at NAMM 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm0XronWeMI
Chris described this stompbox’s concept on Effects Database a few weeks ago:
We’re still working on this circuit (we want to get it just right!), but most of the basic elements are here: a gain range that takes you from ragged crunch to blown out, bludgeoning fuzz and enough low end for bass players, but tailorable, via the Meat knob, for guitar or any instrument. The Hypatia uses a specially designed input buffer that preserves the resonant filter effect of coupling passive magnetic effects directly to a low impedance transistor input stage, while still presenting a modern, high impedance at its input, allowing the Hypatia to sound great wherever it is placed in your signal chain, with or without buffers. To round things off, a MOSFET based output buffer (lifted right from the Mandorla), provides enough output volume to get even more drive straight from your amp, as well as impart some amp-like flavor of its own, which complements the ragged, transistory core of the Hypatia perfectly.
Here’s the demo of the Dusky Electronics Hypatia we took at the Brooklyn event:
Here’s Dusky’s full display board that participated in the Brooklyn event.
The Hypatia is a fantastically versatile fuzz/overdrive/distortion pedal.
The basic elements are: a wide gain range, an adjustable low end, a specially designed input buffer, and a MOSFET-based output buffer. The gain range spans from ragged crunch to blown out, bludgeoning fuzz—all while remaining musical. The low end can be tailored for any instrument across a range of musical styles, from doom metal to classic rock to noise rock.
A specially designed input buffer preserves the resonant filter effect of coupling passive magnetic effects directly to a low-impedance transistor input stage, while still presenting a modern, high impedance at its input. Which means the Hypatia will sound great wherever it is placed in your signal chain.
To round things out, a MOSFET-based output buffer (lifted almost verbatim from the Mandorla), provides enough output volume to get even-more drive straight from your amp, as well as impart some amp-like flavor of its own—which complements the ragged, transistor-y core of the Hypatia perfectly.
