Guitarists interested in overdrive pedals that have stood the test of time might want to put their hands on a Crowther Hot Cake, a circuit originally designed in the mid-’70s by a New Zealand-born guitarist living in the UK. It is said that this was the first ever overdrive pedal in a compact enclosure.
But its dimensions alone wouldn’t have made it somewhat legendary: the Hot Cake was adopted by megastars from Stevie Ray Vaughan to Radiohead and the Rolling Stones. It’s a pedal that was ahead of its time also for its multifaceted sonic character, rich in harmonics but able to act as a clean boost at lower levels, as a transparent overdrive, or a gritty distortion. It works well with both high and low wattage amps, and it’s known to pair particularly well with Vox AC30/AC15, amps.
The Hot Cake is still being built to this day by its original inventor and went through several versions, which you can explore in this article. The original version didn’t have a Presence knob, added in V5 around 2001, although there was a presence switch in some previous and later versions.
The latest V10 adds two toggle switches for XLF (a nod to bass players, since it retains all the bass frequencies when activated) and Cream mode, a mode voiced after the Blues Breaker.
