The Earthquaker Devices Gary is a signature pedal of Lee Kieran of the post-punk band Idles. It is a combo pulse-width modulated fuzz and overdrive circuit dreamt up by the British guitarist.
Started as a simpler replacement pedal for the company’s own Gray Channel overdrive featuring just one channel (the Green one), the Gary took a life on its own when Kieran and the EQD team decided to explore further the possibility of developing it into a completely new pedal.
The overdrive side of the Gary, triggered by the left footswitch, is opamp-based and still largely based on that Green channel, but is joined by a gnarly fuzz (right footswitch) featuring an envelope-controlled variable pulse whose sensitivity is controlled by the Yes! knob – which means that the LFO cycle is triggered by your pick’s (or fingers’) attack. Turn that knob down and you just get fuzz without modulation.
But there’s an extra trick to it: as you increase the Yes! control, the envelope becomes more present and the pulse width narrows the harder you hit it. This will deliver a more nasal and edgy tone until the pulse becomes so narrow that it disappears.
The two circuits can be played separately or on top of each other.
Here’s what the controls do:
Go: Overdrive Gain control for the overdrive, it can deliver anything from clean boost to overdrive tones.
That’s It: Master volume for the overdrive side.
Yes!: Sets the sensitivity for the envelope that controls the LFO for the square wave fuzz, which interacts with the level of the incoming signal, attack in particular.
Oosh: Master volume for the fuzz side.
Check out the videos of the Gary below.
