The folks at Electro-Harmonix know something about fuzz, since they invented the Muff. Their latest fuzz pedal, however, is not inspired by their signature fuzz model. Enter the Ripped Speaker, a modern fuzz with old school roots and a wider sonic palette than the average Muff pedal.
At low fuzz settings, the pedal keeps faith in its moniker, emulating the kind of sound made by a razor blade applied to a speaker cone, a loose tube or a faulty channel on a recording console. But when you crank the fuzz up, a modern soul comes alive with its searing, fully saturated fuzz tone.
Three out of four controls are pretty straightforward, so let’s focus on the RIP knob:
it’s a bias control that sets the amount of clipping at the top and bottom of the signal wave form. It adds a lot of versatility and lets you tailor the character of the fuzz.
At $99, this is an affordable fuzz pedal with a few tricks in its sleeve. Check out the first video of it, directly from the builder.
The Ripped Speaker is a modern fuzz with old school roots and pays homage to one of the ways that early, distorted guitar and bass sounds were made. At low fuzz settings the pedal emulates the lo-fi distortion sounds of yesteryear, the kinds of sounds created by a razor blade applied to a speaker cone, a loose tube or a faulty channel on a recording console. When you crank the fuzz up the sound is transformed. It’s modern and monumental with a searing, fully saturated, fuzz tone.
The Ripped Speaker’s RIP knob is a bias control which sets the amount of clipping at the top and bottom of the signal wave form. It adds a lot of versatility and lets you tailor the character of the fuzz. Noon is neutral, a position where the fuzz is perfectly biased… fat, with a great low end and top end bite without being harsh. As you turn the knob clockwise the pedal produces a hard gating effect and the signal sputters and chokes. It’s great for creating a dying battery effect. Turning the knob CCW produces yet a different style of fuzz with a smoother gating effect where the signal fades out quickly.
The Ripped Speaker’s TONE control is active and delivers a tilt-shift type EQ. That means at noon the EQ is flat. As you turn the knob counter-clockwise the frequency response gets darker with more pronounced lows and less highs. Going clockwise yields a brighter tone with more highs and rolled back lows.
The Ripped Speaker features true bypass switching, comes equipped with a 9 Volt battery and accepts a standard EHX 9 Volt power supply.
- Versatile pedal delivers fuzz that goes from old school to modern
- Bias control
- Active tone control
- True bypass switching
- Pedalboard-friendly size
- 9V battery included
