New pedals at SNAMM: Humboldt’s Regainer and Preserver

Guitar pedals with wooden enclosures are not an entirely unforeseen idea, but – at least as far as we know – in this field no company has taken things quite as far as Chilean manufacturer Fuse, with their new Humboldt line, handcrafted in Valparaiso and Santiago. Not only are these pedals made out of wood (which requires carpenter skills and a few variations to the circuit itself), but the material used for the enclosures is recycled and hand picked from a variety of selected scraps. Because of this, each pedal varies in color and texture, which gives each stompbox its own character.

“But what’s inside that wooden box?” – we hear you say: at this stage there are two Humboldt pedals, and they both sound great: The Regainer is a high gain overdrive that delivers anything from the cleanest tone to the most extreme fuzzy and raw distortion. The distortion knob on the side allows you to dial in the tone’s character, ranging from low to high peak settings. Its volume knob can add around 30 dB of gain – hence its name.

The Preserver, on the other hand, is an overdrive with three different modes, accessible through a side toggle switch. The main mode is the most transparent, basically working as a clean booster/preamp; the second mode is a “pure overdrive,” a take on the classic TubeScreamer sound, only with added gain and headroom; the third setting gives you access to a more compressed tone, to get that classic “brown sound.”

Check out the demo videos below, and if you are in Nashville this week (July 9-11,2015) don’t miss Humboldt Pedals at our Summer NAMM Stompbox Exhibit!