“This isn’t ‘inspired by’ it. It’s built on the same ingredient that forged it”: Korn pioneered the very sound of nu metal with their debut album – now those tones have been put in a pedal
The Indigo Sludge Preamp + Fuzz offers the band's iconic early tone in a stompbox
Korn has announced a super-limited run of guitar pedals that put Munky and Head’s iconic and genre-shaping debut album guitar tone into a single stompbox.
Dubbed the Indigo Sludge Preamp + Fuzz, it replicates the tones used to drive seminal early hits like Blind and Shoots and Ladders. It does so by offering “the same preamp roar and fuzzed chaos” of the group’s Indigo Ranch sessions, conducted with producer Ross Robinson in the mid-’90s.
Sold exclusively through Korn's website, it comes with a host of controls and features to cover all the tonal bases concocted during those change-making sessions.
The preamp section is modelled on the high-gain preamp stages from those Indigo rigs, “delivering the tight, saturated crunch that defined Munky & Head’s seven-string riffs.” A fuzz circuit is included for “woolly, sustain-drenched chaos,” and an Octave switch looks to bring gut-rattling depth.
A three-band EQ, Volume, Gain, and Presence dials allow full autonomy of the pedal’s character, and the fuzz gets independent controls for Gain, Volume, and Tone. It's well-equipped to get weird.
Beyond that, there's true bypass and 9V power for easy pedalboard integration, as well as a road-ready chassis.
“This isn’t ‘inspired by’ Korn’s tone. It’s built on the same ingredients that forged it,” the band says.
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What exactly those ingredients were has been kept secret for decades. Fans have theorized that Marshall tube amps, Peavey solid states, and a battalion of Boss Metal Zones may have been in the mix. Either way, this pedal promises those tones on tap.
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Only 500 of the $250 pedals were made, but unfortunately they have sold out within two days of the band posting about it on their Instagram.
See Korn for more.
Both Korn guitarists were bestowed with new signatures back in January, with Head having recently rejoined the Ibanez family.
A freelance writer with a penchant for music that gets weird, Phil is a regular contributor to Prog, Guitar World, and Total Guitar magazines and is especially keen on shining a light on unknown artists. Outside of the journalism realm, you can find him writing angular riffs in progressive metal band, Prognosis, in which he slings an 8-string Strandberg Boden Original, churning that low string through a variety of tunings. He's also a published author and is currently penning his debut novel which chucks fantasy, mythology and humanity into a great big melting pot.
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