New stompbox is designed to emulate the historic tones achieved by slashing a speaker cone with a razor blade
(Image credit: Electro-Harmonix)
Electro-Harmonix has unveiled its latest fuzz pedal, the Ripped Speaker.
Paying homage to the earliest iterations of distorted guitar and bass tones – which were achieved by using a faulty channel on a recording console, or, as the name suggests, slashing a speaker cone with a razor blade à la the Kinks' You Really Got Me – the pedal boasts a simple four-knob configuration, with controls for Volume, Tone, Fuzz and RIP.
The Volume and Fuzz dials naturally set the level and amount of fuzz, while the Tone knob offers a tilt-shift-type EQ. In other words, with the knob at noon, the EQ is flat, while turning it counter-clockwise or clockwise either boosts the bass frequencies and cuts the trebles or boosts the trebles and cuts the bass, respectively.
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The RIP is a bias adjustment control which sets the amount of clipping applied to the top and bottom of the signal. At noon, the effect is neutral; turning the knob clockwise produces a sputtered gating effect, while turning it counter-clockwise generates a smoother gating effect.
The Ripped Speaker is available now for $99. For more information, and to hear audio examples, head over to Electro-Harmonix.
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Sam was Staff Writer at GuitarWorld.com from 2019 to 2023, and also created content for Total Guitar, Guitarist and Guitar Player. He has well over 15 years of guitar playing under his belt, as well as a degree in Music Technology (Mixing and Mastering). He's a metalhead through and through, but has a thorough appreciation for all genres of music. In his spare time, Sam creates point-of-view guitar lesson videos on YouTube under the name Sightline Guitar.