If you like your guitar tone deep-down low and distorted, Malekko Heavy Industries has a new pedal that can take it to new depths.
The appropriately named Downer – a pedal whose prototype we saw at NAMM 2018 – is a combination wavefolder/saturation and pitch-shifting pedal. Saturation, the more “subtle” of the first two effects, creates the sound of distortion that’s produced when audio tape is pushed to its performance limit. Wavefolding takes the effect further, creating distortion with extreme harmonics.
Add pitch-shifting down to one octave, and Downer has everything you need in one compact package featuring just 6 knobs.
Controls include Preamp to drive wavefolding or saturation from subtle to extreme, Blend, and Hi Pass and Lo Pass to sculpt the tone further. Downer also features assignable expression pedal control over any combination of the device’s knobs and settings. With one sweep, you can dial your tone from classic, heavy fuzz to screaming experimental madness.
Downer retails for $189 and is powered by a standard 9-volt DC center-negative adapter or internal battery.
Here’s the latest video by Dennis Krazer.
In this new video, guitarist Nathan Junior puts the pedal through its paces. For more information, visit Malekko’s website.
