The Ripped Speaker 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.
