Way Huge’s Atreides Weirding Module is one of Jeorge Tripps’ great gifts to the world. It’s a gift that keeps giving, too. The Attack Vector phaser and envelope was its first offspring. But the newest, the Stone Burner Sub Atomic octave fuzz is a killer, maybe the coolest, and probably the most practical pedal from the Atreides family. It’s an unusually useful and forgiving octave fuzz that will generate up to two sub octaves, which feature more or less prominently depending on the sub level.
This sub octave filter works in concert with the fuzz, which you can’t remove entirely from the mix, but which ranges in intensity from nasty and spitty to double-nasty and surprisingly capable of sustain. Various mixes of the sub and fuzz levels yield tonalities that stretch from synthy elasticity and fuzz bass to fractured, tectonic-scale Earth rumblings, and fuzz that sounds like a banshee gargling gravel and rusty nails. (I mean this in the most complimentary possible sense.)
The wide-ranging tone knob, meanwhile, has a profound effect on a given mix’s glitchiness, sustain, and overtone profile. The Stone Burner also responds in fascinating ways to guitar volume and tone input—sometimes emphasizing tight fundamentals and octaves in more concise and equal parts, or enhancing the more synth-like qualities of the filter. Variations in pitch from finger vibrato and whammy bars activate many ghostly responses and overtones, too. Needless to say, it is a fairly confrontational effect, but the Stone Burner is also malleable, sweet, bratty, and beautiful.
