Boutique custom shop Messiah Guitars is excited to release their first overdrive pedal: Billy, a transparent drive.
“I love the original, but I wanted to tweak the gain and add more clipping options for more flexibility and variety,” says Hejda. “And as a bonus, you get a weird fuzz built in the same box!”
Billy provides four knobs for shaping tone and volume. BOOST adjusts the gain from a near amp-break-up to a Rock’n’roll distortion. A pre-gain LOW knob provides bass control entering the gain stage, and if the frequency range is too low or too high, players can shift the bass response with an internal trimmer adjustment. HIGH control adds the necessary treble post-gain. LEVEL controls the pedal’s output volume.
In addition, the pedal features a 3-way MODE switch for selecting among three clipping modes: ’S’ -silicon which offers a classic rock drive, ‘G’ - germanium that adds more compression, and ‘?’ - an experimental fuzz setting not for those faint of heart, achieved with a complimentary pair of vintage germanium transistors. The ‘?’ setting requires a strong signal to be properly excited - you can get there with a preceding booster pedal, or by cranking up gain and the 2-band EQ. An optocoupler in the footswitch helps to keep those pesky clicks to a minimum.
Billy comes in two different versions. The standard version is available in silver finish. A limited-edition pedal in a Brown Sugar finish features NOS germanium diodes in the ‘G’ mode setting for a true vintage feel.
Like their custom guitars and amplifiers, Messiah’s pedals are hand-crafted in Los Angeles for a long life with guaranteed quality.
Each Billy pedal includes:
- 4-knob controls and a 3-way mode switch
- Durable enclosure with fun artwork and space-saving top-side jacks
- Easy to see, illuminated optical true bypass footswitch
- Standard 9V pedal power input or an internal 9V battery
Billy Pedal Demo
Billy retails for $199.00; Billy Limited Edition ‘Brown Sugar’ retails for $219.
For more information, please visit messiahguitars.com.
Claudio Sanchez Signature Anna Pedal
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of one of Coheed and Cambria’s most beloved albums, The Second Stage Turbine Blade, Claudio and camp had the idea to make a pedal to mark the occasion. After some thought, it was suggested that Wren and Cuff should help make that stompbox a reality. Several emails, texts, and video chats later, both parties agreed this would be a fun project that would result in an amazing pedal for both Coheed fans, as well as anyone that loves guitar pedals.
So what would it be? They decided on a pedal dedicated to one of Claudio Sanchez’s favorite and most trusted combinations when in the studio and on the stage, his 80’s Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive® feeding his ’78 “op-amp” Big Muff®. With Matt Holl’s (Wren and Cuff owner) reputation for meticulously accurate reproductions of vintage pedals, this collab was a perfect match.
Matt decided to leave the Muff side untouched. Claudio’s ’78 had the “tone bypass” mod the ’78’s are known for, so that of course was included via a toggle switch. For the drive side, however, he decided to have a little fun. A four position rotary switch was added to give the option of changing the clipping section. Along with the stock vintage SD-1 setting, there was an LED clip option (hard edge symmetrical clipping), no clipping diodes (big, loud, open sounding sorta-clean boost), and the TS9 setting (gets in the ballpark of a stock Tube Screamer®). A toggle switch was added to give the option of flipping between the stock setting and an SD-1 on steroids (more gain, thicker tone, more output). When asked which of these mods Claudio wanted to add to the setup, his answer was simply “yes” – all of them would be features of the final pedal. Both pedals can be used independently as well as in series with the SD-1 hitting the Big Muff for sonic chaos. A Swiss Army knife of fuzz and drive is the end result.
Features:
•Artwork celebrating Coheed’s 2002 album, The Second Stage Turbine Blade
•True hardwire bypass
•Two effect independent operation