First Look: EarthQuaker Devices Sunn O))) Life Pedal V3

Sunn O))) are pleased to present an enhanced version of the Sunn O))) Life Pedal Octave Distortion + Booster, in collaboration with their comrades at EarthQuaker Devices. The Sunn O))) Life Pedal circuit has been meticulously tweaked from the original to squeeze every last drop of heavy crushing tone available. The octave section has been fine tuned to make it more pronounced without losing the bottom end and we added a third footswitch, utilizing Flexi-Switch Technology®, for the octave to allow an additional method of quick and radical tone shaping.

“I’m super stoked to have this pedal back in our line!” says EarthQuaker founder, president and designer Jamie Stillman. “We put in a lot of hours dialing this one in and I’m very proud of the final product. Sunn O))) is such an iconic band and I’m thrilled to be part of their legacy.”

EarthQuaker CEO Julie Robbins agrees.“It has been an honor and privilege to collaborate with Greg and Stephen on the SUNN O))) Life Pedal. We are so excited to give this special pedal a permanent place in our line.”

In the writing sessions for Life Metal, Stephen & Greg worked extensively shearing their tones toward a broader energy spectrum over high powered saturation and across planes of sonic character, with the ambition to take full advantage of recording engineer Steve Albini’s exacting capture skills.

The results are astounding: there is breadth and luminosity of colour, vast sonic cosmoses, flashes of abstract colour (synthetic and objective) through resulting themes which emerged from the mastered depths of saturation and circuits between the two players and their mountains of gear.

“We set out to create something that was unique and had its own distinct character to it. The result combines different distortions and achieves different shades of saturation that we were actually doing in the studio,” says Greg Anderson. “I’m extremely happy with this pedal. It’s an integral part of my tone and it holds an important place in my pedal chain.”

“Working on this new version has been a great continuity of this collaboration which feels so right, and sounds so right,” says Stephen O’Malley. “It’s a really beautiful pedal and it’s also a beautiful art collaboration. I think we made something really interesting that people can enjoy to use for their own music, but also, it makes a lot of sense to release a piece of distortion as a release for our band. We’re really happy that this is a trilogy now.”

Learn more about the pedal here.