​Buzzy, fuzzy, and totally badass. Back in the 1970s, Interfax, a small effect company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, created the Harmonic Percolator. It was a weird distortion pedal whose enclosure had all the visual charm of a 1987 PC. (Think beige.) No one gave a crap, and the Percolator soon vanished.

That is until Chicago guitarist/engineer Steve Albini rediscovered it years later. It became his secret weapon. Eventually, the Percolator became a popular DIY project, and several manufacturers have created near-exact clones.

But Porkolator isn’t one of those. Yeah, it swipes some ideas from the original circuit, but it sharpens the core tone and vastly expands the range.