This one-knob fuzz pedal is equal parts vicious and controlled.
Salem, MA’s Black Mass Electronics are back with a new pedal released today, the Kill Chain.
“The Kill Chain is a pedal designed to accomplish a specific set of goals. First, I wanted a fuzz full of aggression, and raunchy raucousness. Second, I wanted a simple feature set that was easy to understand and dial in—nothing to obsess over or fiddle with.” The result? A gnarly, yet incredibly versatile, one-knob fuzz pedal with a unique pair of toggle switches to help dial it into your liking.
Black Mass Electronics have done away with EQ controls on the Kill Chain and instead has opted for a single knob to control the overall output volume of the fuzz. But as the knob is turned up it also attenuates the treble frequencies to ensure the high end stays balanced and doesn’t get too wild.
The Kill Chain also features two toggle switches:
Bleed – the Bleed toggle switch adjusts the output treble bleed and boosts the volume. The left side offers a more compressed, tighter sound with more high frequencies. The right side is a more open, mid-focused sound.
Depth – the Depth control is a three-way toggle switch that controls how much low end is allowed to enter the fuzz circuit. The left position adds more low end to the fuzz sound. The middle position offers a tight, aggressive fuzz sound with less bass. And the right position is full-on “eyeball rattling” low-end fuzz.
Black Mass Electronics worked hard to tune the Kill Chain to ensure it works across a variety of different genres and rig setups. The input of the Kill Chain is buffered so you don’t have to worry about impedance issues when running other buffered pedals before it in your signal chain or having issues when using active pickups in your guitar or bass.
Oh yeah, it sounds great on bass too!
For more information on the Kill Chain fuzz, head over to the Black Mass Electronics website. And while you’re there, check out their 1312 distortion (recently featured in our list of the best RAT clones)!