EHX Grain Fuzz Tau

Watercolor & india ink on cold press paper
6in x 6in
For the 2022 Roco 6x6 show

Part two in the This Pedal Does Not Exist series

I'm going to write these in a way that if any enterprising engineers at (ehx? boss/roland? red panda?) wanna try to actually make the thing, they could.

Electro-Harmonix has been one of the more innovative players in the pedal space in recent years, capitalizing on grain synthesis with things like the Superego and Freeze pedals as well as waveshaper/synthesis pedals for things like their B9 and C9 organ/keyboard emulation pedals.

The idea for this pedal, however, is a recycling of an old DOD effect, the DFX-5 distortion. The DFX uses a harsh, short delay to emphasize an effect. When a delay uses an ultra short length, such as one where a full cycle of the note being played can't complete, you have an effect similar to the "oscillator sync" function on a synthesizer. When the resulting delayed cycle is also dissonant to the note being played, it sounds like a very unique distortion.

This particular design uses a one-knob compression/expansion control to really get that good delay crunch. Putting it on one knob makes it dead simple to crunch up the delayed signal before also grain-mangling it.

Naturally this uses a wet/dry balance knob to give some control over how much distortion is present compared to your dry signal.

Other notes: this is the grain delay tau because the big muff pi is, well. yeah. you get it. It needed something to riff on the most iconic ehx design, and simply being grain delay and a fuzz didn't quite cut it in all dimensions. It's also a more well rounded pedal. If you read that as a joke, congratulations on your math degree.

Also this is Balktek, from an alternate universe where Mike Matthews set up shop in the Balkans circa '88 rather than Moscow.

2022, Ink, Watercolor, Paper, Small Works, Blue, Black, This Pedal Does Not Exist Series, Roco 6x6