More and more bands are turning to everything from amp modelers to headless guitars to shrink their gig rigs. Typically, that means modeling a big, beefy tube amp and packing it into a tiny unit for the best of both worlds. But it doesn’t have to be.
Australia’s lovable psych rock lunatics, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, believe in small amp supremacy, and their new pedal is here to spread the message. The Tiny Amp Destroyer is a tiny amp in an even tinier box, and, by Stu Mackenzie’s count, it’s “fucking sick.”
Made in collaboration with Greek co JAM Pedals, it’s based on the sound of a tiny $29 practice amp Mackenzie found at the pawn shop Cash Converters that sounded “cool, loud, and awesome.” It’s been on every Gizzard record since he bought it, which means it probably features on at least 45.
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The Tiny Amp Destroyer is being billed as a three-footswitch gain machine, combining two independent drive stages with a standalone treble booster. Tonally, it traverses focused low-gain overdrive plains, through to “raw, boxy distortion” valleys and “dense, blown-out saturation” plateaus.
But it isn’t just the amp alone. The process started by pushing two JAM Boomster booster pedals into the amp and pushing it to the point of unruly, unstable breakup. The pedal is the soundtrack of the bargain combo being pushed far beyond the point of comfort. It’s the amp screaming for dear life. Small amp lifer Josh Homme will likely be first in line. And it all furthers our case that the age of “bad” guitar tone is officially over.
Active Bass and Treble controls, plus Magic and Notch dials, give players “the freedom to shape that instability,” for as much or as little control as they please.
This being Gizzard, of course there’s a splash of insanity in there. In this case, the lights change from blue to purple, depending on how cranked (or un-cranked) its dials are.
“It rips so hard, it’s insane,” Mackenzie says. “People should play way tinier amps. Fuck all this huge amp business. So I thought, ‘Everyone needs a Tiny Amp Destroyer,’ because it makes your massive amp sound tiny. And it’s just way better.”
“TAD is not an amp in a box,” adds Jam Pedals. “It is the sound of the box losing the fight.”
The first 50 units sold by JAM Pedals come hand-signed by Stu Mackenzie and Jason Galea, the band’s longtime artist who created the pedal’s visuals.
It’s priced at $399/£319 and available to order now.
See JAM Pedals for more.
