Fresh from becoming the first artist to get a signature Squier Paranormal guitar, Queens of the Stone Age’s Troy Van Leeuwen is releasing a new stompbox with Dr. No Effects – and it features a severed finger.
The TvL Blameshifter is being labeled as a “switching architect” and has been 10 years in the making, having started as a rehearsal room joke.
Back in 2016, Van Leeuwen and Dr. No Effects worked on two signature pedals, the TvL Raven and TvL Octavia – a clean boost and vintage fuzz, respectively.
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The latter featured the word “blameshifter” beneath one of its knobs, which led to the in-house QOTSA line of, “What if there was an effect that shifts the blame for a fuck-up to the other guy’s amp?”
A decade later, after a severed finger fell out of a draw one day in the Dr. No workshop – no further context has been given – the Dutch firm has given birth to the Blameshifter.
What the story ultimately amounts to is a switching pedal built on a quartet of outputs with ultra-transparent buffers and a new approach to effects loop switching.
The severed finger points to where the signal is routed. Output 1 offers a buffered effects loop or an amp send (dealer’s choice) for adding an extra amp to your rig, with Output 3 the return.
That means players can create two separate loops, engage entire pedal chains at once, and return to their main output when it’s disengaged.
But it’s Output 2, described as an “A/B marvel”, where things go a little more left-field. Flick the side-mounted miniswitch to A, and you’ll get Output 2 only. Position B engages Output 2 and the main Output, providing “wet/dry chaos”.
“Troy mapped the labyrinth like a Sonic Architect, Dr. No gave it a body and soul,” the firm says.
The pedals are all handmade from out of Eindhoven, and ship with a goodie box including guitar picks, stickers, and buttons, to the tune of $375.40.
The Blameshifter is currently on pre-order, with shipping expected on November 15.
See Dr. No Effects for more.
