DigiTech Chthonic Fuzz Effect Pedal
The Chthonic Fuzz (pronounced:THAH-nik) creates fat, corpulent, fudgy, sludgy, fuzz tones designed to pairperfectly with single-coil, P90, gold-foil, and DeArmond style pickups. It alsoworks great with PAF-style humbuckers, but this fuzz was designed with brighterguitars and bright, clean amps in mind.
Starting with a belovedsingle-knob ‘70’s fuzz circuit, we experimented with adding a subtle tonecontrol (Lustre), and then a separate gain control (Fuzz). This yielded asimple yet powerful fuzz with an earthy, dark flavor. Straight-up transistorclipping using a pair of 2N2222 transistors allows guitar volume knob clean-upsimilar to other classic fuzzes, but the Chthonic comes from a differentdimension. Think of it as a kind of classic fuzz from an alternate universe.
The Chthonic’s Kraken/Cthulhugraphics are courtesy of the same artist that did the Carcosa Fuzz art. TheChthonic is a psychotic dizygotic dark companion to the Carcosa Fuzz that takesits place in the pantheon of the underworld.
Placement of the DOD ChthonicFuzz:
The Cthonic Fuzz is designed to befirst in the chain. This will allow it to interact with the guitar pickups andvolume control. Rolling of the guitar volume just a tiny bit will yield thebestresults, and rolling it back to 7or 8 will allow the Chthonic to clean-up to a nice overdrive. Rolling theguitar volume to 5 will yield sparkling clean tones. This sensitivity alsomakes the Chthonic react to the capacitance of longer cables, so try to keepthe cable to the input to the Chthonic as short as possible. Also avoid havingany pedals before the Chthonic as the buffer will effect the tone.
Setup of the DOD Chthonic Fuzz:
Start with all the controls at12:00, their midpoint. Then adjust to taste. If the result is too extreme, thenturn the Fuzz and Lustre controls down to a lower setting. All settings will beheavily dependent on the output level of your instrument, your amplifier, andplaying style.
