The world of effects pedals is a place of limitless expression: from multi-effecting, genre-splattering units to hyper-specific, single-use Swiss Army knives, the rainbow of the signal spectrum is pretty well represented. But remember, tone is as much in the gear as it is in the hearts, hands, and minds of the players themselves. You thought we were going to say balls, didn’t you? Well, we didn’t, at least… wait…
Regardless, as much we associate brands like Boss, Electro Harmonix, JHS, Earthquakes Devices, and others with the pedals they produce, we also think a lot about the artists that play them.
(We were both thinking about Seagal when we said that, right?)
Both parties have big parts to play, but it’s a symbiotic exchange – if things go well, the connection might even develop into a long-lasting professional relationship, as opposed to a moment in the studio, and most commonly this becomes a sponsorship or endorsement of some kind. But sometimes the parties truly come together and something new is born – a signature effects pedal, for instance.
You might not think there are a ton of in math rock, but as sonic visionary SEIMS pointed out to us, who recently received a signature pedal of his own, they do exist. You just have to know how to find them, and we’re stoked to present a handful of these little boxes of joy that just so happen to be developed for math rockers, by math rockers. Well, mostly.
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To kick things off, obviously we should start with the combined efforts Dirty Sock Effects and SEIMS, the CAT. More than just a clever take on the legendary ProCo Rat distortion, this fuzz pedal is tuned specifically for low-end, features design nods to the fairly rare Boss ODB-3, and a majestic portrait of Harry the cat courtesy of Ramen Studios. Just remember, you don’t have to be a bass player, or a cat, to use it! The Cat, perhaps even more so than the Rat, can really add some dimension when you need it.
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Speaking of dimension, it was a hyper-limited release but the Piles Mirror House Pedal, developed with Electronic Audio Experiments, certainly deserves a shout. Somewhere between a quick-timed delay, a drone, a ring modulator, and some sort of pitch destroyer, it’s obviously a bizarre beast but it’s also very math rock.
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Of course, we’d have to be idiots to not mention the Walrus Audio Qi, a recently released collaboration with the math rock legend herself, Yvette Young. When she first started dropping hints about it, we expected a chorus / vibrato with some kind of delay, but what we got is so far beyond that it boggles the mind.
The Qi Etherealizer manages to stay cohesive and complete in its own ecosystem while playing exceptionally well with other effects thanks to its series and parallel paths, establishing itself as both practical and experimental. Considering the current landscape of effects pedals in math rock, the Qi stands to become the scene’s first piece of signature gear to break into totally different demographics on it’s own terms, and that’s a victory in it’s own right.
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On some level, that’s the kind of thing we wished for Nick Reinhart’s signature Keeley Effects unit, the Synth-1, even if that opinion was based solely on his artwork. The Synth-1 technically existed before, and there weren’t any changes made to it from what we can tell, but Nick’s delightful splash of psychedelic color helps bridge the gap between an overwhelming synth smorgasbord and clueless, but curious guitar players. Synth pedals have come a long way in the few short years since 2021, yet it still made for a valid entry point for people wanting to shoot for Tera Melos or Death Grips style cacophony, and in our opinion it’s perfectly poised for a reissue considering they’re all sold out, and have been for some time.
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Although at some point we remember hearing rumors about another Reinhart pedal in the works, there is another signature Nick pedal that’s very adjacent to math rock – the Empty Glass Fuzz by Fuzzrocious for Nick Sadler of Daughters. While the Moth Fuzz variant is brutal and spitty enough, Sadler’s edition is unique in the fact that it has a lot of high-pitch clang to it thanks to a modified octave circuit and drone capabilities. We’re still waiting to hear it in more songs, but people are probably just having so much fun with them that they forget what they’re doing, and that’s cool too.
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One signature pedal that we have heard a lot of, even if it’s not particularly marketed as one, is the Earthquaker Devices Hizumitas Fuzz Sustainer. It was designed with Wata of Boris, a band that surely isn’t math rock, but passes by it fairly often as the band experiments with… well, everything. For years, Wata relied on the Japanese Elk B.M. Sustainer, but EQD profiled her personal pedal to create a version of it that’s beyond friendly to low-end saturation, not unlike SEIMS’ CAT pedal at the top of the list. This one is just more of a feral panther.
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So is this where it ends? Not exactly. Maybe there aren’t hundreds of signature math rock pedals, or even dozens… yet. But in the same breath, there have been some related breakthroughs. Many musicians just go from making music straight into making music gear – Kurt Ballou’s God City Instruments is a great example, as is Oneder Effects, who makes our favorite fuzz in the world, the Onederwall. In a sense, no matter what they’re trying to do, any product that comes from them are their signatures of their designer, or at least represent their tastes.
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We also have prog metal luminaries like Tosin Abasi and Misha Mansoor starting full-on business where pedals, basses, plug-ins, and more collide. These two in particular have long hounds for state of the art recording and production techniques, so to see them slowly elevate into corpo-level magnates has been stunning and encouraging. Funnily enough, the companies have solid footing in different areas – Abasi Concepts is dominating a new wave of prospective guitar players with extended-range, sci-fi aesthetic guitars.
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Mansoor’s Horizon Devices have a sturdier hold on the accessory and pedal markets with the Precision Drive and Apex Compressor, pedals that have famously made themselves at home on pedalboards, studios, and stages everywhere since their respective releases. Their presence feels like it’s about to double, too, considering they recently started putting out accessories like picks and strings.
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What’s interesting is Tosin Abasi also collaborated with Neural DSP on the Archetype: Abasi Suite, a guitar plug-in that delivers absolutely mammoth-sized low end distortion and crystalline cleans – it even has a couple of his company’s signature pedals in it. We use it a lot ourselves, but due to its massive range, there are extremes that routinely scare away users that don’t have time to trim everything down to their personal sweet spots. However, Polyphia‘s Tim Henson nailed this on the head with the Archetype: Henson.
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Recently updated to X status (not the formerly Twitter X, the Neural DSP X that basically indicates the new / current generation’s iteration), the Henson suite is insanely versatile and really makes sure your clean to medium-gain moments sound just as stellar as your high-gain destruction. In fact, one could argue that out of all of the Neural DSP Archetypes, the Henson edition sounds best in a number of genres, and would make a killer all-in-one pedal one day, because some of the tones are begging to be brought into the analog world, even if they were born digitally.
For now, that’s all, although we’re sure there’s more. If they’re still cooking, we’re still looking. Thanks again to SEIMS for having the idea for this article and being nice enough to message us saying we should do it – we really enjoyed it, and we hope you did too!
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