Guest Post: Foxpedal Wrath Distortion Pedal

On my quest for the ultimate Distortion pedal, I stumbled across this cool Wrath Distortion pedal from Foxpedal Effects. While I’m definitely a stickler for tone, I absolutely love Foxpedals incredible housing designs. I went home and immediately plugged this cool stomp box into my Mesa Boogie Mark Five: 35 with matching 1×12 slant cab and gave it a full demo. The result was a sonic onslaught of rad overdriven tones, which I definitely feel are versatile enough for a wide range of music types & bands.

Looks & Feel

One of my favorite parts about this pedal and Foxpedal in general is that their pedals look so darn cool. An area in which I believe pedal companies can stand out is great graphic design, which Foxpedal definitely excels at for all their pedal housings. The matte black evokes the feeling of a satin finished instrument, which is perhaps the target audience of a grit pedal like this. Also nice is the unusual choice of the stomp button; it’s nice to see something different on an effect box.

Sound & Tone

The Wrath pedal is inspired by the popular RAT distortion pedal that includes a Reutz mod and a red LED clipping option, which helps crank the pedal up to 11. The Reutz mod adjusts the clipping frequency of the gain, allowing for tone darkening as you turn the pedal up. When turning the level, gain and sweep up to 1-o-clock and the cut to 12, I was able to tap into a really solid distortion tone, evocative of heavier death metal sounds. Turning the level to 2-o-clock, the gain and cut all the way up, and putting the sweep somewhere in the middle, allowed me to achieve a very nice faded black metal/black gaze vibe, which would even work well for shoegaze if you rolled off the gain. Lastly, knocking the sweep down to about 9-o-clock and the cut to the middle, gave me really great sustain, especially perfect for harmonics and tapping. I almost felt like I was experimenting with a Sustainiac to some degree.

Overall

This pedal is a fun little distortion pedal from a boutique company that definitely gave me a lot of options for a wide variety of music. Retailing at $149, the price point isn’t bad for such a versatile pedal. If you’re looking for something off the beaten path of pedal manufacturers, be sure to give the Wrath a try and I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Features:

Genuine LM308 Op-Amp.
Handwired Construction
Quality hand-wired open frame jacks
Power: Standard 9 volt DC/ negative center, NO internal battery option.
3PDT True Bypass Footswitch
Dimensions: 2.6″W   x   4.6″H   x   1.5″D
Current Draw: ~15mA

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About the author:

Monique Hernandez-Fuentes is a musician & guitar technician from the San Francisco Bay Area, who writes for home of the original online guitar lessons, GuitarTricks.com.