Old Blood Noise Endeavours is known for making rather unusual pedals. Once, they put three different drives with three outputs in one pedal. Another time, they built one of the most creative, unusual ambient reverb pedals on the market. With the OBNE Pardner Fuzz, they rethink fuzz effects. It comes with an FX loop that allows you to loop other effects into the fuzz.
Howdy Pardner: High Noon for fuzz fans
Whenever OBNE releases a new pedal, you can be sure that its accompanying product video is going to be a work of art. For instance, when they released Dark Light, they made a whole horror sci-fi bit that was much more than simply showing off a new effect. With the OBNE Pardner Fuzz, OBNE went full old-school Western.
Brady Smith and Seth McCarroll, OBNE’s founders, started out with a pretty unusual motto: What if Quentin Tarantino built guitar pedals? So, with every new release comes another low-budget, Pulp Fiction-looking masterpiece. But aside from the clever marketing, what makes the Pardner pedal different from other effects?
The Pardner comes with two fuzz voicings and an FX loop that can be used to loop in a second effect. You can route the external effect in parallel or series before or after the fuzz.
OBNE Pardner Fuzz: Lasso, three colors, and synthy fuzz
The OBNE Pardner Fuzz is available in three different colors: yellow, blue, and purple. The artwork was done by Garrett Young. As for its controls, you can adjust lows and highs of the output signal using the respective controls, bass and treble. In addition, Fuzz Volume control lets you adjust the pedal’s output level.
The filter dial offers a combination of a low-pass filter (on the left) and a high-pass filter (on the right) on the input signal. Additionally, Intensity allows you do set the input gain. There are also two different fuzz voicings available: Fuzzy and Synthy. The latter one seems to significantly blur the fuzz, making it more spherical and darker. The two soft-touch foot switches toggle the fuzz and the FX loop, called Lasso, respectively.
Continuing the Western theme, OBNE calls the pedal’s FX loop Lasso, in that you can “capture” your favorite effect here. In addition to the usual input and output on the back, there is also a send/return pair. You can separately control its input and output levels using the corresponding mini-pots.
How much does the Pardner Fuzz cost?
Before we get to the price: The idea holds a lot of creative potential. However, you can hear in the demo video how carefully you have to do the gain staging when you connect the fuzz and lasso in series using the 3-way switch. Especially when you combine the OBNE Pardner Fuzz with an additional distortion or overdrive, it can very quickly feedback in the most painful ways. But I’m curious to hear what sounds fuzz fanatics will get out of this pedal!
Old Blood Noise Endeavors lists the OBNE Pardners Fuzz with an MSRP of $229.
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