Crowther Audio

Crowther Audio's Hot Cake is a super 'clean' distortion pedal that is designed for electric guitar. The pedal is made out of analog components, and has standard 1/4" connections for your input and output. The pedal is really compact, as it's smaller than a Boss pedal. This isn't a rack mountable piece of gear as it's a stomp box. UTILIZATION There's really not much to the make up of the Crowther Audio Hot Cake pedal. The three parameters that it has are for level, drive, and presence. These are definitely pretty common parameters for a distortion pedal, so if you have any experience at all using overdrive and distortion pedals, the make up of the Hot Cake should seem familiar to you. A manual shouldn't be necessary, but I haven't seen one for this pedal so I can't comment on it's make up. SOUND QUALITY The Crowther Audio Hot Cake pedal is one of the best overall sounding distortion pedals that I've used to date. It has probably the 'cleanest' sound for a distortion pedal that I've heard, meaning that it doesn't give you much noise at all and you can really hear every note being played - even when you're cranking it. This is an incredibly versatile pedal, as it's capable of getting all sorts of sounds and can be used in a variety of situations. It's awesome for give you some lighter overdrive, but also excels as a simple booster and for heavier distortion. You also won't lose any signal whatsoever with this pedal. OVERALL OPINION If you're doing a lot recording with a distortion/overdrive pedal, the Crowther Audio Hot Cake is going to be one of your best bets. It's got such a clean sound to it that it's possible to throw it in your line and use it only when you want to without losing any of your signal. Even for other uses, it excels very well as it's versatility is a huge plug in any setting. The price of the Hot Cake pedal is definitely above average, but it isn't outlandish for a pedal of this caliber. If you're a professional or just a tone snob looking for a really clean distortion pedal, the Hot Cake is a must try.

The Crowther Audio Double Hotcake is essentially the same pedal as the popular Hotcake, but there are two separate modules of the overdrive in here. One of the sides is the Hotcake and one is the Blueberry. It's an analog pedal that has 1/4" input and output jacks and a nine volt power supply jack as well. It's not rack mountable in any fashion as it's a stomp box. UTILIZATION The configuration of the Crowther Audio Double Hotcake is pretty easy to figure out. Each of the two Hotcakes has parameters for drive, level, and presence, and there's also a separate drive parameter for using when both of the modules are engaged at the same time. Each has it's own button to turn off or on. I don't know what the manual for this pedal looks like, but I don't think one is necessary anyway. SOUND QUALITY The sound of the Crowther Audio Double Hotcake is nothing less than outstanding! If you have used the regular Hotcake pedal, you definitely have a good idea of what I'm talking about. It's cool to have both the Hotcake and Blueberry in one pedal here, although the two modules are pretty similar. If you really want something with a kick, you can use both of them at once, but each one individually packs a lot of punch as well. This is definitely a versatile overdrive pedal to say the least! OVERALL OPINION There's no way you could go wrong with the Crowther Audio Double Hotcake! It's one of the best sounding and more versatile overdrive pedals out there today that I've used. The regular Hotcake on it's own is an awesome pedal in it's own right and will most likely be enough for most players, but those looking for more should look to the Double Hotcake. It's a bit less than double the price of two Hotcakes, so choose accordingly, but you really can't go wrong here if you can afford either one!

Crowther Audio's Prunes & Custard pedal is a unique guitar and bass guitar effect that is basically a distortion/overdrive with some added harmonic presence going on. The sub name that they give the pedal is a 'harmonic generator-intermodulator,' which certainly makes this the first place I've seen that name before. The pedal has 1/4" connections for input and output and isn't rack mountable as it's a stomp box. UTILIZATION The configuration of the Crowther Audio Prunes & Custard pedal isn't too hard to understand, but learning all the subtleties will take some time for sure. The main parameters that the pedal has are for level, mix, and drive, along with switches for low frequency contour and for choosing between guitar or bass. A manual isn't necessary, nor have I seen one for this pedal. SOUND QUALITY I'm really a big fan of the way the Crowther Audio Prunes & Custard breaks up in terms of it's distortion. It's really a unique sound as I haven't heard too many other distortion pedals out there that sounds like this at all. Beyond the harmonic frequencies which this pedal boosts, the pedal's distortion can range from quite heavy to more subtler effects, though most of the effects you'll hear from this box are pretty distorted and heavy. This wouldn't be an ideal all purpose distortion pedal, but it's great to have for an extra color to add to the mix. OVERALL OPINION While I don't know that I'd ever have a need to have the Crowther Audio Prunes & Custard pedal in my live guitar rig, it's an awesome pedal to have in the studio as you never know when it might be useful. It sounds awesome all around and there is definitely a lot of room to fine tune here as well. The pedal isn't very cheap, but if you have some extra money to spend on a really cool, interesting and unique effects box, Prunes & Custard is one that I would check out for sure.