THERE’S NOT A LOT
BUDDING BUILDERS CAN
TO BE SAID ABOUT
CRANK THEM OUT.
I’ve been keeping tabs on the
TIM ESCOBEDO THAT
dissemination of Mr. Escobedo’s ideas,
I HAVEN’T ALREADY
and as a huge fan of his, finding out that
some of his equally intriguing designs
WRITTEN IN THE
haven’t been cloned en masse gives me
PAGES OF MY HUMBLE
slight pause. Sure, the Tripple Fuzz has
COLUMN. THE MAN IS
been done to death, and several of my
own DIY builds have featured the Duende
A CERTIFIED GENIUS
attached to the tail end, but these two
AND HAMMERED OUT
circuits are but scratching the proverbial
CIRCUIT AFTER CIRCUIT surface of the Escobedo gospel.
Two circuits that don’t get near as much
OF COMPLETELY
due as they should are the Simple Square
ORIGINAL DESIGNS.
Wave Shaper and the Idiot Wah. The term
SOME PEDAL BUILDERS “square wave fuzz” really throws a lot of
guitarists off because thinking in terms of
(WHO SHALL REMAIN
waveforms when it comes to dirt pedals
NAMELESS) HAVE SOWN is a relatively taboo integration. In fact,
only three other well-known pedals I can
AND SUSTAINED ENTIRE think of make notice of a dirt waveshape:
the Univox Square Wave, the Dearmond
CAREERS FROM MR.
Square Wave, and the Roland Double
ESCOBEDO’S SEEDS.
Beat, which has a square wave setting.
How many of these have you seen
ONLY NOW ARE SOME
into contemporary classics?
OF HIS OTHER CIRCUITS reanimated
Zero.
BUBBLING TO THE
It is unsurprising, then, that Escobedo’s
SSWS isn’t the first to crack the code
SURFACE, READY TO
of wave-centric dirt resurgence, but still
WREAK HAVOC ON
puzzling that boutique builders raiding
Escobedo’s pantry would leave such an
PA SYSTEMS ACROSS
circuit rotting on the shelf. The
THE STATES AS FAST AS original
SWSS forces the signal into a square wave,
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