BUGGFX
RAINCOAT
REVIEW BY YOEL KREISLER
STREET PRICE $179.00
The Raincoat is an
amalgamation of thick
distortion, warm overdrive,
and crispy top-end rolled
into a package that just
begs to be your main
overdrive, distortion, and
everything in between.
This gray Raincoat is the
second pedal from Robert
Bird over at BuggFX
(of Daydream fame) in
Georgia, and it’s take on
the distortion formula may
seem on its cover like a
classic Electro-Harmonix
circuit, but there are bits
and pieces hidden away in
the tone that separate it
from the saturated crowd
of lookalikes and clones.
There’s a storm a-brewin’,
66
GEAR REVIEW
//
so grab your Raincoats and
let’s face the elements.
MOTHER RUSSIA
Before stomping it on, it’s
clear that this pedal takes
some sort of inspiration
from the Big Muff circuit,
with the controls “Volume”
“Sustain” and “Tone” giving
it away pretty completely.
Upon stomping it on, the
first thing that hit my ears
was a very clear Sovtek
influence, albeit slightly
brighter and crispier in
the upper midrange. The
original Sovteks are quite
dark and heavy in the
midrange, as you can see
here (Tone Report Weekly
issue 132), and have a
slightly sluggish sonic
BuggFX Raincoat
character that makes it a
favorite amongst doom
rockers. When asking Mr.
Bird about the influences
behind this pedal, he said it
takes inspiration fr om the
old Russian Big Muffs, but
has quite a few tweaks in
the circuit that transformed
it beyond that. While
sonically it is very similar,
there are a few critical
changes Mr. Bird made
to take on the old Sovtek
circuit and make it his own,
namely in the lower and
higher extreme sides of the
spectrum.
BRIGHTER DAYS
I can’t read a schematic,
and my knowledge of
circuits and what they do is