If you’re looking for a clean boost, or something light to give your rig a bit of “sparkle” or “transparency”, you should probably look somewhere else besides Earthbound Audio. Now, if you want to get heavy, doomy, stonery or just filthy and nasty with your tone, you’ve come to the right place. Today we’re going to take a look at their Throat Locust, a wicked heavy distortion pedal based on the legendary, out of production HM-2 Heavy Metal from Boss. Expanding on the abilities of that vintage beast, this monster preserves the gnarly distortion tones the HM-2 is known for, while amplifying (pun intended) the overall tonal possibilities of the circuit.
The Level and Distortion knobs perform as you’d expect they do, with a heap of both for you to enjoy at all kinds of unreasonable volume. The EQ section is really key to the Throat Locust, giving you individual Low, Mid and High controls. There’s an additional MF control, which alters the center frequency of the Mid knob. With MF fully clockwise, the Mid control center frequency is approximately 1kHz; all the way counter-clockwise lowers the center frequency down to approximately 325 Hz. This range gives you a dynamic sonic swing to play with, opening up the tonal possibilities and overall characteristics of this powerhouse of a distortion.
There’s even an A/B toggle switch for good measure, too. Mode A features standard silicon clipping diodes for a saturated, rich distortion, while Mode B is a mix of silicon and LED clipping, for tighter lows, less saturation and more output volume. A one trick pony the Throat Locust is NOT, and if you don’t believe us, there’s a demo video right below here that we want you to check out and see/hear for yourself. Never a company to shy away from loud sounds, mind-melting distortion and all things heavy, Earthbound Audio crushes skulls and pummels eardrums once more, much to the delight of us and their loyal fans the world over. Cheers again, guys, we can’t wait to see what’s next – and for more of their gear, be sure to check out their website and shop!
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