Designed by guitarist Paul Crowther of Split Enz back in 1976, the venerable Crowther Hotcake OD/Distortion pedal is all about crunch. Airy, satisfying crunch, like a warm basket of tortilla chips. Hand built in New Zealand, the Hotcake delivers that classic rock rhythm sound in spades, and produces a great old-school lead tone that will make it your first grab.
According the builder, the Hotcake is different from most ODs in that it performs a sort of parallel processing: it leaves the undistorted sound of your guitar and amp alone, while creating a fat distortion alongside our uncolored signal.
The instructions suggest setting it up with both it’s Drive and Presence controls set to zero and the Level set to 2 o’clock as a starting point. You can actually use the Hotcake a clean boost in this way. But the real stuff happens when you engage Drive and Presence.
As I added Drive, the sound through my studio amp, a meticulously re-tubed Egnater Rebel 20 (full disclosure: I’ve been an Egnater artist since 2011), reminded me of my old late-60s Marshall 50 watt head: aggressive, full-range and decidedly crunchy. You can see my standard Drive setting in the picture… there’s a truckload of gain left if you want it. I use the Presence control (which is, as you’d expect, primarily a mid boost) to dial in the sound for humbuckers, single coils or P90s. The soapbars are particularly raunchy and satisfying, but it works great with any guitar.
Inside there’s a jumper that lets you change the response from the standard Hotcake sound to the “Bluesberry” setting, which gives it a less “buzzy” edge at the edge of distortion. (If you just can’t get enough, they also make a double Hotcake, with both voicings in one box!)
Here’s the clincher as to the quality of sound. My wife was with me one day at Bananas at Large in San Rafael, and when I described to the sales guy what I was trying to achieve, he pulled out a Hotcake and said, “You have to hear this.” I plugged the pedal in between a stock Strat and a Deluxe Reverb. After playing a few minutes, my wife (who monitors my business expenses closely) wandered back from the keyboards, and said, “That was you playing? That sounds amazing. You oughta buy that.”
So you’ve heard the Hotcake being used by everybody from SRV to Crowded House and Oasis all the way to Pavement and The Rollins Band. But when your significant other likes it so much she tells you to buy it, that’s the definition of “’nuff said.”
Submitted by James B, Website, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook
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