What do Bruce Wayne and the Hamburglar have in common? They both thoroughly enjoy putting on costumes. Well, I’m pretty sure they do; Christian Bale looked like he had fun pretending his voice box was an octave pedal and I’ve never seen the Hamburglar bummed out. Or without a hamburger. I think there’s a direct correlation between Hamburglar’s mood and the amount of hamburgers in his immediate area. Just a hunch.
Disguises allow us to run amok with a new identity and a new approach to the world. In the spirit of Halloween and all things monster masks, horror movies and houses that give out full-size candy bars, we thought there might be some guitars out there that want to play dress-up too. Today we’re looking at five pedals to disguise your tone and fool your friends into believing that Strat is a synth, organ, or spasming computer. Let’s take a look below.
Electro-Harmonix Key9 Electro Piano Machine
Isn’t it just the worst when your key guy doesn’t show up for a gig because he stopped by Camp Crystal Lake to help out some teenagers and then just disappears? Happens to everyone. With the EHX KEY9, nine presets are available with parameters for dry, keys (effect) and two tone controls to transform your guitar into everything from a Doors-esque organ to a straight-up marimba. Electric piano not your thing? Electro-Harmonix also makes two organ emulators, the C9 and B9, for all your Phantom of the Opera guitar-related needs. And speaking of organs...
Earthquaker Devices Organizer Polyphonic Organ Emulator
Earthquaker Devices’ The Organizer takes your search for organ emulation a step further with polyphonic emulation and a wider array of controls. Technically an octave pedal, the Organizer offers octave up and down controls along with a Choir knob that regenerates the octaves, providing a doubled effect. A mix of analog and Digital Signal Processing (DSP) circuitry that combines the best of both worlds, this unassuming little turquoise box is sure to give your guitar a case of split personality.
DOD Meatbox
The Meatbox is a sub-octave pedal on paper, but you can think of it more as a spelunker taking your tone down into the deepest, most bass-laden depths in guitardom. Designed to go an octave down but built with two filters capable of dropping the signal at 35Hz and 60Hz (Sub and Low knobs respectively), the Meatbox makes a guitar growl with cavernous presence. Capable of acting solely as a low-end boost, this little beast works wonders when the octave and filters are hard at play. Dubbed a “speaker popper” when the original debuted in the ‘90s, the Meatbox turns your guitar into a rumbling monster.
Red Panda Bitmap
Is that the sound of a berserker robot devouring a Sega Genesis? Nope: it’s your guitar when played through Red Panda’s bitcrusher, the Bitmap. Designed with fractional bit reduction allowing the signal to run between one and twenty-four bits, the pedal also features a three-way waveform selector, sample rate modulation and frequency sweep for an end result that doesn’t remotely sound like it came from a guitar. The Bitmap is like HAL9000 got really into video games and took control of a noise band instead of Discovery One.
For a taste of the Bitmap on bass, check out the video above from our good friend Juan Alderete.
Korg Miku Stomp
The Korg Miku Stomp pedal certainly ranks as one of the most unique and peculiar pedals ever conceived. This emulator pedal brings the vocal stylings of Japanese digital voice software personification Hatsune Miku to your pedalboard with 11 lyrical presets including "Lahh," "Nyan," and "Scat."
There are quite a few YouTube videos that showcase the bizarre abilities of the Miku, but we have to give a real tip of the hat to the always entertaining Rob Chapman and the Captain whose above video might be one of the peak demos ever produced.