“La Contrabanda” – Merchandise so hot it’s hard to handle. Literally. And figuratively. It really does get hot. Physically. It won’t burn you, but it’s gonna get very warm. And it can get transfer that heat to your speakers. Figuratively. Twist these knobs right, pluck these strings softer or harder and see how it reacts. How it leans into your playing. How it becomes one with you.
It’s built with two gain stages. The first one is built around an NOS germanium transistor. The signal it amplifies then hits a vaccuum tube – a double triode. If you use the “bias” knob to starve the transistor stage and set gain lower, you’ll find it easier to dive into cleanish boost range. It never gets *clean*. It’s a clean boost with a character. An attitude even. It’s got texture, it’s got that color, warmth and grit. It’s the edge-of-breakup’s edge-of-breakup.
Put the bias past noon, add some gain and you’re in the creamy overdrive territory. But! pluck these strings softer, or turn down your guitar’s volume, and you’re back in the boost mode. That pedal is super sensitive to your playing dynamics. Pluck harder and you’ll start breaking through into fuzz area. With bias and gain maxed out, or close to being maxed out, you’re in the badlands. The lawless territory. Forget that clean boost. Forget that creamy overdrive. It’s now that misbiased, sputtery, angry fuzz. This box will now BITE!
Now, technicalities. This pedal being built around an actual tube forces two things. One – that tube needs to warm up before it starts playing. After you hit the footswitch, it takes about 5 seconds before there’s sound. The other one – power. Heating that tube up requires some juice. Use a 9V / 500mA power supply. Not an SMPS (switch mode power supply) – the modern lightweight ones. It might squeal. Use a power supply built around an actual transformer, with nice and steady, regulated 9V output.
Here’s what it does:
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