Aaron Graves

This is our Aaron Graves Overdrive, our first totally fresh drive pedal in quite a while. It is a tribute to a dearly departed friend, fellow musician, record label founder, and champion of his local community Aaron Graves, bandleader of Those Lavender Whales and founder of Fork & Spoon records based here in Columbia, S.C.

We’ve had customers who've just wanted our preamp from our Parabola & Météore as its own pedal for years. It would have been a layup of a release. So if people want that, it will do that.

But Aaron wanted to see his friends grow. So while on first glance this pedal looks like a straightforward overdrive/preamp – and it certainly can make small amps sound bigger, make clean tube amps sound like they were cranked, and make dirty amps sing – it has some nice surprises.

We heard people missed the “Mode B” comp-cut circuit from our old Haymaker and Icarus V1 because it reminded them of power amp clipping. So we brought it back, but added a second gain stage to our classic voicing to balance the two drive styles more evenly. The bass voicing selector comes from us listening to those of you who work in studios, love humbuckers, and/or like using the neck pickup. And if you think this can get dirtier and gnarlier than you might expect, we were recently reminded that Aaron learned how to play guitar from learning Misfits songs.

And yes, a smaller enclosure and nothing *too* crazy sounding, if that’s scared people off before. A portion of all sales proceeds will go to Fork & Spoon Records, so that Aaron’s former mates may continue his good work and legacy with newer artists and releases.