BLAMMO! Electronics Total Garbage Pedal
The Total Garbage is based on the Tim Escobedo Ugly Face but with a few neat modifications that extend the modulation range and accentuate the synthy octave-down sound it offers. Originally a DIY circuit that was never officially released, it remains a classic among solder jockeys/builders looking for something a little different but was never readily available for folks that simply buy pedals until now. Four trashcan-shaped knobs and two no-click footswitches hold sway over the Total Garbage and believe me; you’re going to want to know what they do.
BLAMMO! Electronics Total Garbage Pedal Review
Everyone knows the origin story by now: channel strip breaks, the signal running through it gets altered in an interesting way, and the fuzz tone is born! To me, there’s one key takeaway from this tale of accidental invention, and that is, sometimes broken actually means better. And sometimes bad sounds better than perfect, so to avoid looking foolish, BLAMMO! embraces this universal truth by creating the Total Garbage.
The ‘STANK’ knob is a sensitivity control that regulates how much of the guitar's signal gets modulated, which basically means much quack/filtering effect gets layered over the fuzz. All the way left is pretty much a straightforward fuzz tone. When dialed right, the fuzz sound gets progressively more funky and thwacked out. This knob also controls the intensity of the ‘SPLATTER’ footswitch. The ‘SPOIL’ control sets the threshold for triggering a free-running oscillator that gets interrupted by the guitar signal. Dial it right for glitched-out bleep-bloops that are affected by the ‘FREAK’ control, or turn it left to bring the madness down to more manageable levels. The ‘FREAK’ knob is sort of odd tone control that, at one extreme, produces nasally thin sounds that slice while the other side yields a big octave down tone that sounds most prominent through the neck pickup with the tone control on the guitar rolled back. ‘LEVEL’ is your basic volume control that sits at the end of the circuit. We dialed back the output some to make unity gain around one o’ clock (depending on your pickups). The ‘SPLATTER’ footswitch smears and bends the sound by modulating the guitar frequencies further with a slight boost in volume that can also produce some interesting artifacts that pause and swoosh the signal in weird ways.
BLAMMO! Electronics Total Garbage Pedal Specs
- True Bypass
- Soft switching footswitches
- Red LED
- Teflon coated wiring
- Top mounted jacks
- 1590bb2 enclosure (4.7 in x 3.7 in x 1.49 in)
- Current draw: 38mA
- Handmade with love in Portland, Oregon
BLAMMO! Electronics Total Garbage Pedal Warranty
BLAMMO! Electronics will fix it and make it right if something is wrong with your pedal. If there are signs of wear and tear or neglect, it will probably have a small repair cost. Reach out to us for more information.
