Meet Caroline Guitar Company's "The Blues." It delivers vintage boutique mojo without the hefty price tag. With two modes, it spans from pristine to pawnshop gritty. No matter how good life's been, everyone has off days - let "The Blues" speak for you. Its straightforward design includes two knobs and a switch, adjusting grit and vintage vibes. Plus, an internal tweak lets you fine-tune your sound to perfection.

Official Website

Manual

Review by delicious audio

Demo by Edge of Breakup

Demo by Tone Factory

Official Product Video

The Blues

Alpha Gain is an expansion and revisitation of our Icarus 2.x drives, but greatly expanding the range and control of the pedal via the mode switch. 

The pedal clips the signal via an op-amp drive section and an array of silicon and Russian germanium diodes, while a second gain stage provides a lot of output and clean boost to push an amplifier. The UK mode amps up the drive side (roughly 2.5x the previous version's maximum gain), lightens and tightens the bass a touch, and makes the output easier to dial closer to unity or for a more of a controlled volume jumps. The USA side takes the power and applies it to the second gain stage. The gain is tailored to be closer to our Parabola’s preamp section, but optimized for the silicon and germanium clipping array, and with the tone control for fine tuning. The thing gets plenty loud, but is fuller frequency and stays clean until you mean it. 

Product Page

Alpha Gain

Buffer, booster, and rich overdrive all in one, with a mix of Russian germanium sweetness.

It’s 1972. A Soviet surveillance microphone preamp has made its way west thanks to a courageous defector. The nascent, nefarious, and invisible Caroline Corporation obtains it and converts it into devices for military psychoacoustic special operations, then covertly delivers them to legendary users with fame and influence for evaluation.

Decades later, the Corporation’s hilariously neglected “Guitar Company” satellite office, blissfully unaware that their parent company has dissolved decades earlier, discovers the schematic and parts specifications. They source some discontinued Russian “unobtanium” diodes and recreate its special flavor.   

There is no evidence that any of the above has or has not happened. So anyway, here’s  ICARUS™. It is “sonic awesomeness” based on our PARABOLA and MÉTÉORE preamps.

Review by reddit /guitarpedals

Demo by Buddy Blues

Demo by JHS

Icarus V2

What is more powerful: the pedal, or the mighty foot of the player who steps upon it?

For years we have had players ask us if our pedals are appropriate for use in praise and worship settings. We have considered such a question blasphemous, as Crom is an angry deity who lives inside a mountaintop, who doesn’t concern himself with the matters of mere mortals, and cannot be bothered to hear their pleas for help, their prayers for vengeance, or anything that might resemble a song of praise or devotion.

CROM is a BC184 Supa Tone Bender style fuzzstortion like our original Olympia™, but with a classic tweed amp style tone control (MOUNTAIN) that interacts with the SWORD (gain) control. It is a LOT less lossy and less scooped than the classic M*ff style tone control in these circuits, giving the pedal an immediate and punchy response. A TURBO button on the side gives it extra power and gain.

Review by Guitarworld

Demo by AndyDemos

Demo by Noise Generator

Crom

PARABOLA™ is the sonic equivalent of riding your space mammoth through giant puddles in the astral plane while feeding it caffeinated energy drinks.

Think of this as your rig’s new “tremolo channel”. We’ve adapted the deliciously sloshy, transistor-based LFO and distinctive waveform from our favorite “West German” device, modified its speed and depth to match and go beyond those from your favorite classic amps, and then added pre and post effect gain stages for both overdrive and volume boost. Then we offer the classic, dramatic amplitude modulation (AM) you might expect, or a filtered modulation (FM) that is subtle, beautiful, and less invasive on your playing.

Your pedal was dreamed, designed and created at our small batch distortery™ in Columbia, S.C. Thank you for supporting our work and putting it to use.

Demo by The Pedal Zone