We’re excited to announce the release of the Heavy Menace, the most versatile distortion pedal we’ve ever created.
To present what’s new with the Heavy Menace, we should first talk about the original Heavy, a 2-channel distortion pedal that launched in 2013.
We think of the Heavy as the opposite of the ParaEq MKII. The ParaEq has a minimalist approach to the circuit design path in the interest of pristine, transparent sound. The Heavy features 328 components on the circuit board, 7 stages where we intentionally clip components, and 10 stages of filtering to precisely shape the signal between clipping stages. It is not minimal, pristine, or transparent.
The Heavy was built around three important pillars: great-sounding high-gain distortion, powerful EQ, and a responsive gate.
The Heavy channel quickly starts to sear, and the Heavier channel goes over the top with even more gain and a more brilliant high-end for tones that will slice through any mix. The 3-band EQ offers 3 selectable midrange frequencies per channel to dial in the sweet spot for vintage pushed or modern scooped tones. The Weight knob controls a high-pass filter in the distortion circuit to sculpt the low frequency response for tight, percussive riffs. The adaptive gate uses envelope followers in the circuit to respond to the player’s performance, detecting fast stops and sustained notes and responding appropriately to each.
The Heavy has been loved by high-gain players for the past decade. Ola Englund named the Heavy the best distortion pedal of 2020, and our “Will It Chug?” time is under 9 seconds.