WREN AND CUFF White Elk Small Foot Fuzz Pedal Instructions
- June 4, 2024
- WREN AND CUFF
Table of Contents
WREN AND CUFF White Elk Small Foot Fuzz Pedal Instructions
We hope you enjoy your new pedal!
A recreation of a recreation? Yes.
Elk inc was a Japanese company from the 70’s that made amplifiers as well as a handful of pedals. Most of the pedals were knockoffs of existing pedals, and were made with very unreliable components, cheap circuit boards, thin metal enclosures, and were not “true-bypass.” They would break very easily!
However, there were some musicians who discovered that many of the elks had a tone that was very unique, most famously, Wata and Takeshi from the band Boris, who favored these pedals for their fuzzed-out tones and crazy feedback.
Although Elk intended for them to sound like a Triangle Knob Big Muff, they sound quite different. The carbon-comp resistors and cheap capacitors meant that when the pedals became older, the sound would change as the component values drifted.
When looking inside an original Elk, an electronics person would say the parts are almost the same as a Triangle Muff, BUT these parts are actually MUCH different! Here at Wren and Cuff, the models we took apart and measured were sometimes 60-70% different than the stated value of the components!
Take these truly whacked out values that should never be used, do some component matching that we specialize in doing, and you get a nasty sounding fuzz monster with a uniquely mild mid-scoop, raunchy gain, and a rumbling low end that will have heads turning no matter where you lay your riffs.
So plug in your new White Elk, and you’ll see that “wrong” can sound very right sometimes.
VOLUME: Makes it louder or not so loud when ya turn it.
TONE: Turn it right, things get bright, turn it left and… damn, can’t find a rhyme. Turn it left and it gets darker and thicker.
SUSTAIN: A fancy way to say distortion or fuzz. Turn it up for more, and turn it down for less!
POWER: This pedal uses a 9V battery or a standard center-negative 2.1mm barrel regulated power supply (same kind used for Boss, Ibanez, etc). If using a power supply, please use one intended for effects pedals.
CURRENT DRAW: The White Elk will draw around 6mA
BYPASS: Effect on/off switching is done via a 100% mechanical 3PDT foot-
switch, otherwise known as “truebypass”
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