Bleak District Electric unveils super organic hybrid clipping Terra Earthly Overdriver

I’m a huge fan of Bleak District Phil’s unique sensibilities in circuit design. And I’ve long since acknowledged him as a master at knob selections - the 5 knobs on this one are just perfectly balanced!

And the overdrive itself is pretty unique. Based at its core on a high quality RC4558 OpAmp - but with a hybrid mix of both asymmetrical silicon diodes in the OpAmp ’soft’ position and germanium diodes in a hard clipping position. Furthermore we have JFET buffers for the Drive and Clean sides of the circuit.

Phil described the circuit to me rather amusingly - as a sort of mashup of a Tube Screamer and DOD250 - with some extra bits! 

It does have a wonderful organic harmonic richness to its output though - with the JFET Buffers and hybrid clipping really helping mould that distinctive breakup.

Controls - Volume, Gain (+40dB), Notched 8-way Low Frequency Filter, JFET Buffered unfiltered Clean Blend with boost, Top-End Smoothing.

The inclusion of Clean Blend makes it an excellent choice for Bass players too. It’s really a 2-Band EQ as such - where the overall topology is made even more special courtesy of the perfect selection and arrangement of knobs.

I did comment at the Brighton Show that the pedal had an air of EVH Stripes about it - but this of course has nothing to do with said great axeman - just a really cool way to illustrate the 8-way notch filter.

The Terra is a really cool, actually a rather warm organic overdrive with distinctive character and a lot of versatility. Ticket price of £145 makes it very reasonable - I will certainly be looking to pick one of these up in the not too distant future. And I still need to get my hands on a Sun?No at some stage - all in good time as they say. You can order a Terra right now from the Bleak District Webstore.

Key Features

• Organic, wide ranging overdrive
• 8 way, notched low frequency input filter voices it from tight and focused to warm and fuzzy
• Germanium and silicon diodes in hybrid, simultanious soft and hard clipping configuration
• JFET buffered, unfiltered clean blend with boost
• Optional smoothing of top end harmonics without muddiness
• 9-18v operation for increased headroom
• RRP : £145 / $185