Catalinbread reboots its Antichthon Experimental Chaotic Oscillating Bias Fuzz - now in more controllable and expansive Deluxe Edition

The original compact Antichthon Fuzz is one of my favourite Catalinbread pedals, and an excellent ambassador for the experimental and chaotic oscillating fuzz genre. With the original version you induced all manner of cool squeals and tremulous timbres by manipulating both your guitar’s volume and tone knobs.

This is a particularly unruly fuzz - which makes it so much fun for us genuine fuzz fanatics - you never quite know where it’s going to take you - but you can guarantee and interesting ride!

The original compact model had just 4 controls - Gravity (now called Action), Time (Low input frequencies - probably equivalent to ’body’ on the Deluxe), Volume, and Space (Bias). And relied on quite a bit of guitar knob-twiddling to make things really interesting.

The new one besides its name looks like an entirely different pedal - but that is largely because of the re-labelling of the key controls. Where ’Action’ is the ’Gravity’ of old, ’Bias’ is the ’Space’ of the original, and presumable ’Body’ is similar to ’Time’ on the original. They both share a Volume control, but have slightly different ’EQ’ sections as such. The Deluxe Model is a lot more shapeable via the pedal controls - and overall requires a little less guitar knob twiddling as such!

Deluxe Controls - Volume, Action (Oscillate / Gravity), Bias (Character / Space), Body (Oomph!), Mids : ±800Hz, FDBK (Pre-Mids), On/Off Switch (for FDBK), Action Footswitch (Oscillate!).

As with the original Antichthon - all the controls are incredibly sensitive and interactive, and the circuit works off the interplay of those elements - which are further enhanced by the new controls - where you can switch Off the FDBK if it’s giving you too much.

I really wish Catalinbread has made this in a compact format - you could easily accommodate those controls on a 125B chassis with dual footswitches. At the very least make it a vertical 1590BB format! But no Catalinbread has form in doing these landscape editions - which kind of take up too much real-estate really for me. It just means that it’s much more difficult to accommodate this pedal in the rig.

So I’m kind of tempted, but kind of put off at the same time. The new one goes for $235 which is decent value, while I will probably stick with my original ’lesser’ compact. You can get that version as a B-Stock currently for as little as $100, there was also a recent Circles Ltd Edition 50 Unit Run of the Antichthon compact which is already sold out! I quite like the minimalist aesthetics of the original etched enclosure - it kind of imbues the pedal with the right chemistry for the soundscapes it generates, I’m not sure I find the design of the new Deluxe edition quite as inspiring!

Be good to know what your take is on this pedal. It’s for sure likely going to be something of a minority sport like its forebear.

But it’s very much the kind of pedal that I’m delighted to see out and about.

I wish the format and the design on this could have been a little bit more inspirational - as I am such a fan of the original. While my next Catalinbread acquisition will definitely be the recent Bitters Signal Mangler!

You can read more about the new Antichthon Deluxe on the Catalinbread Website.