Colombo Audio's Eruption Pedal delivers instant satisfaction EVH Variac Distortion

Firstly - props to my good friend Henry Kaiser for putting me onto this. This very neatly dovetails into the same kind of experience that I had with my fairly recent superb Tanabe.TV Trifecta. All of those pedals have it in common to sound already brilliant with all dials at noon, but then things get even better when you dial the pedals in to perfectly match your own rig.

Controls - Volume, Gain, Variac (< Classic Plexi | Instant Eddie >), Tone.

Those 4 controls configured to my preferences yields : Volume @ 3:30, Gain @ 1:30, Variac @ 1:30, and Tone @ 2:30. 

Note that all 4 knobs are very interactive and introduce subtle changes to the pedal’s character and output - with even the tiniest of movements. You really need to dial this one in by ear - so that you hit those optimal EVH textures. And boy does this pedal nail it for me! I paired it with the Krozz Devices Airborn Flanger - and surely that’s the most authentic EVH tone I’ve achieved to date.

These pedals are all fully hand-made, and hand-wired by one Luca Colombo in Lombardo, Italy - where each one is made to order - which roughly equates to a circa 1 month lead-time on average. Which indeed is exactly the schedule for what happened for mine.

Rather oddly though - and just 2 weeks after I ordered, about half-way through the build cycle - Luca announced a replacement model to the Eruption - which has a wholly different artwork (no more EVH stripes!), and replaces the Variac knob with a Mids labelled knob.

I was a touch put out initially that Luca would be launching a replacement model - while partway through my production cycle. I worried that my version might be a lesser variant somehow, where there might be further improvements in the new one. While mine sounds so good, that I can’t but believe I’ve got the best of what was available! It may actually just be as simple as a re-labelling of that knob - possibly someone from the EVH camp issued some threats!

The Eruption has really decent guitar volume gain cleanup too - while the most appealing thing here is that proper EVH Zing you get in the output profile when dialling in the Variac - it just has an extra dimension of crisp crunchiness - which I mostly refer to as Zing!. Of course you can dial the Variac all the way back for more classic Plexi textures - but I have plenty of those kinds of pedals! I’m here for the EVH flavour and this pedal really delivers for me - becoming an instant hit in my extensive reference collection!

There’s not much more to say here - my Colombo Audio Eruption cost me €219 - which price holds on the new variant - I’m not clear on why Luca changed that pedal - while the version I’ve got sounds amazing. My order was converted to $ values - where I paid around $270, including shipping - which further translated to £226 per the currency exchange rate on the day of acquisition. The Old Listing per my version is gone, so all I can do here really is link though to the New One.

I popped the back plate off mine, while the circuit is fully encapsulated in tape - so you really can’t see anything. It truly sounds fantastic to me, and my expectation has definitely been met in every way! Which is kind of a relief this time around - as the reference on this occasion was also a Brett Kingman demo - which kind of failed me for the Keeely ’I Get Around’ Rotary Speaker Simulator - which had that massive volume-drop issue! In contrast, the Eruption has plenty of range on every dial - ample output volume, and gain, and the dials are highly responsive, and somewhat interactive as already mentioned.

In any case - the only demo you really need to hear to be convinced - is Brett’s!  - but all 3 here below sound great - and really well represent exactly what you’re getting.

If you’re a proper EVH fan - then you probably need this pedal!