Old Blood Noise Endeavors Shrinks its Excess Distorting Modulator to Enhanced V2 Compact Edition

OBNE originally launched its Excess Distorting Modulator back in 2017 in horizontal BB-size enclosure. That pedal combined a classic 3-knob distortion with a further 3-knob Modulation - where you could switch between Chorus and Delay via a second Footswitch. You also had a toggle-switch on the top edge of the pedal to switch Expression parameter control between Rate/Time and Depth/Feedback - this is not evident on the new one - so I presume some sort of power-up hold down footswitch routine might sort that on the smaller pedal.

I myself often use Distortion with Chorus and Delay - it really enhances and exaggerates the harmonics and texture, so it makes ample sense to combine those elements in the one unit.

Controls - Distortion Volume, Distortion Tone, Gain, Modulation Volume, Time / Rate, Depth / Feedback, Modulation Type : Fifth / Chorus / Delay, Stacking : Mod First / Parallel / Distortion First, Engage Distortion Footswitch, Engage Modulation Footswitch.

This evolved V2 Edition shrinks everything down to a compact enclosure, retains the same 6 control knobs albeit labelled very slightly differently, ads Stacking order to options, and gives you the choice of 3 Modulations now - Fifth / Chorus / Delay via toggle-switch. Obviously the way the footswitches now work is quite different - i.e. being able to independently control the effects in the new edition. I think smarter programming for the footswitches - where a dual press could change the Modulation - would have been even more preferable! Otherwise there is nothing really to quibble about - the same concept just got better, more expansive and more practical. Again would have been nice to have top-mounted jacks, while those are not really an essential for me.

OBNE seems to have picked up a specialist skill in combining different flavours in this manner - and its  Visitor Parallel Multi-Modulator is another great example of that sort of innovation. I personally have all these effects separately in my chain - where the key differential here is the ability to apply those flavours in parallel and easily switch the order. It’s another cool effect pedal - but possibly a little more for specialist use. While the new edition has the advantage of being easily able to split out the Distortion and Modulation via the footswitches - so there is some really cool granularity there too for sure.

However intriguing it is, it’s still very much a nice-to-have than essential for me - but I can certainly understand that it would be useful for certain players - at the very least as a space-saving 2-in-1 / 3-in-1 dual-effect!

Pricing is at the usual $209 / £199 and these are available right now on the OBNE Webstore.

Anyone here that deploys the original Excess on their board?