Olinthus' tiny Screamer style Cicada Overdrive is the world's smallest fully functioning effects pedal

Someone had to do it - and that someone is new pedal brand Olinthus. Whose first pedal - the Cicada Overdrive - is the world’s smallest fully functioning Screamer style pedal - in fact the world’s smallest pedal full stop!

I’m not sure the world necessarily needs another Tube Screamer as such, but it’s definitely a better place for it - with this supreme engineering achievement. It’s an unusual design in many ways - where most of the sides are largely open to the elements - which you can see if you view from that horizontal angle / plane. The chassis is kind of hinged from the top - so that you get a reassuring but subtle click on / off when you press down the lower edge of the anodised aluminium chassis / enclosure or area below the knobs. It’s an entirely custom design - with everything having needed to be purpose-designed and built from scratch - and obviously using the tiniest of SMT components. It’s certainly been built and engineered to the highest quality standards!

It only has a single 2.1mm socket - which takes a special sort of all-in-one TRS and Power Cable known as a TRRS Breakout Cable - which comes included with the Cicada. That allows you to connect to patch cables and pedal power supply - it’s a really smart design for sure.

The designers Charles Etienne and Ethan Tufts say that it can withstand pressure of up to 250lbs, but they also advise that it’s not specifically a ’stompbox’ design and needs to be operated gently really for prolonged service. With its open sides it’s far from being a tour-grade pedal - so you would not likely take this out on the road with you, I would imagine it would mostly be deployed in tabletop setups and scenarios - but it’s undeniably cool, and actually very decent sounding. It has the full 3 Tube Screamer controls, and is lower priced than the classic it is based on.