Rainger FX's latest Break Box Pedal is a fantastic confection of its El Distorto and Freakenbender circuits with added Active Sustaining Chorus and Vinyl Scratch Effect

The new Rainger FX Break Box sees the classic / discontinued El Distorto Distortion rebooted and combined with the latter half of David’s legendary Freakenbender Fuzz - including that one’s fantastic ’fat > bright’ tone-stack. To this you then add an Active Sustaining Chorus with speed control - and which has a sort of pre-delay circa 1 second fade-in - where if you let a note ring out the chorus gently kicks in and sustains the tail of that note. At the extreme end of chorus speed - you get a really cool sort of vibrato-like warble, while the impact of the Chorus is much smoother and softer in the slower / CCW direction.

On top of all that you then have a superb ’Scratch’ effect which you trigger by stomping on what I call the ’Scratch Pad’ which is really just an enlarged version of Rainger FX’s Igor Expression Pad - now built into the Break Box. Stepping on this produces a very pleasing and authentic vinyl scratch sound - through the usual Rainger FX magic - and where you can adjust the Pitch / Speed of that scratch - which at lower levels sounds very much like another DJ trick - the Record grab and stop - as long as you remove your foot before it starts the forward cycle. If you keep your foot pressed to the pad - then the pedal simply continuously repeats the scratch at the Pitch Level set.

Controls - Volume, Tone, Gain, Scratch Pitch / Speed, Chorus Speed, On/Off Footswitch, Scratch Pad (Igor XL), Trigger Sensitivity : Hi / Lo (on top edge).

For me this is really what I define as a fuzz-distortion or fuzzstortion pedal as it has those superb fuzzy artefacts within the thick and richly textured distortion. It goes from a very satisfying gritty overdrive / fuzzy-drive to a pretty much full-on fuzzstortion - and is brilliantly aided by a highly interactive tone control. The pedal is perfect for post-punk and shoe-gaze styles and just sounds amazing to my ears throughout its gain range - where the chorus then adds another really quirky flavour on top - particularly high into the right hemisphere of that dial.

This pedal also reminds me somewhat of another one of my favourite bands - Portishead - where your have Adrian Utley’s gritty guitar tones broken up by just such vinyl scratching effects as we hear on the Break Box - and where I’m pretty sure I could tune the Fuzz / Distortion voicing to something closely matching that flavour. Those would probably be the first kinds of riffs that I would have a stab at with the Break Box!

I believe the little mini knob on the top-edge is the Trigger Sensitivity Hi / Lo switch which you apply if you need it - depending on the output of your instrument / input device.

I really love this style of distortion - and the addition of the sustaining chorus and the scratch effect - produces something really uniquely wonderful. This combines superbly with the recent Snare Trap beat box - for some proper Turnablist DJ Trick stylings - with fantastic mixing up of beats and scratches - the possibilities are endless.

I’ve always been a little put off by the fact that the Snare Trap is really at its best at the end of a signal chain, while as mine ends in stereo - it would be a somewhat odd fit. While I’m tempted to get the Snare Trap in now just for how cooly it can interact with the Break Box - it would have to operate further up the chain.

I particularly like Ryan ’Demos in the Dark’ Plewacki’s opening sequence in his below demo - which beautifully showcases how to get the very best out of this pedal.

The Break Box is a must-have pedal for me - which already seems to be on sale at several USA dealers - including on Reverb.com, but weirdly not in the UK yet (as of when I first started writing this - Rainger FX Product has since materialised overnight - and my friend Paolo at Delicious Audio was able to beat me to the punch!

Pricing is at £239 / $239 and I will look to acquire one as soon as I am able to. I have lots of friends who will stock these including Scott Hager of Axe and You Shall Receive (Canada), and Andy Birkitt of Break the Machine here in the UK - of course my friends at Andertons too and several more besides.

I have encountered the great man David twice this year - first at the Stourbridge FX Expo back in June, and then just very recently at the Kempton Park Guitar Show - surely the omens are right for me to finally strike up a proper relationship with Rainger FX at last - so I can be on the inside of these launches and don’t have to second-guess things quite so much!

I would imagine this Break Box will be a very successful part of the ongoing Rainger FX portfolio - is anyone here as excited as I am to get their hands on one of these?