Sua Devices's Aker Distortion is a smartly-engineered 2-knob evolution of the DriveMaster - with added Noise Gate

Sua Devices has its roots in the landscape, culture and language of the Basque Country. Where circuit engineer and designer Andoni Conde is based in the capital of that region - Bilbao.

Sua means fire in the Basque language, and Aker is a shortened form of the Basque word Akerbeltz - meaning literally ’black goat’ - a sort of embodiment of satan in Basque lore. The various symbols on the enclosure are created by Bilbao local tattoo artist @the____cold and are various icon-like renderings of said black goat. The enclosure is screen-printed by another local associate - @tupatupaserigrafik.

Controls - Gain, Gate : On/Off, Volume

This project started back in 2019 - when Andoni acquired original copies of Marshall’s DriveMaster and ShredMaster pedals. Andoni found he particularly like the sound of the DriveMaster - and noted that he largely kept the Tone controls consistent while raising and lowering volume and gain to suit.

Andoni is an electronics engineer by training and by day-job as a technician for a pro audio services company. He has played guitar / bass from the age of 9, and has for a long time had an interest in electronics and circuit manipulation. So he decided to make his own ideal version of his favourite DriveMaster - to his own streamlined preferences - which is what led to this Aker Distortion. This was obviously a side-benefit of the Covid period - where most people found themselves with added at-home time!

During the development path of that pedal Andoni decided that he wanted to be able to tighten up the output for certain types of playback - and thus decided to add a simple noise gate to the circuit - which does exactly that - tightens up the output.

So the Aker Distortion is very much a streamlined and evolved DriveMaster - in a more pedalboard-friendly format.

When I first saw the pedal I assumed it was going to be some sort of DOD250 or Distortion+ derivative - as those obviously have dual controls too. While it was a nice surprise to find out that this is a DriveMaster style distortion - which in turn was based on Marshall’s JCM800 Amp.

Obviously the Marshall reissues are proving to be incredibly popular at the moment - but they are somewhat clunky and not particularly pedalboard-friendly - as I noted in that article.

In terms of all out Marshall mastery - there is little that holds a candle to Sinvertek’s N5 MGAT-1 - while the Sua Devices Aker Distortion is a rather cool and fairly unique addition to that particular landscape.

Since I started writing this piece I actually got hold of my own copy - the pedal looks really sleek in the flesh - with lots of cool details if you look close enough.

It has amazing range on both dials - from a subtle crunchy drive up to the full searing distortion. Without the gate the sound is warm and rounded, while with the gate it tightens and crisps up a touch! I actually like both modes - Gate Off for Lead Lines, and On for Rhythm playing typically.

In terms of the output profile - which is largely fairly neutral, while somewhat undeniably bass-heavy. Meaning it intrinsically leans a little more towards Single-Coil pickups. It still sounds great on Humbuckers - where I typically add a Chorus after - which has the effect of tweaking the output profile to my preferences. I’ve told Andoni that it may be cool for a future release to have an additional SC / HB toggle-switch - so that if you’re on humbuckers - you can shave off some of the bass, and add a tiny bit more brightness!

With both Gain and Volume maxed out - the Aker Distortion produces 5.13 dBu output. It’s available right now from the Sua Devices Website for €180 - where you need to email Andoni on info@suadevices.com if you want one - where each one is actually made to order, on a cycle of around 4-6 weeks.

This pedal is pretty new - with means not many demos for it yet.