LunaStone

The range as it stood after the 2018 and 2021 additions:

The story: a Copenhagen pedal maker

Steen Grøntved, a guitarist and engineer, founded LunaStone Guitar Pedals in 2012¹. The very first members of the pedal family were the Wise Guy and the Big Fella, with Grøntved as their original creator and demonstrator⁷.

The company's early pedals were built around analog components, and Grøntved has described the amount of testing that went into developing the TrueOverDrive circuit: "Just like I spent countless hours on testing analog components to develop the TrueOverDrive circuit"².

The company later gained new leadership. Allan Strand came on board as CEO, and decided to invest in the company and become a co-owner¹. The TC Electronic connection deepened when Morten Lave, former Head of Development at TC Electronic, joined the company, uniting with former TC colleague Allan Strand⁸. LunaStone also took on distribution of Hansen Guitars and Olsson Amps in the rest of the world outside North America, and showed its pedals at Booth #1260 at Summer NAMM 2017¹⁹.

The brand gained wider attention through coverage on That Pedal Show, which shared a brief version of LunaStone's history and pronounced the founder's name in a 2017 episode on analog delay¹⁸²⁰²¹.

From The Pusher to the Boost 18

LunaStone's clean boost line began with The Pusher, introduced in October 2016 as the company's sole clean boost pedal, in a tiny footprint²². A reviewer described it as "It's a one-purpose, no-nonsense pedal"¹⁸²³²⁴.

The two boosters side by side:

LunaStone describes the Boost 18 as sharing The Pusher's small footprint and "flavorful tone," while noting that "Boost 18 may be a clean booster, but it's definitely not just a neutral active volume pedal"². It is the current replacement for The Pusher, which was the maker's sole clean booster for years.

Overdrives: the TrueOverDrive circuit

The TrueOverDrive circuit is LunaStone's own analog overdrive design, and it underpins the TrueOverDrive 1, announced in January 2017 as a brand new overdrive pedal²⁷⁹², and the TrueOverDrive 2, described by the maker as "as true to transparent and tube-like overdrive as the original TOD 1"⁹. A demo by The Pedal Zone demonstrated what the maker calls the vast dynamic range of the TrueOverDrive 1²⁸.

A distinctive feature across both pedals is the control layout. As Guitar Tricks Insider's review put it²⁹³⁰:

Guitar Tricks Insider, on the TrueOverDrive 1 and 2³¹

The diagonal arrangement lets a player adjust level and overdrive with a foot while playing³⁰. By July 2017 the pedals were already on store shelves across the US³².

The overdrive line also includes:

• Smooth Drive 1: part of the four-pedal 2018 lineup³³
• Three Stage Rocket: a Søren Andersen signature pedal offering two stages of overdrive plus a built-in booster that can be routed to either pre-drive or post-drive¹³
• Three Stage Rocket MIDI: a MIDI version later added to the lineup³⁴

Distortion, fuzz and the 2018 lineup

At NAMM 2018 LunaStone announced four new pedals, expected in shops in Spring 2018 at an expected price of about $199 each³³:

• Distortion 1
• Blue Drive 1
• Red Fuzz 1
• Smooth Drive 1

In a Bonedo demo video, the presenter said of the Distortion 1: "they make that Distortion 1 pedal sound pretty nasty. You know, the good kind of nasty!"¹⁴.

In 2021 the company added the Deep Metal, which LunaStone calls "a hugely scooped metal distortion," tailored for powerful and classic metal tones and voiced to work with small amps and combos¹⁶³⁵. It was announced at $159²⁹.

Digital pedals and the Dynamic Delay

The 2017 arrival of Morten Lave came with a stated plan for "a new line of digital pedals under the Lunastone brand"⁸. The first of these was the Dynamic Delay, launched at NAMM 2019 as the company's first digital pedal, designed by Steen Grøntved together with Lave and inspired by the TC Electronic 2290⁴.

The design pairs a digital delay algorithm with an analog mix circuit. As Grøntved explained on the product page³⁶:

Steen Grøntved, LunaStone founder and co-designer of the Dynamic Delay³⁶

He described the goal as creating "a digital delay that captures some of the analog magic," an idea he had been considering for some time³⁶. The pedal carries the company's usual emphasis on high-quality components³⁶.

The range (15)

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