ThorpyFX releases Kudu overdrive inspired by Dan Coggins gift

December 1, 2024 · 4 sources

At Christmas 2024, Dan Coggins, who designs pedals for ThorpyFX and is known for Lovetone, gave Adrian Thorpe a modified pedal¹². ThorpyFX says the gift sparked the idea for a new product, and the company developed the Kudu, an overdrive built for stacking with other pedals and amps¹².

ThorpyFX describes the Kudu as an overdrive that "makes all your sounds, whether amp or pedal driven, bigger and better with more control"¹². The company says it works as a mid-gain drive but is at its strongest as a gain stacker¹². It has a three-mode clipping switch¹². Thorpe said the modes are hard clipping with LEDs, soft clipping with silicon, and Soft+ clipping with Schottky diodes, which he said have a response and feel "exactly the same as germanium"³. He also said the tone control is "not a true tone control" and is called Bite because it adds presence and treble³.

Delicious Audio lists twelve diodes inside, six of them for power management, and describes the Bite control as interacting with pedals before and after it⁴. ThorpyFX lists the following specifications¹²:

Delicious Audio also lists true bypass⁴. No US list price is given in the sources. ThorpyFX offers the pedal alone or with a KUDU button or ThorpyFx button¹².

Thorpe told Guitar World the pedal's name comes from the greater kudu he saw in South Africa, saying "it makes everything greater"³. ThorpyFX gives a similar account, citing a kudu variant called the Greater Kudu¹².