VVco Pedals announces Star Wars-themed Dark Father preamp pedal

September 1, 2022 · 3 sources

VVco Pedals announced the Dark Father, a Star Wars-themed preamp pedal, on September 1, 2022, Guitar.com reported¹. The Southern California company described it as a drive pedal with boost, overdrive and fuzz functions¹.

Two sliders control master volume and clean blend, and four center buttons labeled Pre, Light, Dark and Lofi engage a foundational preamp, a silicon transistor, a germanium boost and a retro-voiced fuzz, respectively¹. Other features include a Force switch for a volume boost, a bypass switch for the EQ section and a three-band EQ whose bands are labeled "I" for treble, "II" for mids and "III" for bass, after the franchise's original 70s/80s trilogy¹.

Later write-ups describe the circuit differently in places. Pedal of the Day said the overdrive is modeled after the original DoD 250 Preamp and that the Boost section is based on classic 1960s recording console inputs with negative feedback control². Delicious Audio, quoting the builder's notes, said the pedal has three modes (two Boost and one Preamp), that the boosts work independently from the preamp and not at the same time, that only one boost can be engaged at a time, and that the fuzz and EQ can be added to each mode³. The builder's notes list the blend slider as "SABER," a master gain knob and a boost gain knob, all buttons illuminated, true bypass via a soft-click stomp switch, a 1590XX enclosure measuring 145 x 121 x 39.5mm, a 9-volt negative input drawing 100mA with the power supply not included, and 100% hand-wired construction³.

The Dark Father retails for $289.99 and can be purchased on VVco Pedals' Reverb store¹. Guitar.com noted the company's earlier pedals, including the Delayrean analog delay housed in a small-scale DeLorean replica, the coffin-shaped Afterlife distortion/fuzz and the SRV overdrive in a Spam tin replica¹.