The Witch Burner MkII is an overdrive pedal from Black Arts Toneworks, and the maker is upfront that it is not a polite one. Its product page bills it as "Not your dad's overdrive" and describes the character this way: "Too much gain. Too much mids and too much highs. Add it up in excess and it screams."1 In other words, this sits on the aggressive end of the overdrive family, closer to the boundary with distortion pedals than to a transparent clean boost. For context on where it lands, see the site's overdrive pedals page.
Power and practicalities
The pedal runs on a standard 9VDC power supply and has no battery connection, so a power supply is required rather than optional.1
The Raw Heart low-gain version
Alongside the standard pedal, Black Arts Toneworks also built a special low-gain version of the Witch Burner. According to the maker, "Mike added a special LOW GAIN version of the Black Arts Toneworks WITCH BURNER to his arsenal for recording and touring" for the album "Our Raw Hearts," released in 2018.2 That variant trades the standard pedal's excess for a lower-gain take on the same circuit, the kind of setting that keeps a clean amp's character while adding drive.
The low-gain version described here is a separate variant made for one recording and touring cycle, not the standard Witch Burner MkII covered above.
Videos
BlackArtsToneworks
Flipside Music
Matt Pula
Sources (2)
- Witch Burner MkII, Black Arts Toneworks
- RAW HEART OD, Black Arts Toneworks, 2018