Catalinbread Sabbra Cadabra Overdrive Ltd. Clearwell Edition

The Catalinbread Sabbra Cadabra Overdrive Ltd. Clearwell Edition is a limited edition version of Catalinbread's Sabbra Cadabra, an overdrive pedal that simulates the tone of Black Sabbath's lead guitarist Tony Iommi. Where the standard Sabbra Cadabra is a booster and overdrive in one box, the Clearwell Edition is the same circuit dressed in custom graphics inspired by Black Sabbath's 1973 Sabbath Bloody Sabbath rehearsal sessions at Clearwell Castle in the UK, and it was sold only through Sweetwater¹.

The pedal recreates the rig Iommi dialed in on early Black Sabbath records: a late-'60s Laney Supergroup preamp feeding a Rangemaster Treble Booster¹. Delicious Audio described the range of the effect in use: "your electric tone goes from clean and light to doomy and dark, just like that"¹.

What it does

The Sabbra Cadabra is built around the two pieces of gear that shaped Iommi's sound. MusicRadar's overdrive buying guide calls it "essentially a Rangemaster-based treble booster"⁴, while Catalinbread describes the front-end treble booster design as derived from its own Naga Viper, a three-knob system of Boost, Heat and Range, with the Boost and Heat settings maximized in the Sabbra Cadabra⁵. The drive side then models the Laney Supergroup preamp¹.

For a player, that means the pedal works two ways at once: it pushes the front of an amp like a treble booster, and it generates its own overdrive character. One behavior builders of the circuit report is that it "cleans up really nice when you roll down the volume"⁶, the classic treble-booster trait of responding to the guitar's volume knob.

The pedal's sockets, as listed by MusicRadar, are input, output, ext(A)/MIDI, expression/CV and power⁴.

On the technical side, independent analysis of the circuit found the boost section uses a BC184 NPN transistor, with builders reporting 2N5088, 2N3904, 2N2222 and BC550 as working substitutes, and J201 JFETs working as substitutes for the MPF4393⁶. Catalinbread also uses an input capacitor blend control on the Sabbra Cadabra, a feature shared with its Katzenkönig and Naga Viper⁷.

The Gallery Series version

The Clearwell Edition was not the only limited run of the Sabbra Cadabra. Catalinbread also issued a Gallery Series version of the pedal, part of the maker's limited edition Gallery Series line⁸.

The Gallery Series Ultimate Bundle added a zip-up hoodie, T-shirt, glow-in-the-dark poster and holographic sticker alongside the pedal⁸, and Guitar.com reported that limited-edition pre-order bundles including shirts, hoodies and glow-in-the-dark posters were available when it was announced⁹. MusicRadar quoted Catalinbread's own pitch for the pedal: you can use it to "transform any guitar rig into a rig of doom"⁸.

Catalinbread has kept the limited edition pattern going since, with 10th Anniversary, Blackout, 3D and multiple B-stock color runs of the Sabbra Cadabra, each marked "LIMITED EDITION. LIMITED STOCK." on the maker's own product pages⁵.

What reviewers said

Delicious Audio's coverage of the Clearwell Edition was enthusiastic, reporting Sweetwater's view that "the Catalinbread Sabbra Cadabra Clearwell Edition Overdrive Pedal is an absolute must-have" for fans of Black Sabbath and the classic Tony Iommi tone¹. MusicRadar's buying guide included the Sabbra Cadabra in its list of overdrive pedals⁸.

Where it fits in Catalinbread's range

The Sabbra Cadabra sits apart from Catalinbread's Foundation series amp-in-a-box pedals such as the CB30, Dirty Little Secret and Formula 55¹⁰. Those pedals model a single amplifier; the Sabbra Cadabra models a whole signal chain, booster and preamp together, aimed squarely at one player's documented setup. Players comparing it against other overdrive pedals should treat it as a treble booster plus preamp rather than a transparent low-gain drive.

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