Cusack Music and Haunted Labs Carolina Reaper Face

The Carolina Reaper Face is a dual guitar effect pedal combining germanium fuzz and overdrive, designed and manufactured by Cusack Music and Haunted Labs¹. It grew out of what Haunted Labs called "the spawn of a diabolical collaboration with Cusack Music", announced in April 2019². The pedal was priced at $229.00 USD and shipped in a limited run of 50 units that were hand numbered and signed³¹.

What it does

The pedal carries two separate gain circuits, an overdrive and a fuzz. Each can be used on its own, or the two can be run in parallel; Guitar.com reported that "the circuits can be deployed independently or in parallel for some unearthly sounds, as Haunted Labs claims"⁵. Haunted Labs' own pitch for running both at once was that you would "open a portal to intergalactic doom"⁶.

The Cusack Music version of the pedal adds an internal bias trimmer, giving the player access to bias adjustment inside the enclosure, and houses everything "in a durable enclosure"⁴.

Versions and related builds

Two versions of the design are documented:

The Jeds Peds kit is a build-it-yourself take on the circuit, aimed at players who solder; it is not a finished pedal⁷.

What reviewers said

Premier Guitar reviewed the Haunted Labs Carolina Reaper in August 2021. The reviewer noted it was "the first to be coproduced with Cusack Music" among Haunted Labs' pedals, and listed one con: "Might be pricey for some tastes"⁸.

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