Cusack Music Carolina Reaper

The Carolina Reaper is a dual-function pedal that puts a high-gain overdrive circuit and a high-gain fuzz circuit in one box. It was created by Haunted Labs in collaboration with Cusack Music, and Cusack Music describes it as "the spawn of a diabolical collaboration" between the two companies¹. Premier Guitar's 2021 review called it the first Haunted Labs pedal to be coproduced with Cusack Music².

The layout is two halves. The right side holds a high-gain germanium overdrive circuit that Cusack Music says "will leave your guitar screaming"¹. The left side holds a high-gain fuzz. Each circuit can be used on its own, or both can run together with the overdrive feeding into the fuzz³. Haunted Labs' own pitch for the stacked sound, quoted by MusicRadar, is that using both channels at once will "open a portal to intergalactic doom"⁴.

An overdrive and a fuzz in one pedal

The two circuits are independent, which is the pedal's main draw. Run the right side alone and you have an overdrive; run the left side alone and you have a fuzz; engage both and the overdrive drives into the fuzz for a stacked, higher-gain character³. Premier Guitar's reviewer summed up the pedal's strengths as "Dymanic germanium overdrive. Searing fuzz. Gigantic tones when circuits are combined."²

The transistor type of the fuzz circuit is described two ways. Cusack Music's current product page describes the left side as a "scalding high-gain Germanium fuzz"¹, while the 2019 announcement and Premier Guitar's review both describe it as a silicon fuzz³². The overdrive side is described as germanium by the maker¹.

The controls

There are six knobs, three per side, plus an internal bias trimmer¹.

The Bias knob on the fuzz side is the main shaping tool for that circuit. Premier Guitar's review noted that "The fuzz side has its own volume, fuzz, and bias controls on the pedal's left half," and found that "The silicon-fuzz side of the Reaper has suprising range, too."² Beyond the external knob, the pedal also carries an internal bias trimmer for finer adjustment¹.

Power and switching

The Carolina Reaper runs on a 9V barrel adapter only. There is no battery compartment, and a power supply is not included, so you need a standard 9V DC pedal supply¹. Current draw is about 30mA, which is light enough that it shares easily with other pedals on a typical isolated supply¹. Premier Guitar's review confirmed the barrel-adapter-only power arrangement².

Both sides use true bypass soft-touch switching, so your signal passes through untouched when the circuits are disengaged¹.

A Haunted Labs and Cusack Music collaboration

Haunted Labs introduced the Carolina Reaper in April 2019 as a collaboration with Michigan-based pedal maker Cusack Music⁵. Guitar.com reported at the time that "Haunted Labs has joined forces with Cusack Music on Carolina Reaper"⁶, and the pedal was priced at $229, available directly from the Haunted Labs online store via hauntedlabs.com¹. The original run was limited to 50 hand-numbered, signed units⁵.

Cusack Music builds the pedal in a durable enclosure, engineered and manufactured in the USA¹. The 2019 announcement described every unit as "completely designed in the USA, using the highest quality parts available"³.

For players comparing Cusack Music fuzzes, the company's range also includes the Cusack Music Screamer Fuzz, the Screamer Fuzz Germanium, the Sub Fuzz, and the limited Selenium Screamer Fuzz. The Carolina Reaper stands apart from those as the two-circuit design, pairing an overdrive with a fuzz rather than offering a single fuzz voice. The same pedal is also documented on this site as the Haunted Labs Carolina Reaper¹³⁵.

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