Daredevil Hype

The Daredevil Hype is a boost pedal with no external controls at all. No volume knob, no gain knob, no toggle: just a footswitch, an LED and jacks. Daredevil Pedals describes it as "big and nasty in the best possible way," a FET boost built for aggressive tones and volume that "stacks and interacts great with other pedals"¹. Guitar World called it "a knob-less FET [boost pedal]" when it launched in April 2020².

The idea behind removing every control is stated on the maker's own page: "Excessive controls and components have been eliminated, less knobs = more tone!"¹. Gearnews summed up the philosophy the same way at launch³. For a player, that means the Hype does one fixed thing: it hits the front of your amp, or the pedal in front of it, with a set amount of boost and the character of its FET circuit.

A FET boost with no knobs

The circuit is a FET (field-effect transistor) boost, a topology players often associate with the way a cranked amp's input stage behaves. Daredevil says the heart of the pedal is "an FET boost capable of the most aggressive tones and volume"¹. Gearnews reported at launch that the unit "is supposed to deliver aggressive sounds and volumes"³.

What makes the Hype unusual among boost pedals is what is missing. There is no level control on the outside, so the boost you get is the boost it gives. Daredevil says the pedal "stacks and interacts great with other pedals"¹, which is the main way players use a fixed boost: pushing an overdrive or the amp itself harder rather than acting as a solo-boost volume control.

The only adjustment is inside:

• A small trim pot for output level, pre-set at what Daredevil calls "a decent boost volume"¹
• Adjusting it means opening the enclosure, and Daredevil's warranty excludes damage from "adjustment to inner components"⁵

On the Andertons demo video, the presenters joked about the lack of controls, with one saying "you can you can adjust the amount of hype you" want, before the point of the pedal became clear: the fixed setting is the design⁶.

Power and practicalities

The Hype runs on a 9V DC supply with negative ground, the standard center-negative arrangement¹⁵. Daredevil says any 100mA "boss style" supply will be fine, but goes further than most makers on power quality: "I highly suggest a quality power brick with adequate filtering," warning that "the cheap plug sources and daisy chains will add noise"¹.

The pedal is true bypass, confirmed by both the maker and Guitar World's launch coverage⁴². Every unit is hand made in Chicago¹.

Design history and the V.2 update

Daredevil announced the Hype on April 8, 2020³, with MusicRadar, Guitar.com and Guitar World picking it up over the following days⁷⁵². MusicRadar reported that "Daredevil says it's a design that's been seven years in the making"⁷, and Gearnews likewise reported development took 7 years³. The list price at launch was $89⁵, the same figure shown on the maker's page today¹.

For 2026, Daredevil updated the design as the HYPE Fet Boost V.2⁴:

The V.2 page describes the update as "Simple, crushing, and works great when stacked with other pedals," with "the obvious addition of a Volume knob"⁴. Daredevil also switched the V.2 back to side mounted jacks "for ease of building and pedal board routing," while offering top mounted jacks on request while PCBs remain⁴. The V.2's artwork is by Chicago musician and tattoo artist Peter Norman⁴.

The original knob-less Hype is now listed as sold out on Daredevil's discontinued page¹, so the V.2 is the current version of the design.

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