Dusky Electronics Mandorla

The Dusky Electronics Mandorla is a colored boost pedal: a boost that adds gain and harmonic color of its own rather than staying perfectly transparent. It is built around a MOSFET gain circuit inherited from vintage treble boost pedals of the '60s, and Delicious Audio's Paolo De Gregorio described the result as "a sound not unlike old tweed-era tube amps: clean, but colored"¹. The pedal was announced with a street date of February 26, 2018 and a street price of $160².

A colored boost that stays clean

The Mandorla sits between a transparent clean boost and a drive pedal. Premier Guitar's announcement put the mechanism plainly: "It produces gobs of even-order harmonic distortion without clipping"². Even-order harmonics are the same flavor of richness associated with warm tube amps, so the pedal thickens and colors the signal without the hard flattening of the waveform that gives overdrive and fuzz their grit. For a player, that means it can push a clean tube amp into overdrive on its own: MusicRadar noted the analog boost has "enough gain to push a clean tube amp into overdrive"⁴.

The circuit's lineage matters to how it behaves. It is based around MOSFET transistors and inspired by '60s treble boosters⁴, and Delicious Audio described the "dirt" as coming from a MOSFET gain circuit inherited from those vintage designs¹. Dusky's designer framed the intent this way:

Premier Guitar's reviewer also noted the hand behind it: "It makes sense that Mandorla comes from the mind of an amp builder"³. If you want a comparison point on the same maker's bench, Dusky also makes the Toasted Drive, and the Mandorla belongs to the broader family of boost pedals rather than overdrive pedals, distortion pedals or fuzz pedals.

The controls

The Mandorla is a two-knob stompbox¹:

The Meat knob is the voicing control, and it sweeps a wide range. All the way down, the voicing is very similar to vintage treble boosters; all the way up, it becomes a full range booster with tons of low end¹. That flexibility is what separates the Mandorla from a fixed-voiced treble booster: at low Meat settings it can cut a band mix the way a '60s unit would, and at high settings it keeps the bottom intact.

Instruments and power

The Mandorla is not guitar-only. Dusky's product page says it "isn't just for guitar, it sounds great on bass, keyboard, or any electric instrument"¹, and MusicRadar likewise described it as designed for use on guitar, bass and keyboard⁴. Bass players looking at colored boosts can read more in bass pedals.

The Mandorla hit the streets on Feb 26, 2018, with a street price of $160, and can be purchased directly from Dusky Electronics via their website, duskyamp.com, or at one of their dealers².

What reviewers said

Premier Guitar's reviewer came away with a verdict that places the pedal above a simple volume push, describing "something better: a seamless interface between guitar and amp that retains the personality of both while expanding the tonal range of each overall sound"³. The same review listed the street price as $160³.

Videos

Click to load

Click to load

Click to load

Questions