Gamechanger Audio Third Man Records Plasma Coil

The Gamechanger Audio Third Man Records Plasma Coil is a fuzz and octave pedal that creates distortion with electricity itself: it transforms your instrument's live signal into a series of continuous high-voltage discharges inside a xenon-filled tube¹. The tube glows as you play, and the resulting overdrive/distortion is, in Pedal of the Day's words, "quick, responsive and extremely heavy, with a ton of unique character"¹.

The pedal is a collaboration. Gamechanger Audio, the Latvian maker of the original Plasma Pedal, developed the Coil with Jack White and his Third Man Records label, and the new version was made to Jack White's specs²¹. It arrived midway through 2019 as the successor to the original Plasma³. White himself keeps one on his pedalboard: a GuitarPlayer rig rundown describes "the Gamechanger Audio Plasma Coil distortion box" among his effects⁴.

How it works

Where a conventional fuzz or distortion pedal clips your signal with diodes or transistors, the Plasma Coil converts the signal into high-voltage plasma discharges in a xenon-filled tube, using what Gamechanger calls its High Voltage Distortion technology³⁵. The discharges effectively gate and reshape the signal, so the pedal produces unusual harmonic saturation, noise-gating properties and an extremely wide EQ¹.

Guitar.com's reviewer, Chris Vinnicombe, described the range this way in the magazine's best-pedals-of-2020 roundup:

How it differs from the original Plasma Pedal

The Plasma Coil takes the operating principle of the original Plasma but makes two changes: it dispenses with the blend control and adds a second footswitch for "special effects"³⁶. Where the original Plasma let you mix clean and plasma signals with its blend knob, the Coil replaces that knob with an octaver-style circuit selector and gives you six effect modes on tap instead³⁵.

The controls

The front panel keeps things simple. Five controls and two switches cover everything³:

The Voltage control is the heart of the pedal: it adjusts the amount of current sent to the xenon tube, which changes how hard the plasma discharges clip your signal¹. The low and high frequency knobs are powerful EQ controls that shape and mold your tone around the plasma character³¹.

The switching is arranged as a true-bypass on/off footswitch, a special effect footswitch, and a momentary/latching selector switch³. That third switch sets how the special effect footswitch behaves: in latching mode the effect stays on until you step again, and in momentary mode it only lasts while you hold the switch down³.

The six special effect modes

The Effect knob gives you six distinct modes to alter your sound¹. Guitar.com breaks them down as a volume boost, two subharmonic voices, an upper-harmonic mode, and two modes combining upper and lower harmonics³. Pedal of the Day groups them by circuit type¹:

• Voltage Booster mode: one mode that pushes the tube harder¹
• Subharmonic modes (2): modulate the xenon tube's voltage with multiple divisions of the instrument's fundamental frequency, producing sub-octave voices¹
• Harmonic modes (3): use a full-wave rectifier and band-pass filter to achieve an octa-fuzz type sound, with a distinct 2nd harmonic enhancement¹

The subharmonic modes are what give the Coil its synth-like sub-octave character, while the harmonic modes lean into octave fuzz territory with an upper-octave edge¹⁶.

Where it came from

The Plasma Coil arrived midway through 2019, developed in collaboration with Jack White's Third Man Records³. Like the pedals before it in the Plasma line, it is a fuzz effect device that clips the signal with high-voltage plasma discharges in a xenon-filled tube³⁵⁶. Gamechanger Audio describes its range of character as running from aggressively gated fuzz to synth-like sub-octaves and glitchy chaos⁶.

What reviewers said

Published descriptions of the Plasma Coil center on the range the circuit offers. Gamechanger Audio and Third Man Records describe it as converting the instrument's signal into a series of high-voltage plasma discharges in a xenon-filled tube, with sounds that run from aggressively gated fuzz to synth-like sub-octaves and glitchy chaos⁶. The maker's own copy sums up the promise of that range:

Where to buy

The Plasma Coil carried a UK list price of £339³. It runs on 9V DC only, drawing 300mA, so it needs a dedicated power supply rather than a battery or a shared daisy chain³. Its enclosure measures 148 x 96 x 70mm³, about the footprint of a large-format pedal, worth checking against the space on a board before committing.

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