Hutchinson Guitar Concepts The Oxidizer

The Oxidizer is an overdrive pedal from Hutchinson Guitar Concepts, announced in July 2014 as the company's first ever overdrive. It was released as a limited run of 20 pedals, each hand numbered, and Guitar Interactive Magazine's report on the launch described it as available at that time¹.

The pedal's idea, as the launch report describes it, is a massive volume boost that works in conjunction with your amp's gain rather than instead of it, to hammer the amp and push it into overdrive without coloring the tone. The Oxidizer creates overdrive tones going from tweed style to a heavier distorted tone¹. That places it on the amp-pushing end of the overdrive family rather than among the higher gain distortion pedals.

Controls

The two controls carry a chemistry theme that matches the rusted enclosure:

Both control names come from Guitar Interactive Magazine's launch report¹.

Enclosure and power

The pedal has a heavily rusted finish, which gives the run its name and its look, and the Fe and O2 control labels extend the corrosion theme to the panel¹. On power, the report says the pedal comes with an adapter and has a low drain on batteries, so it can be run either way¹. No voltage, current draw or polarity figure was published for it, so players pairing it with a shared supply on a board with other pedals have no published figure to match against.

Background

Guitar Interactive Magazine's news item, credited to Jonathan Graham and dated 22 July 2014, is the published record of the release: Hutchinson Guitar Concepts announcing its first ever overdrive pedal, named The Oxidizer, in a run of 20¹. That report also describes the pedal's tones, saying "The Oxidizer creates overdrive tones going from tweed style to a heavier distorted tone," and notes its "massive volume boost working in conjunction with your amps gain rather than instead of it, to hammer your amp and push it into overdrive without colouring the tone"¹.

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