The LARAN is a fully built fuzz pedal made in collaboration between Mask Audio Electronics of Pittsburgh and Gorva Design. It is sold as the assembled version of a pedal that also exists as a DIY kit, and the maker is explicit that this listing is "a fully built fuzz, not the kit"1. The circuit is Gorva Design's first DIY design, and Mask Audio Electronics describes it as "a full-bodied fuzz packed with top-of-the-line Gorva audiophile components"1.
What it does
The LARAN starts from a familiar foundation. Mask Audio Electronics says the design "tears down the common muff and rebuilds it to be bigger and meaner," so players who know the Big Muff family of fuzzes, including pedals like the Black Math, will recognize the territory it works in1.
The circuit topology is what sets it apart from a stock Muff-style pedal: "A MOSFET input stage slams two additional clipping stages"1. In practice that means a MOSFET stage at the front of the pedal drives two further clipping stages, the sections of the circuit that shape the distortion, harder than a conventional design would.
The maker describes the range of the pedal in broad terms, saying it is "an effect that can add up to a mild, crisp overdrive to full on 'Make amp go BRRRRRRRR' fuzz"1. At the low end of its sweep it behaves closer to something you would find among overdrive pedals, and at the top end it is a full fuzz.
Videos
collector//emitter
Sources (1)
- LARAN (prebuilt), Mask Audio Electronics
