The Smallsound/bigsound Pretty Years is a high-gain distortion/fuzz stompbox built around subminiature tubes. Delicious Audio's Paolo De Gregorio described it as "a high-gain subminiature tube based distortion/fuzz with an interstage resonant lowpass filter to not only filter frequencies, but also shape the texture of the distortion," and said that "most drive textures from subtle to complete destruction are available."1
It was released in September 2016 and, as of December 2017, the unit was sold out, with resale listings on Reverb.com asking twice the original price: $600 versus the $300 launch price.1
Where it came from
The Pretty Years is a stompbox inspired by the Thermionic Culture Vulture, a two-rack British tube-powered distortion unit. Smallsound/bigsound's owner and designer Brian Hamilton became infatuated with that unit and decided to create a pedal inspired by it, naming it after the newly released record by Cymbals Eat Guitars.1
How it works
The pedal combines several tube-related features that shape its range of sounds:
- Switchable pentode/triode mode, two ways of configuring a tube stage
- Low-voltage biasing of the tubes
- Switchable feedback
- Active bass/treble controls1
The interstage resonant lowpass filter sits between stages and does more than cut frequencies: it also shapes the texture of the distortion itself, which is how a tube circuit reaches fuzz-like territory.1
The Pretty Years was sold out as of December 2017, and resale prices on Reverb.com had reached twice the original $300 launch price.1
Videos
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Sources (1)
- Smallsound/bigsound Pretty Years Distortion, Delicious Audio, 2017-12-18