Spooky Circuits Harm + Balance

The Harm + Balance from Spooky Circuits is a fuzz pedal described by Delicious Audio as "a unique interpretation of the Interfax Harmonic Percolator," the cult oddball circuit known for its clangy, unpolished character. It was reported as now shipping as of June 2023¹.

What it does

The pedal uses both a germanium PNP transistor and a silicon NPN transistor, and its defining feature is a pair of diode selectors. Each selector chooses which components take part in the circuit's clipping stage, one affecting the positive side of the waveform and the other the negative side¹.

Each selector gives four diode options plus a bypass position, which works out to 25 clipping flavors in total. Because both halves of the clipping circuit are switchable independently, you can set up asymmetrical clipping with the different diode combinations, shaping the top and bottom of the waveform separately¹.

Turning both selectors to position 5, marked with an O symbol, bypasses the clipping stage altogether¹.

Sound

Delicious Audio's Paolo De Gregorio did not mince words about the character of the pedal:

He describes tones running from harsh to raunchy, in line with the Percolator lineage it draws on¹. Players curious how that sits against more conventional dirt boxes can compare it with overdrive pedals and distortion pedals, which generally clip in a more even, predictable way than a fuzz with selectable diodes on each half of the wave.

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