Stomp Under Foot Cosmic Queen

The Cosmic Queen is an analog overdrive pedal from Stomp Under Foot, a builder whose pedals are handmade in the United States¹. Despite the name suggesting fuzz, Delicious Audio's Paolo De Gregorio describes it as "not actually a fuzz, but an overdrive that operates at a moderate gain level"¹. RockBoard's PedalPedia calls it "The 'everything' pedal," saying it "can go from an almost clean tone to low-gain overdrive to chewy, fat distortion all with incredible clarity"².

What it does to your sound

Delicious Audio describes the Cosmic Queen as a "medium-gain drive" with "a very natural, transparent tone" that "retains the clarity of your guitar"¹. Rather than acting as a standalone distortion box, the review describes it as functioning "more like an additional gain stage for your amplifier," integrating with your set and responding well to guitar volume changes so you can clean the sound up from the guitar itself¹. That makes it a drive you can ride with your volume knob, in the same family of use as other overdrive pedals.

Circuit origins

The pedal's background is unusual: Delicious Audio reports it was inspired by a mysterious "two-fuzz" pedal, "a reference no one has figured out, at this stage"¹. Whatever that reference may be, the result is a drive rather than a fuzz, sitting closer to distortion pedals at its upper gain range than to fuzz pedals.

Power and bypass

The Cosmic Queen runs on 9V DC, center negative, and draws just 1mA, according to RockBoard's PedalPedia's listing². It accepts either a 9V battery or a 2.1mm 9V adapter¹. With a draw that low, it puts almost no strain on any power supply. When switched off, true bypass keeps the pedal out of your signal path entirely¹.

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