VS Audio Aftermath

The VS Audio Aftermath is a distortion pedal with a separate boost footswitch voiced after the sound of tube amps. The two circuits work independently, so you can run the distortion alone, the boost alone, or stack them for solos that need to cut through. Writing on Delicious Audio, Paolo De Gregorio describes a pedal that "can deliver a wide range of tones, from smooth overdrive to massive distortion crunch, with dynamic touch-sensitive frequency response"¹.

It sits in the same territory as other distortion pedals and overdrive pedals, but the independent boost section puts it closer to a two-in-one design than a single-purpose drive box¹.

Controls

The Bass and Treble controls let you "fine tune the frequency response without loosing any clarity," according to Delicious Audio¹.

Dynamics and cleanup

A defining trait of the Aftermath is how it responds to the guitar's volume control. Delicious Audio reports that it "cleans up nicely when you roll back your guitar volume, making it extremely touch sensitive and responsive to picking dynamics"¹. In practice, that means the pedal behaves more like a pushed tube amp than a fixed gain stage: pick harder or dig in for more bite, roll the guitar volume back for a cleaner voice.

The boost section

The boost is a clean circuit with up to +12dB of level on tap, and it is switched by its own footswitch, independent of the distortion¹. That makes it usable as a level lift for solos even when the distortion side is off, or stacked on top of the drive sound when a part needs to sit forward in a mix. Players who mainly want that function in a standalone unit will find it on the site's Boost Pedals page.

Videos

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