THE GNAR

THE GNAR

A uniquely voiced gurgle-stortion.

The Gnar takes the qualities of a distortion and a fuzz and mashes them together into full-bodied gain machine that sounds unlike anything else. If you are looking for an emphasis on low-end heaviness and raw grit that has a sound all its own, this is your pedal. A true weirdo.

The Gnar features a volume control and two gain controls (“Gain” and “Gnar”). Both gain controls emphasize different textures and can be added together to create unique, bombastic grit. The “Gnar” control allows for a full spectrum of gain sounds, from rich, slightly dirty boost to aggressive distortion, to thick, gurgling fuzz. A diode switch offers further control, allowing for fine-tuning of the feel of the Gnar’s overall feel.

Cleaner settings provide plenty of touch sensitivity, so you can have rich cleans with light picking, and robust breakup tones as you pick harder. Full-blown settings will give you a thick distortion sound that feels like it is overwhelming your amp to the point of ripping itself apart. Even in extreme settings, the Gnar sounds heavy, but moves with agility, making it a good fuzz tone for fast playing. No mush. No fizz. Boost, Drive, Distortion, Fuzz… all in one box.

CONTROLS

VOLUME - Makes it louder and quieter. There is a ton of volume here for a couple of reasons. First, this pedal can be used as an ‘almost’ clean boost, delivering full and rich tones without the grit. To do this, you will dial down the GAIN and GNAR controls all the way, which means you will need to add volume to restore your loudness. Second, when running this pedal into another dirt pedal (let’s say a Distort 47), you can use the Distort volume as a master volume, and the Gnar volume to slam the Distort’s gain stage. With Gnar volume on max, you can achieve a nasty sounding, metallic, clangy fuzz. This can be dialed with the Gain and Gnar controls. It’s fun. And evil sounding.

GAIN - Sets the overall gain of the distortion sound. At max, and with Gnar at minimum, this gives a powerful and ripping distortion sound. Rolling back from there provides shades of overdrive, down to barely-dirty boost. Maxing GAIN brings out the gurgle magic of the GNAR control.

GNAR - Adds texture to the distortion. This is most pronounced when the GAIN knob is maxed, but can show up more subtly in lower gain settings. When GNAR is all the way up, you will get compressed, gargle-y fuzz textures. The GNAR can be dialed back to balance out the gurgle with the distortion. This allows you to balance the texture characteristics and the distortion, which can help bring back clarity and make the sound more usable if you are playing fast. At about 12:00 it sounds like a distortion pedal being fed through a paper shredder. Who doesn’t want that?

DIODE - The DIODE switch gives you three different asymmetrical diode clipping options. These settings maintain the overall Gnar characteristic, but offer subtle changes to the ‘feel’ of the sound. This can be useful (and much more pronounced) when pairing the Gnar with other pedals. The UP position is the “standard” setting for the gnar sound: jagged, brash, aggressive. The MIDDLE setting is louder and more open sounding. You can start to feel a blown out “pumping” feel at some settings, giving it a larger-than-life feel. (This is also a slightly cleaner setting so it is good for running the pedal as a clean boost). The DOWN position is the most compressed and quietest (so you may need to bring the volume up just a touch). This offers the smoothest and most controlled feel of the three settings, especially when it is running into another dirt pedal.

ProTips:

Rolling back your guitar’s volume knob cleans up the Gnar nicely, giving you access to multiple settings at the tip of your fingers.

Stacking the Gnar in front of other dirt pedals can create some increased heft and character. This configuration is highly recommended!

For fans of:
Thick.
Textured.
Weird.