Sometimes pedals can change. Parts drift, pots break, transistors go bad. They go to new homes; they get neglected and resold. Sometimes people get in there and try to revive them to their original state and sometimes they just throw whatever is laying around inside and hope it does the trick. In this case, we’re pretty sure all the above happened to the fuzz pedal that made its way to James Murphy and ended up finding a forever home with LCD Soundsystem.

This particular pedal really does have something special. It’s heavy without being too heavy, clean but not too clean. A simple set of controls yet it has an expansive array of tones that makes it very versatile on a wide variety of instruments. It has clarity when you need it and can blur all discernible lines when you don’t. It still retains the familiar foundation of the classic fuzz it was intended to be but something special happened to it over the years and it has very much grown into its own thing.

I’m going to guess that you have heard this pedal. It has been the chosen bass fuzz for several LCD recordings and has traveled around the world with them. I’d say that it is a prized possession, a real one-of-a-kind pedal. It has been beat up and taped back together. It looks like it shouldn’t work but it always delivers. It is old, it is fragile, and it sounds massive. Too good to retire yet too tired to keep going. That is where we come in. We were tasked with replicating the exact sound of this pedal but in a reliable format that can withstand the stresses of this modern world. No easy feat, for sure, but we persevered and have brought you the Chelsea.

Named after the guitar shop in which it was purchased back in 1989, the Chelsea recreates all the idiosyncrasies of the original but without the threat of total collapse. Each Chelsea is handmade at EarthQuaker Devices headquarters in always sunny Akron, Ohio, USA by a bunch of pretty nice humans and one big robot.

Features:

• Simple three-knob layout—Level, Sustain, Tone—for intuitive tone tweaking
• Tone On/Off switch lets you bypass the tone control for a gutsier, mid-forward grind
• Sustain control covers everything from light overdrive to full-on distortion with strong sustain
• Tone knob shifts frequency response—clockwise adds treble, counterclockwise boosts bass and smooths highs
• Level knob adjusts output volume for boost or balancing in the signal chain
• Designed to faithfully recreate a beloved vintage Big Muff used by LCD Soundsystem but built to be robust and reliable
• All-analog signal path with relay-based true bypass (Flexi-Switch technology) for silent switching
• Handmade in Akron, Ohio, with a limited lifetime warranty
• Equally versatile on bass and electric guitar—delivers thick low-end rumble, clarity, and expressive midrange grit
• Named after the NYC guitar shop where James Murphy originally bought the vintage fuzz in 1989
  

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