Austin Retro

Austin Retro is a small boutique guitar effects & amplifier company based in the live music capitol of the world….Austin, Texas. Our first offering is a new look at an overdrive classic.

Our pedals offer a sound that’s considered “natural,” “warm” and “tubey” partly by achieving smooth, asymmetrical soft clipping. The Austin Retro Overdrive pedal sounds its best when played through a tube amp set at medium to upper-medium volume.

What is a guitar effects pedal?

Distortion pedals, as the name implies, simply alter the sound of a guitar. There are a countless examples of guitar effects pedals available in today’s market. Originally, the goal was to emulate the warm sound of an overdriven vacuum tube amplifier. From that beginning, other designs have targeted genres from hard rock to metal and blues to grunge.

One of the earliest examples of the use of a guitar effects pedal is the opening riff to “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones. Since that time, many other guitar heros such as Jimmy Page, Hendrix, Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn and many others have used the distinct sounds created through the use of these pedals to create rock classis.

Hard vs. Soft Clipping

Today, overdrive effects usually means soft clipping, where gain is reduced beyond the clipping point, while distortion usually means hard clipping, where the level is fixed beyond the clipping point.  Distortion is a little harder sound, good for rock, while overdrive gives a more natural sound.

Which effects pedal should I use?

The answer to this question depends on the sound that you are looking for. I will attempt to describe a few of the more popular guitar effects and give some examples of the artists that used them.

Overdrive:

Overdrive pedals are used either to boost the signal to "overdrive" the input of the amplifier, resulting in mild distortion, or to approximate this sound through the use of non-linear cicuitry. Most times, you get a little of both! This type of guitar effect is generally a soft-clipping device.

Some argue that the definitive overdrive pedal is the Ibanez Tube Screamer. Austin musician Stevie Ray Vaughan used Tube Screamers throughout his career, and due to the influence he continues to have on so many people, you often find a Tube Screamer of some variation or another in use by most guitar players.

Wah:
The classic wah-wah guitar effect is one that varies the timbre of the tone with the motion of a pedal. This serves the purpose of setting the lead guitar apart from the rest of the band. Some describe the sound as mimicking the sounds of human speech, which may be detected more readily by the human ear.

Examples of this effect are the solos in White Room by Cream, Jimi Hendrix’s Voodoo Child (Slight Return), Sweet  Child o’Mine by Guns ‘n’ Roses and Alive by Pearl Jam.

Fuzz:
A fuzz pedal boosts the sine wave input signal and clips it to resemble a square wave. This creates a “rough around the edges” effect that is the essence of the classic fuzz tone, which is sometimes compared to the sound of a broken speaker.

The Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face is a classic example to this type of effects pedal.  Artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Duane Allman, Eric Clapton, David Gilmour and Pete Townsend have used this type of guitar effect to create their legendary sounds.

The Austin Retro AR808

The Austin Retro Sound AR808 Overdrive is based on the Tube Screamer TS-808 design. It uses the same JRC4558 op amp for that classic 'Screamer sound. However, there are a few changes to make it sound even better. Additional circuitry was added to produce even order harmonics, giving a smoother, more musical sound to the tone. A larger pot is used to provide a wider range of overdrive control. To give more low end volume, the frequency response was changed. Finally, true bypass switching ensures that your tone isn't altered when the unit is switched off.

Place an order for one of these soon to be classic guitar effects pedals today!

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