Alpha Wolfe
Alpha Wolfe Pedal
Introducing the Alpha Wolfe - a groundbreaking guitar pedal that re-imagines a single channel of a solid-state mixing board, compacted into a guitar pedal format.
This pedal features high headroom gain and a powerful 3 band EQ section that allows you to gracefully finesse or unleash the beast within as you drive your signal into the two distinct distortion channels.
The two distortion channels, each independently controlled and featuring distinct clipping voicings, open up a vast array of creative possibilities.
The final post-drive mid boost/cut stage lets you sculpt your tone, ensuring it breaks through and stands out like never before.
Demo Video
The Story
The Alpha Wolfe guitar pedal is a collaboration between Emily Wolfe and Spindrift Audio. Emily wanted a guitar pedal that faithfully recreates a single channel of a 2000s era solid state mixer. Emily plugs her guitar directly into that mixer's unbalanced inputs. She uses the EQ controls to shape the sound, and finally uses the mixer's built in distortion for a unique guitar sound.
The Alpha Wolfe pedal is the realization of Emily's ingenious idea - bringing a mixer channel into a guitar pedal. We've gone to great lengths to keep the pedal's signal flow and circuit design as close to the original as possible. It's essentially a fusing of studio-grade gain and tone circuitry, elegantly merged with the versatility of a guitar drive pedal.
In the course of development, two distinctive distortion channels were incorporated. Emily also requested a post-drive mid EQ, this allows her to shape her guitar's tone and presence to really have it cut through the mix in live and studio environments.
Pedal Signal Flow
Gain Stage
The "GAIN" knob is the first stage of the signal path. It can deliver a very large amount of gain into following stages.
As the "COMP" knob is turned to the right the compression ratio increases while the gain is auto adjusted. The result is a smoother signal with more even dynamics. Louder signals are attenuated while the overall level is boosted.
The "80HZ" switch in the up position rolls off frequencies below 80hZ.
Tone Stage
The tone stage is a three band EQ. Each band provides ±15 dB cut or boost.
This stage builds off of the initial gain stage and can boost the signal even more to really overdrive the next drive stage.
There is a clipping LED indicator that indicates that the signal is being clipped by the initial gain and EQ stages before entering the drive stage, this may or may not be desired.
Drive Stage
The drive stage contains two independent hard clipping style distortion channels.
The "HOWL" channel is a silicon based clipping and the "GROWL" channel is a germanium based clipping.
Each channel has a "DRIVE" knob that adjusts the level of signal going into the clipping and a "VOL" that adjusts the volume after the clipping.
Final Mid EQ Stage
The final stage of the pedal allows you to boost (or cut) a variable mid range frequency, giving the ability for your guitar tone cut through other instruments in the live or studio mix.
Start with the "MID±" knob at 12 o'clock, this will add no boost or cut.
The "MID-Q" adjusts the center frequency that the mid boost/cut is applied at.
