Crowther Effects
Crowther Effects is a pedals company based in the UK. 
Created by drummer Paul Crowther, all of these pedals are hand made. Crowther actually created all of his pedals in New Zealand, but they are shipped throughout the UK and the world. Today, the number of Crowther pedal users has grown to include such names as Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Melvins, and the Lemonheads. Crowther Audio has three major pedals: the Hotcake, the Prunes and Custard, and the Double Hotcake.
The Hotcake was Crowther’s first pedal, and it’s the most natural sounding of all the distortion pedals. It adds sound to your amp, but it doesn’t touch the tone. It gives you a great range of sounds, going from subtle disturbance to full warping. The Hotcake also comes in a Bluesberry version that features a throatier sound and works very well with bright treble amps.
The Prunes and Custard pedal may have a very strange name, but it creates a very interesting distortion that has a lot of odd harmonics and some interesting modulation. It’s more of a metallic kind of distortion than the Hotcakes provides, and it can actually wipe out almost all of your original sound and leave just the harmonics if you like. It works quite well with a number of instruments, including bass guitars.
Finally, the Double Hotcake provides two Hotcakes pedals in one. It gives players the ability to decide how much distortion comes from the first and the second pedal. You can set one for boost, one for rhythm, or one for lead…the options are endless. This gives you a great amount of flexibility and the ability to make some very interesting sounds.
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| Crowther Audio Hotcake Guitar Boost Overdrive Hot Cake Effect Pedal Hot Cake | |
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$179.00 Time Remaining: 23d 2h 31m Buy It Now for only: $179.00 Buy It Now |
| Crowther Audio Double Hotcake Overdrive Guitar Pedal | |
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$345.00 Time Remaining: 21d 16h 1m Buy It Now for only: $345.00 Buy It Now |
| Crowther Audio Hotcake Hot Cake Distortion Overdrive Effect with Box | |
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$159.99 Time Remaining: 2d 22h 27m Buy It Now for only: $159.99 Buy It Now |
| Crowther Audio Prunes Custard Guitar Effect Pedal NEW | |
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$195.00 Time Remaining: 21d 13h 30m Buy It Now for only: $195.00 Buy It Now |
| Crowther Audio Prunes Custard Overdrive Filter Guitar Effect Pedal | |
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Crowther Audio Hotcake Effect Pedal List Price: $220.00  |
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The Hotcake was first produced in 1976, while Paul Crowther was in the UK with the band, Split Enz. The Hotcake is designed to leave the undistorted component of the guitar sound unchanged, while providing a nice fat distortion sound without resorting to a treble cut circuit which will also affect the guitar tonality. With the Drive and Presence controls set to minimum, and the Level at around 2 o'clock, you should be hard pressed to hear any change in the sound at all when you switch the Hotcake in and out. You can get a clean volume boost by increasing the Level control. Increasing the Drive will give you a thick distortion sound with a little bit of edge to it, and the Presence control adds some mid-range punch to the sounds. The Hotcake also handles chords well. It is recommended that the Hotcake is patched between the guitar and amplifier, rather than into an amplifier's effect loop. Generally speaking, if you are happy with your guitar and amplifier combination, the Hotcake will work well as a primary distortion. |
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Crowther Audio Double Hotcake Pedal List Price: $420.00 |
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Hand-made in New Zealand by Paul Crowther, the Double Hotcake, just as the name implies, is two Hotcake boost/overdrive pedals in one box. Channel A is the Bluesberry version (a slightly less buzzy, more bluesy distortion) and Channel B is the normal circuit. Three controls on each version, you can get a clean volume boost by increasing the Level control, increasing the Drive will give you a thick distortion sound with a little bit of edge to it, and the Presence control adds some mid-range punch to the sounds. The Double HotCake allows you to switch between A and B or run them together. When run together, the Channel A controls override Channel B but an extra Drive control is added in for getting that extra saturation. |
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Crowther Audio Prunes & Custard Pedal List Price: $230.00 |
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Hand-made in New Zealand by Paul Crowther, the Prunes and Custard is a small pedal with a lot of capabilities. There is a preamp stage, the gain of which is adjusted with the Drive control. This stage followed by a special waveshaping distortion circuit. There is some treble roll-off between the preamp and the special distortion circuit. The frequency at which this treble roll-off happens can be changed with the Guitar/Bass switch. The special distortion stage produces strong harmonic overtones, mostly odd harmonic. Higher harmonics are progressively introduced with increased Drive settings and signal level, so a decaying bass guitar note can sound like a mean swept filter. Playing double notes, like 4ths or 5ths can produce some strong intermodulation effects, rather like a ring modulator, but more musical, albeit more distorted! The Mix control is a balance between the preamp stage output, (CCW) and the special distortion stage output (CW). |
The first HotCake Distortion pedal was produced way back in 1976, and ever sense then, this pedal has been a staple in the Crowther line. Many different people have used the Crowther Audio HotCake over the years, including Stevie Ray, Simple Minds, the Henry Rollins Band, and the Melvins. But what makes the HotCake pedal so amazing? There are several reasons. The HotCake produces an incredibly clean sounding distortion; in fact, many consider it the best distortion unit available.