Description
There's a special kind of player this pedal speaks to-those who love distortion not just for its bite, but for its ability to deconstruct and rebuild a signal into something entirely new. Fairfield's 20% More isn't your average fuzz, drive, or glitch box; it's a mad-scientist approach to distortion, forged from a found schematic that blurs the line between oscillator and filter. This is for the sonic explorer, the noise sculptor, the analog chaos enthusiast.
At the core of 20% More is a slew limiter, a circuit usually reserved for taming fast voltage changes, but here, it's pushed into new territory. By controlling the rate of voltage change-how fast your signal can rise or fall-it acts like a jagged low-pass filter, distorting not just amplitude but motion itself. Crank the FEED and that slewing starts to resonate, morphing into triangle-wave oscillation that can be overtaken by your input signal for pseudo-wavefolding and gloriously synthetic artifacts.
There's a strange balance at play in this pedal's topology. With SLEW turned down, the result is hauntingly dark and subdued; increase BLEND to reintroduce square-wave harmonics, injecting energy and restoring texture. Then there's the low-pass gate (LPG)-a subtle, resonant 12dB/oct filter that softens the burn, rounding out the wild behavior with a touch of warmth and control. This combo brings an unexpected sense of musicality to the pedal's raw edge.
Underneath it all lies an internal envelope follower, keeping the chaos in check. It can feed either the LPG or the FEED control, acting like a dynamic sidechain. In LPG mode, it mimics that "bongo" bounce of West Coast modular synthesis; in FEED mode, it responds to your playing with reactive feedback suppression, letting oscillations bloom and die in rhythm with your notes.
And then, just when you think you've mapped the edges of its sound, 20% More introduces flip-flop sub-octave divisions and a switchable full-wave rectifier. These additions give you a 75% duty cycle square pulse beneath the surface and a savage octave-up that crushes hard when you lean into the INPUT.
This pedal isn't just designed to distort-it's built to interpret. With Fairfield's 20% More, the nuance of your dynamics, the contour of your playing, and even silence itself become part of the effect.
Specifications:
- Controls:
- **Input**: 'mu amp' JFET preamp with high gain
- **Blend**: Mixes in a square wave/sub-octave copy of the signal
- **Volume**: Output volume (capable of very loud levels)
- **Slew**: Slew limiter frequency
- **Feed**: Slew limiter feedback
- **LPG**: Low pass gate filter
- **D - Octave Down**: Clock division of the blended square wave; -1 or -2 octave
- **U - Octave Up**: Analog octave up via full-wave rectifier
- **E - Envelope Destination**: Routes internal envelope to either LPG or Feed controls
- Internal Controls:
- **TR3 (Drive)**: Adjusts signal level into JFET clipping stage (adds ~20% more gain)
- **TR2 (Sensitivity)**: Adjusts gain of internal envelope to control playing dynamics
- (Note: JFET bias and V/Oct calibration trimmers are not user-adjustable)
- Technical Details:
- **Dimensions**: 4.7" x 3.8" x 1.9"
- **CV Input Range**: 0-5V normal, 0-8V max
- **Power Supply**: 9.6V DC, 20mA (center-negative)
