Laowiz - Bath Salts

End of the World Fuzz

Back in the early days of the pandemic, Champion Leccy started a contest of sorts called the End of Days Fuzz Challenge. Really just an excuse for builders to flex the most disgusting fuzz side of themselves. Luckily it’s an open ended theme as I am just finishing mine now.

The circuit is a disgusting stew of classic noisemaker circuits from the DIY scene including the Noise Ensemble by Anchovie, the Ugly Face by Tim Escobedo, and the Crash Sync by John Holis. After years of tweaking and trying different things out I’ve finally landed and good to get this out. The main goal was to create a slab of sludge so here we are.

Bath Salts won't be on sale on this site for awhile. These will be made in small batches working from a list. If you would like to get on the list hit the contact button and send me an email and we can go from there.

BATH SALTS is an end of the world sludgemaker that consists of two circuits in parallel that hopefully create a menacing wall of sound. The main fuzz circuit is a massive square wave fuzz that can sound like a disgusting enveloping filter fuzz to a bombastic & synthetic lower octave type fuzz. There's also a toggle switch to turn the circuit into an oscillator fuzz that can provide lots of subsonic low end thumping to grating digital chainsaw sounds.

In parallel with the main circuit is a one repeat delay that is squared up and it's purpose is to act as a thickener to the pedal's overall sound. The added sound kinda oozes and drags behind the main fuzz signal and provides a wiggle on higher notes which could be described as the notes as being sick.

Inspiration for the sound of the pedal comes from Austin band USA/Mexico, the song ‘In the Raw’ by Lubricated Goat, and the overall vibe of the Swans album, Cop.

FUZZ controls:

SALT:
Controls the brightness of the led that alters the reaction of the light dependent resistor which creates the enveloping sounds. At lower freq settings via the FRQ toggle it also acts as a quasi tone control while at the same time adding synthetic artifacts on one end and cleaning up the signal at the other.

FREQ:
Controls the frequency of the filter. Thick or thin. At the thickest (counter clockwise side) there is a boost in volume so adjust the circuits volume control to taste.

MIDSCOOP:
The mid-scoop filter is a tweaked version of the nasty filter found in the Shin-Ei FY2 circuit. Slightly altered and the control varies the amount of scoop / adds mids back in.

VOL:
Independent volume control for the fuzz side of the pedal.

FUZZ TOGGLES -

SQR:
Three positions that alter the high end content of the square wave fuzz. 2 contains the most high end, 1 has a little less high end. 3 has the least. All 3 positions effect the how the envelope responds to the fuzz signal. A little wilder response in positions 1 & 2. Tighter in position 3 which also has the best tracking for the lower octave sounds.

FRQ:
Position 2 is the "stock" setting. It's brighter than settings 1 & 3 and is where the enveloping fuzz shines the most. Position 1 can still do enveloping fuzz sounds with the Salt control set to the bright side and Freq control adjusted to taste. Keeping the Salt and Freq controls in the far counter clockwise range gives a nice lower octave to doom things out. Position 3 is more extreme than position 1 as the Salt control works more as a fine tuning for the lower octave.

AGATA:
Toggles between the "normalized" fuzz state in position 1 or as an Oscillator fuzz in position 2. At some settings, the high end gets like Dolphin screetch high, so watch your ears...

DELAY controls:

DRAG:
Adjusts the delay time. At low settings, there's a doubling effect but not akin to a normal thickener, more like you've had no sleep and have had a bit much to drink and like to add sedatives into the mix. At higher delay settings, the dragging quality is more pronounced like your clean signal has been squared up and then ingested into an abused PT2399 delay chip and then puked back into the signal chain.

VOL:
Independent delay volume control. There is a ton of volume on tap here and you will likely only use about the first 1/4 of rotation on the control. I tried ways to make the circuit not as loud but they all seemed to neuter the overall sound and you are really just trimming it's volume to sit where you want in conjunction with the fuzz circuit.

DELAY TOGGLES:

HURL:
Changes the response of the drag control. In position 1, the ooze is steady and works well throughout the DRAG control's rotation. Position 2 is slightly more unstable and may add some noise into the circuit and completely breaks down on the DRAG control's higher settings.

Additional notes;
The BATH control is a master volume in a sense but also adds gain when turn up. Best practice would be to set the independent channels' volume controls and then adjust the BATH control to taste.

The left footswitch takes the delay circuit in and out of the mix. There is usually a pop when it's engaged due to the circuitry.

The right footswitch is the bypass switch.

https://laowiz.bigcartel.com/product/bath-salts