**The Black Back edition is part of the Artwork Series and uses the stainless steel plates from the original run of Orcrist pedals mounted on a black texture powdercoated enclosure of improved design**
B-Stock: I dropped it and dinged the front right corners (not shown in photos)
The Orcrist is an original design overdrive that goes from nearly clean boost to medium crunch. Named after the sword from The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien, this pedal can be your secret weapon for great tone. When the pedal is engaged, the blade of the sword glows blue with its name in Gondolinin runes.
The idea behind the design was to zero in on the sound that a lot of players are after-- that just starting to break-up crunch of a 15-30 watt tube amp, turned up. A lot of players use a TS or BB style drive with the gain turned way down to accomplish this sound. To my ear that really makes the drive sound dull. Those pedals have a HUGE range of gain, the Orcrist does not. It doesn't do super-stustainy higher gain sounds like a cranked TS, it takes the low-medium gain sound and expands it over the entire range of the gain controls in order to let the user dial in his/her exact desired sound in that range.
The Orcrist uses 5 distinct gain stages to do this and gives you control over early gain with the Gain control and late stage gain with the Bite control. The two controls are very interactive with each other. Turn up the Gain for more saturation -or- turn down the gain and turn up the Bite for more of a cleaner boost with a little crunch. Turn up both for nice crunchy overdrive.
The Tone control is a basic treble cut. The input and outputs of each stage of the circuit have been voiced to give the fullest frequency range response, including low harmonics. This voicing makes the Orcrist really rhythm guitar friendly. It doesn't get muddy when you strum open chords b/c the high mids and highs aren't accentuated as much as in some Overdrive circuits. The Orcrist is voiced for more of a beefy, low mid tone.
If you want a little more treble and a little more headroom, switch the toggle on the back from Biter mode to Goblin Cleaver mode. This engages an 18 volt charge pump in the circuit to give a wider available amplitude swing.
Each pedal is housed in a laser-cut stainless steel enclosure with laser-marked graphics. Each also features a top quality, Japanese built DeMont "soft click" latching footswitch for true bypass integrity with the softest "click" of any latching stomp i have ever tried. Components are all sourced from USA suppliers whenever possible. PCB's are high quality USA made boards. Knobs may vary slightly from those in the photos depending on available supply.
As with all Wrought Iron products, this one features the Wrought Iron satisfaction guarantee.
“ORCRIST”, “THE HOBBIT”, and “THE LORD OF THE RINGS” and the items, characters, places, and events therein, are trademarks of Middle-earth Enterprises under license to Wrought Iron Effects. All rights reserved.
For more info on Wrought Iron Leather and Effects, see out FB page, Instagram, or check out the Kickstarter campaign we used to launch this line of pedals. Feel free to contact me with any questions,
Ed
