Imperfect Circuits Nostalgic Drive

Filtered Overdrive

The frequency response and saturation of a cassette tape in a pedal.

Technically an overdrive and mild fuzz circuit, this pedal also replicates the frequency response of a cassette player and tape we have used for recordings. It started life as a desktop-style mixing effect to get the same type of filtering and clipping response as a cassette deck but without the hassle of syncing a tape recording to a DAW.

A total of five stages of filtering sculpt the frequency response, along with diode clipping and transistor clipping to create an old-school, lo-fi type of sound. ‘Input Level’ adjusts the amount of clipping; ‘Hi-Cut’ adjusts one of the low-pass filters to reduce harsh frequencies when the transistor clips; and ‘Clipping’ swaps between two pairs of diodes, giving an option for hard clipping or soft clipping.

This pedal is intended to be at the end of your chain - unlike a typical overdrive or fuzz - after other effects like reverb, delay, or modulation. This is where the ‘lo-fi’ vibes will really shine.
Each unit is hand-assembled by us using through-hole components and packed into a 125B enclosure - which is powder-coated and UV printed.

It is powered off of 9V - no adapter is included. The jack is wired to be center-negative, which should match the majority of pedal power supplies. Please double check before plugging power into your pedal. There is no battery option, it can only be powered via the 9VDC jack.