Everything You Need to Know About Old Blood Noise Pedals

Today I want to talk about a brand that has always captured my attention with their one-of-a-kind aesthetic, unique sounds and amazing team of builders. I’m talking, of course, about Old Blood Noise Endeavors, founded by Brady Smith and Seth McCarroll, whose pedal making journey can be summed up thusly: “What would happen if Quentin Tarantino had decided to make guitar pedals instead of movies?”

Brady and Seth met at the University of Oklahoma in 2006 and bonded over their mutual love of Danish cinema and offbeat sci-fi. After graduation, Brady wrangled a job at Keeley Electronics and later helped launch Walrus Audio. Even so, Brady couldn’t get the idea of starting his own company out of his head. So, in August 2014, Brady and Seth launched Old Blood Noise Endeavors and released their flagship pedal, the Black Fountain Delay. I remember buying it when it came out and immediately loving the sound and aesthetic. You just didn’t see anything else like this on the market in 2014.

Since 2014, Brady and Seth have released more than twenty different pedals through Old Blood Noise Endeavors, and even produced an amazing YouTube series called “Coffee and Riffs” that launched in February 2014, which has gathered a cumulative one million views. No big deal.

But let’s answer the real question: how did they land on such a weird name for the company? Brady explained that “old blood” is meant to be the opposite of “young blood” (A.K.A. a noob), and that “noise” was a reference to the kind of disruptive sounds he and Seth liked in their music. They chose “endeavors” because they wanted to keep the company open to making products other than music gear.

They’ve dropped some of the most unique effect pedals of the last decade, so let’s take a look at them!

Black Fountain Delay

The first first OBNE pedal that I ever bought was the Black Fountain Delay (originally released in August 2014). This pedal replicates the sound of vintage oil can delays– hence the icon of an oil rig on the enclosure –but it also features a modern and an organ mode if you want to get fancy. The baller enclosure art was designed by Sam Larson.

Anyone who’s seen the JHS Show knows that I’m pretty set in my ways, which is why we jammed with the V1 in this episode. That said, OBNE has since updated the pedal twice. The most recent version (V3) was released in October 2020, adding tap tempo and expanded delay time, which are admittedly cool upgrades.

Just follow your heart on this one, guys. If the V1 is good, the V3 has to be pretty fantastic.

Dark Star Pad Reverb

The Dark Star pad reverb, released at the tail end of 2015, is basically an updated Procession Sci-Fi Reverb. It expands the PSFR’s long-sustaining reverb and adds some synth-y pads underneath. The enclosure art was designed by Jon Carling.

It features three reverb settings– Pitch, Delay and Crush. Personally, I’m a fan of all three, but in the episode’s jam we zeroed in on the Crush, which crushes the transients/repeats/echoes and creates a very interesting sound.

Mondegreen Delay

The OBNE website may have summed this pedal up the best: “It’s delay. Into modulation. And it’s weird.”

The Mondegreen Delay was released in August 2016, with enclosure art designed by Jake Blanchard. It has three delay settings: Stutter, Whirl and Sheer, but it’s actually a delay into modulation, which creates some truly unique (read: bizarre) shifting effects.

Coincidentally, the definition of the word mondegreen is “a misunderstood or misinterpreted word or phrase resulting from a mishearing of the lyrics of the song.” My worst offense on this is probably the fact that I thought the chorus of “Drift Away” was “give me the Beach Boys and free my soul” for years.

Fault V2 Overdrive/Distortion

The Fault Overdrive/Distortion was released May 2017 (V1), with the V2 launching in May 2020, and the enclosure art was designed by Evan Cohen.

Now, I want to make sure I don’t undersell this: my hand to God, this may be the most perfectly crafted take on the Klon circuit that I've ever seen. It’s certainly my favorite Klon-inspired pedal that I’ve played in recent years. It comes with a three-band slider EQ, and features two different modes for gain: Gain 1, which is a standard overdrive, and Gain 2, which pretty much recreates the opening scene of Back to the Future.

Excess Distortion Chorus/Delay

The Excess Distortion Chorus/Delay, which was released in November 2017, is kind of an odd duck in the OBNE family. Unlike most of the other pedals produced by OBNE, this one is based on an existing circuit. Four existing circuits, actually: the Ibanez Session Man 1 and 2 (SS10 and SS20), the Ibanez SC10 Super Stereo Chorus and the Ibanez FC10 Fat Cat, which is originally based on the ProCo RAT.

The origin of this idea is basically a drive pedal with chorus and delay– which gives you a ton of options. They released the V2 in early 2022, which adds more sounds and even more control.

The enclosure art for the V1 and V2 were both designed by Atiya Jones.

Alpha Haunt Fuzz

The Alpha Haunt has a super cool story to it– though, sadly, not a ghost story –and I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell it properly. Basically, the Alpha Haunt was based on a pre-OBNE pedal called the Gatekeeper. Brady made the Gatekeeper in the late 2000s while he was still working at Keeley Electronics by taking an interesting but unsophisticated circuit that was fairly close to ZVEX Woolly Mammoth fuzz and began manufacturing it himself. He and Seth transitioned that circuit into the Haunt when OBNE launched in 2014, and sold off all the remaining Gatekeepers to fund their new business.

In 2018, they upgraded the Haunt circuit with a three-band slider EQ and a preamp section, and re-released it as the Alpha Haunt. Simply put, the Alpha Haunt is mad versatile. This may be the last fuzz you ever buy. It was so successful that they released a compact version of the same circuit at the end of 2020.

I also want to take a minute to brag on this enclosure design, which was crafted by my good friend Daniel Danger. Basically, Brady saw one of Daniel's paintings in a gallery and asked, “Could we use it for a guitar pedal?” Daniel scanned the painting, cut out a bunch of wolves out of it, pasted them on the pedal enclosure and the rest is history.

Dweller Phase Repeater

Our next pedal was released in June 2018, with enclosure art designed by Garrett Young. Interestingly, the Dweller Phase Repeater isn’t based on an existing pedal. Rather, designer Dan Pechacek was just exploring what he could do with the format of the FV-1 and the DSP that they were currently using and– boom! –the Dweller Phase Repeater was born. “Just try stuff” at its finest.

The product description for this on the OBNE website is basically an existential crisis waiting to happen: “What if a phaser could remember itself? Dweller remembers. It remembers far too much.” In practical terms, the Dweller features a secondary lag delay control that really creates a spontaneous and strange phaser effect.

Minim Reverb Delay and Reverse

The Minim Reverb Delay and Reverse, released in November 2019, is a reverse delay reverb based on the Rêver (which OBNE originally made as a joint project with Datachoir). Basically, they expanded on the features of the original circuit and repackaged it into the Minim. The eerie enclosure art was designed by Tim Elliott.

This may be my favorite pedal in the entire OBNE lineup, simply because I love reverse delays and I love reverse reverbs, and this is both. That’s the actual definition of bang for your buck.

Sunlight Dynamic Reverb

I've already shown the Sunlight Dynamic Reverb on a “New and Notable” live show, but I want to take a few moments here to brag on it properly. This pedal was released in August 2021, and the enclosure art was designed by Jon Carling. My favorite setting for the Sunlight puts the toggle in the middle position, adds in a slow rate and uses a mix that’s half decay/half reverb pad, but you can obviously do whatever you want.

Coincidentally, if you’re in a three-piece band with guitar, this adds a fantastic pad. It allows you to blend your clean signal back into the mix to avoid the pad getting washed out.

**Honorable Mentions**

At some point, I do have to wrap up this article, but first I want to throw out a few honorable mentions for Old Blood Noise Endeavors:

Visitor Parallel Multi-Modulator: Released in March 2020 with art by Garrett Young, this pedal lets you layer phaser over chorus over tremolo.
Reflector Chorus: Originally released in August 2015 with art by Derek Nobbs, the Reflector is a modulated chorus with pitch-shifting mixed into it.
Procession Sci-Fi Reverb: Released in February 2015 with art by Garrett Young, the Procession was inspired by the idea of long-sustaining held reverbs, created by maxing out some of the parameters (as seen in pedals like the Electro-Harmonix Freeze pedal, Cathedral and Holy Grail Reverb). It eventually evolved into the Dark Star Pad Reverb.

When I asked Brady Smith to sum up the mantra of Old Blood Noise Pedals, here’s what he said: “I think just from the beginning, we operated under this ‘no master, go faster’ flag of like, ‘If we want to do something, let's just do it. Let's make it happen. And let's work together to make it happen. And let's work with our friends and let's be honest about how we're doing it.’”

Brady and Seth have created an amazing pedal company that reflects their personalities through the design work and the sounds. They are the perfect example of how companies don't make things, people do. Each and every one of these pedals is unique to Seth and Brady's personality, the music they love and the art that they love. Great job, guys!