The Dogon people of West Africa’s oral tradition tells of an ancient encounter with a race of Amphibians called the Nommos. It is said that these mermaid-like creatures descended from the sky and gave the Dogon great knowledge. They were told of Saturn’s rings, Jupiter’s four major moons, and received knowledge of the star Sirius B long before it was observable by telescope technology. Recently, it has been discovered that the Dogon also received inexplicable knowledge of Fuzz pedals over 5,100 years before the recording of “Don’t Worry.” This Ancient Fuzz technology has remained hidden, passed down in secret from generation to generation for thousands of years. Until now…

Shoe Pedals

Demo by  clearlight808

Product Page

Ancient Astronaut

The Frog is back by popular demand after a few world tours and records and such. Frog gets its name, of course, from its sound. Try sweeping up and down on a major barre chord around fret 10 or so and you’ll get a good demonstration of its characteristic ribbit. Of course, at heart, the Frog is a differential pair octave surrounded by carefully tuned class A MOSFET amplifiers. The result is less an Octave Fuzz and more an Octave boost or overdrive. This makes it very useful when playing through high gain amps that can give a lot of octave fuzzes problems. With the gain at minimum you can get a clear and clean(ish) octave up effect that is perfect for clean or overdriven amps and also stacks well into other drive pedals and fuzzes (Savior Machine, Robert, and Pixel are some favorites for this).  You can also get some ring modulation type sounds out of the pedal by playing certain note combinations in the “clean” range.

Review by The Gear Page

Demo by clearlight808

Official Product Video

Frog

The Pixel is one of the earliest SHOE designs. It began as an oscillating fuzz and, after intentionally adding elements haphazardly and then adjusting the circuit so the pedal began to work again, it turned into something else entirely.

The Pixel is a gated fuzz and is commonly used on bass, though it works quite well on guitar and other instruments. When used with a guitar on single-note lines, the Pixel is adept at producing chiptune and analog or 8-bit synthesizer type sounds. It can resemble the sound of a classic monosynth or game console. This effect is most pronounced at higher PINCH settings.

Review by reddit /diypedals

Review by Talk Bass.com

Demo by  Monkey Riot Pedals

Demo by Brett Kingman

Pixel

The Plume is designed to produce a thick and heavy distortion sound reminiscent of those heard on many classic 90s alternative rock albums. It is (so far) the most aggressive-sounding pedal in the SHOE lineup and kicking it on mid song will give you a satisfying explosion of sound.  It does great on heavy riffs, drones, shoegazer chords, and leads alike and (on a guitar neck pickup) can even get you into some smooth prog type sounds as well. The pedal’s lower gain mode uses one less stage of distortion and is generally on the darker/grungier/moody side of things while the high gain mode produces an all out wall of fuzz.

Demo by Anders Isberg

Plume

The Savior Machine is what can commonly be called a “Transparent” Overdrive. You may have heard this term floated about before. What this means, simply, is the Savior Machine will let the natural sound of your guitar and amp shine through without fundamentally altering their character. This means the pedal will sound different with different guitars or types of pickups and its primary use is to add low to medium gain overdrive or (at lower gain) clean boost and tonal enhancements. The Savior Machine is also a very dynamic overdrive. It is extremely sensitive to pick attack, playing style variations, guitar volume changes, and pickup changes. On most settings, soft playing will still come through the pedal with little to no distortion. As a result, GAIN adjustments on the Savior Machine may be better thought of as sensitivity adjustments.