The Special Cranker Overdrive pedal from EarthQuaker Devices is an all-discrete analog distortion stompbox designed to give your signal extra grit and boost without drastically altering your tone. Think of it as sticking an extra preamp tube in your amplifier for more saturation. Single notes will blossom and bloom with rich harmonics, and power chords will sound thicker and crunchier, a little more ragged around the edges. Complex chords will remain distinct and complex, as the Special Cranker is designed to preserve your tone’s integrity without muddying up the low end or smearing the midrange.

The Special Cranker picks up where the Speaker Cranker left off. It has the same spongy, dynamic and touch-sensitive character of the original but with more gain, double the output volume (now with a user-friendly Level control), an added Tone control to shape your signal and a diode selector switch featuring the original asymmetrical silicon diodes as well as a Germanium diode option.