One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next
by Quirkfx – View all from this builder
📦 Ships instantly from our US warehouse in Ohio.
🔥 One-Off Alert!
Jason at QuirkFX only makes one of each pedal — ever. This is the ONLY one in existence, and once it’s gone, it’s gone for good.
A Filter/fuzz that reminds:
“He Who Marches Out Of Step
Hears Another Drum”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Based on the Guitardammerung Ef111 by Electro-Faustus Noise Devices
Some things just defy description. We'll give it a go.
It's a fuzz. Kinda. Is it?
Yes, but your fuzzy signal gets mangled through a strange filter section that does all kinds of wild and whacky things to it. What it does depends on the speed and intensity knobs, which fiddle around with the PLL circuit causing filtered chaos.
The effect is very much determined by the strength of the signal you send it too, so gentle playing will yield very different results to heavy handed stuff. Basically it's a bucket load of fun, and an absolute must if you like the shoegaze end of tones. Just a quick dig around demo vids should convince you either way.
Use a standard 9V power supply, Center negative
Controls
Volume - obvious. Louder to the right/clockwise. (“He knows that you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy.”)
Tone - “Brighter” (more treble) to the right/clockwise. “Warmer” (more lows) to the left/Counterclockwise. (“If you don't watch it people will force you one way or the other, into doing what they think you should do, or into just being mule-stubborn and doing the opposite out of spite.”)
Speed - This control allows you to add a swirling, pulsating effect to your distorted sound, adding depth and movement to your tone. (“All I know is this: nobody's very big in the first place, and it looks to me like everybody spends their whole life tearing everybody else down.”)
Intensity - determines the strength or depth of the modulation effect. . More intense to the right. (“What do you think you are, for Chrissake, crazy or somethin'? Well you're not! You're not! You're no crazier than the average asshole out walkin' around on the streets and that's it. ”)
* Quotes from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kasey, for flavor.
I’ve never built a fuzz pedal without a "fuzz" knob before. There’s even lots of great fuzz pedals with ONLY the one knob, and that’s for fuzz. So what’s going on here?
Fantastically fun fuzz, that’s what! And it’s not so much that there’s no Fuzz knob, it’s that it doesn’t really need one. Once it’s on, it’s fuzzy, and fitzy, and gated and spluttery. So it’s the Speed and Intensity controls that shape the filter and determine how it sounds. So this is not a “turn it down…. Make it subtle…” situation. It’s gonna be crazy, no mater what you do. But there are a lot of different variations of crazy….
Electro-Faustus, based in New York, has been producing unique effects and noisemakers since 2008. Two friends, Joe Vella and Eric Kessel, say “Our goal is to spread the joy of noise-making through our fine products.” Crazy Joyful!
The design idea came as I was testing the circuit. “This is crazy!” I said. “That’s insane!!” I said. “This thing is cuckoo!” I said. It wasn’t hard to decide that “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” was the perfect reference for this pedal. It’s about a free spirit in a closed system. McMurphy is supposedly “feigning” insanity to avoid a jail term, but it makes us question what is crazy? Am I? Will some people think you’re crazy when you kick this on? Do you care? If it brings you joy, how crazy can it be?
Hope you enjoy it!
Made In Chicago, USA
From The Builder:
A middle school teacher with a workshop in my basement, spraying things in the garage when weather allows. My daughter taught me to solder in 2019 (after being in robotics club in high school....NERD!), and I've been building pedals ever since. The circuits are based on existing pedals (I'm always up front about which), but it's the finishing that's quirky, with unique (occasionally odd) designs. Minor imperfections are par for the course and part of the charm.
Each design is one-of-a-kind, which means NO ONE ELSE will ever have this pedal but you. Hope you enjoy!
