DIGITECH DOD Chthonic Fuzz

The Chthonic Fuzz, pronounced “THAH-nik,” produces fat, full, fudgy and sludgy fuzz tones designed to pair especially well with single-coil, P90, gold-foil and DeArmond-style pickups. It also works well with PAF-style humbuckers, but this fuzz was designed with brighter guitars and bright, clean amplifiers in mind.

The circuit starts with a beloved single-knob fuzz design from the 1970s. DOD added a subtle tone control called Lustre, followed by a separate gain control called Fuzz. The result is a simple yet powerful fuzz with an earthy, dark character. Straight-up transistor clipping using a pair of 2N2222 transistors allows you to clean up the fuzz with the guitar’s volume control, much like with other classic fuzz pedals.

The Chthonic features Kraken/Cthulhu artwork by the same artist who created the artwork for the Carcosa Fuzz. It is the psychotic, dizygotic dark companion to the Carcosa Fuzz in the pantheon of the underworld.

Placement in the signal chain

The DOD Chthonic Fuzz is designed to be first in the signal chain. This allows it to interact directly with the guitar pickups and volume control. Rolling the guitar volume back just a little will give the best results, while setting it to around 7 or 8 allows the Chthonic to clean up into a pleasing overdrive. Turning the guitar volume down to around 5 produces sparkling clean tones.

This sensitivity also makes the Chthonic respond to the capacitance of longer cables, so keep the cable from the guitar to the Chthonic as short as possible. Avoid placing pedals before the Chthonic as well, since their buffer can affect the tone.

Setup

Start with all controls at 12 o’clock, their midpoint, and adjust to taste. If the result is too extreme, turn the Fuzz and Lustre controls down. All settings will depend heavily on the output level of your instrument, your amplifier and your playing style.