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Casa Distortion Pedalpunk stomp box interface music gear review

Music Gear Review: Casa Distortion Pedalpunk Stomp Box Interface

Pedalpunk is a single-channel interface that connects the guitar stomp box world of unbalanced ¼-inch connections to your studio’s professional balanced line level world of XLR and TRS connections. Pedalpunk is housed in a full-size aluminum pedal box and runs on the included nine-volt power supply that will run up to three of the units.

There are input and output XLR and TRS connectors to connect to line level sources and returns in your studio console, DAW or live sound rig. There are also polarity flip (Ø) and chassis ground lift push buttons as well as unbalanced ¼-inch Send and Return jacks for connection to any guitar effects pedal(s) or your whole pedal board.

Key to Pedalpunk’s operation and sound is that it is purposely designed to have “color”; it’s not transparent sounding like pro audio gear.

There are three controls: Send, Return and Focus that matches (or not!) impedances. While mixing I wanted to use a Germanium transistor fuzz tone pedal for a too clean guitar track. I sent out of an interface output from Pro Tools to the Input XLR of Pedalpunk and the Output XLR connects to my interface input routed to a separate Aux fader in my mixer. Having the “fuzzed” version of the clean signal worked out well for automating the amount fuzz easily in the mix. The Casa Distortion Pedalpunk Stomp Box Interface sells for $349 MSRP. You can also buy two PedalPunks for $649.

pedalpunk.com

BARRY RUDOLPH is a recording engineer/mixer who has worked on over 30 gold and platinum records. He has recorded and/or mixed Lynyrd Skynyrd, Hall & Oates, Pat Benatar, Rod Stewart, the Corrs and more. Barry has his own futuristic music mixing facility and loves teaching audio engineering at Musician’s Institute, Hollywood, CA. He is a lifetime Grammy-voting member of NARAS and a contributing editor for Mix Magazinebarryrudolph.com