Barefaced Audio Releases First Effects Pedal: The Machinist

Barefaced Audio Machinist Pedal

Barefaced Audio is primarily a company that builds bass and guitar cabs, but they’ve just unveiled their first effects pedal, called The Machinist. Created as a collaboration with COG Effects, the unit was dreamed up after Rage Against The Machine bassist Tim Commerford contacted Barefaced to try out a cab.

“One of our existing customers, Tom of COG Effects is also a huge RATM fan and I asked him if he’d like us to send Tim some of his awesome pedals along with the cabs – obviously he said yes! One of the pedals Tom sent was a custom parallel fuzz and distortion, inspired by Tim’s amazing parallel dirt sounds, called Take The Power Back,” Barefaced writes. “I had a lot of fun playing with this before we sent it onto Tim. Now I’m not sure if my idea came before or after chatting to Tim about signal chains, but I said to Tom, ‘Can you design me a pedal like that one but with a third clean channel and a switch for each section, that we can sell as our first Barefaced pedal?’” After several tweaks, the Machinist was born.

The pedal is split into three sections, each with its own footswitch. On the right is the distortion channel, which has gain, bass, treble, and level controls for dialing in the effect. The center section is the fuzz and has fuzz, tilt, mid-boost, and volume controls. The left portion is the pedal’s clean channel, which functions a little differently from the other two.

“If neither fuzz or distortion is on, stomping the clean [footswitch] just lights the LED and means that you’ll have this low pass filtered clean sound running in parallel when you click on either dirty sound,” they explain. “If either dirty sound is already on then clicking the clean channel will add the filtered clean to the dirt – or take it away if it was already active.”

Get the full rundown and range of sounds on bass in the company’s demo:

The Barefaced Audio Machinist runs on a standard 9V DC power. It’s available for order now at $305 USD and has a 1-2 week production time.

Barefaced Audio Machinist Pedal Features:

Built in the UK
Parallel Distortion, Fuzz, and Clean Channels
Distortion Controls: Gain, Volume, Bass, Treble
Fuzz Controls: Gain, Volume, Mid Boost, Tilt (Scoop)
Clean Controls: Volume, Tone (Low Pass Filter)
Dimensions: 5.5″ wide x 4.5″ deep (height = 2.5″)
Choice of Knobs: Black Pointer, White Pointer, Black Stubby, Black Slim
Power: Standard 9-18V DC Power

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Leave a Reply to Bootsy Cancel reply

  1. Jeff Berlin

    What a horrible demo video. Nice pedal but come On hire a guy that can make a good bud and demo.