Catalinbread has a new one: the Cold One, its updated take on the DOD Punkifier. That's the cheap, weird '90s DOD box that Catalinbread connects to Graham Coxon's solo on Blur's "Coffee & TV." Launch coverage started landing today, and retailers already have it listed.
$199.99 direct from Catalinbread. Retailer prices vary right now, so shop around.
What it is, per Catalinbread:
- Two gain sides plus a glitch layer. A distortion side and a fuzz side, mixable, with three "gain flavors" in total
- Slam sets gain, but only on the distortion side. It does nothing when the blend is all the way to fuzz
- Punk is the fuzz/distortion blend: all distortion at minimum, all fuzz at maximum
- Spikes is an active tone control that boosts highs or lows without cutting signal
- Menace is volume
- Glitch blends the normal fuzz with an arpeggiating glitch fuzz. At max you get only the glitch. Like the original Punkifier, that output can bleed into the distortion side too
- Clean bass trick: turn Slam way down and the distortion side becomes basically clean, so Punk turns into a clean blend for bass
- 9–18V DC, center-negative, about 4mA. Catalinbread says it "roars" at 18V
- Input and output buffers, so it's meant to sit anywhere on your board
- Made in the USA, three-year warranty
I haven't played one. But the knob layout tells you exactly what Catalinbread thinks the point is, and it's the right point.
The Blend Is the Pedal
Forget the glitch for a second. It's the fun headline, but the actually useful idea is the Punk knob: a distortion and a fuzz running side by side, with one control that crossfades between them.
Why does that matter? Because fuzz and distortion fail in opposite ways. Fuzz is huge, hairy and saggy, and it turns to mud the second you play anything faster than whole notes. Distortion is tight and articulate, and it can sound thin and fizzy on its own. Blend the two and the distortion keeps the note definition while the fuzz fills out the low end and the sustain. If those words are blurring together, overdrive vs. distortion vs. fuzz sorts it out.
It's the same reason bass players have run clean blends under fuzz forever, and Catalinbread said that part out loud with the Slam-down trick.
Build the Punk Knob in Your Modeler
You don't need $199 for the blend. You need a parallel path, which every Helix, HX Stomp and Quad Cortex already has.
- Split before the amp. Path A gets a distortion block (a RAT-style model is the obvious pick; see RAT vs. Tube Screamer vs. Big Muff). Path B gets a fuzz: a Big Muff type for wall, a Fuzz Face type for sputter. Background on those two is in Big Muff vs. Fuzz Face.
- Merge before the amp block. Both paths should hit the same amp. If each path has its own amp, you're blending two amps, which is a different trick entirely.
- The merge mixer is your Punk knob. Start at about 60/40 distortion over fuzz. Then go fuzz-heavy and listen to the low strings: when the palm mutes start to smear, back off.
- Assign the mix to an expression pedal if your unit allows it. Now you've got a Punkifier blend you can sweep with your foot, which the pedal can't actually do.
- For bass: swap the distortion on path A for nothing at all. That's the Slam-down clean blend, and it keeps your low end solid under the fuzz.
One gotcha: fuzz blocks right after a buffered input can sound thin and polite compared to the real thing. That's an impedance thing, not a bad model. Impedance, buffers and fuzz covers it, and your modeler's input impedance setting is the knob that fixes it.
The Glitch Part Is Harder to Fake
This is the one thing on the Cold One I can't hand you a modeler recipe for. An arpeggiating fuzz, where the fuzz itself chops and steps through the note, isn't a stock block on any of the big platforms. You can get in the neighborhood by putting a synced tremolo or slicer after a gated fuzz, or by using a pitch block with a stepped sequence if your unit has one. But that's an approximation built from parts, not the circuit.
If the glitch is the sound you want, that's the honest argument for buying the box.
Running It in Front of a Modeler
- Set Menace low first. A two-sided fuzz/distortion into a modeler's instrument input can clip the converter before the amp block ever sees it. Get it to unity with the pedal off and on, then add gain.
- Pull gain off the amp block. The Cold One should be the dirt and the amp block should be clean-ish, the same discipline as Tube Screamer in front of a high-gain amp but even more so, because fuzz into an already-dirty amp model turns to soup fast.
- Gate after it, not before. Gating before a fuzz chokes the sustain you paid for. Noise gate placement in a modeler preset shows where it goes.
- Try 18V if your supply has an isolated 18V output. Catalinbread says it roars there, and more headroom on a dirt pedal usually means a bigger, less compressed attack. Make sure that output is actually isolated: pedalboard power supply isolation.
Should You Want One
If you've got a modeler and you've never built a parallel fuzz/distortion blend, do that tonight. It's free, and it'll tell you whether you even like the idea.
If you do, and the glitch fuzz is the bit you can't stop thinking about, $199.99 for a buffered, 18V-capable Punkifier with a layer DOD never put on it isn't a bad deal. That's boutique money for a pedal that started life as a cheap DOD, sure, but the original never had a glitch knob or a clean blend for bass.
Dig Deeper on Fader & Knob
- Overdrive vs. distortion vs. fuzz: what's actually being blended
- Big Muff vs. Fuzz Face: picking the fuzz side of your homemade blend
- RAT vs. Tube Screamer vs. Big Muff: picking the distortion side
- Impedance, buffers and fuzz: why your modeled fuzz sounds polite
- Noise gate placement in a modeler preset: keeping the sustain and losing the hiss
