This article is not a review of the elusive and mysterious Ayahuasca pedal from Abracadabra Audio. It’s more of a backstory of how this pedal came to be.

What Is Ayahuasca?

Ayahuasca is a fuzz pedal. And it’s a tremolo pedal. You can use the fuzz independently or together with the tremolo. If you cut down the pedal’s Input knob a bit, you can sort of clean up the sound to use the tremolo semi-independently as well, but it’s still quite lo-fi sounding and dirty. The pedal can also produce ring-mod-like oscillation at high Rate speeds and vibe-like sounds when the tremolo is set to Harmonic mode.

Ayahuasca is an acquired taste which may not be everyone’s cup of tea. Here’s a small dose of Ayahuasca to whet your palate courtesy of Knobs:

And here’s a longer clip that shows a few of the unique sounds this pedal can produce:

Ayahuasca’s tremolo isn’t super clean like the Chase Bliss Audio Gravitas. Speaking of Gravitas, maybe that’s where we should begin Ayahuasca’s origin story…

Mr. Joel Korte at Chase Bliss Audio once made me a special Gravitas pedal that had a choppier square wave and very fast Rate speeds. The talented Mr. Jack Nelson over at Dropping Acid Pedal Etching contributed a beautiful acid-etched enclosure to make the pedal extra special.

The original “Ayahuasca” modded Gravitas

This one-off Gravitas variant (similar to other choppy modded versions specially made for some Chase Bliss Audio customers but with faster Rate speeds) was essentially a blueprint for the tremolo sound heard in the Ayahuasca pedal made for Abracadabra Audio.

Ayahuasca’s Tremolo

The key difference of the tremolo in Ayahuasca vs Gravitas is that the Ayahuasca’s circuit uses 2 NOS vactrols in tandem for an ultra choppy analog tremolo sound when the waveform is set to Square. The idea was to make the trem as choppy as possible while retaining a 100% analog signal path, a hallmark of Chase Bliss Audio pedal designs.

The vactrol based Ayahuasca can produce a very aggressive square wave tremolo that excels at chopping up a distorted guitar signal. That inspiration led to a fuzz circuit being added to the pedal. After all, while the Gravitas is known for its pristine clean sound and subtle vintage warmth, Ayahuasca is inspired by the jungle, an often dangerous and harsh environment that warrants an equally precarious sound.

Ayahuasca’s Fuzz

Here’s a brief backstory on Ayahuasca’s fuzz circuit that was leaked on Reddit:

“The short version of the long story of its fuzz circuit origins goes something like this: We’re all familiar with the late 60’s fuzzes, particularly the Fuzz Face. A guy named Cláudio César Dias Baptista made a Fuzz Face inspired pedal for his brother Sergio of the Brazilian band Os Mutantes. It was called the Regulus VIII aka the “Mutantes Fuzz” and became a signature part of the band’s sound. Another builder re-interpreted that circuit and added a Big Muff Pi style tone stack that was heavily modified. Then a certain modern builder re-interpreted that circuit, further modifying it and pushing it to its usable limits and beyond to create what can be found in Ayahuasca. A main focus was to create a very wide range of usability from a 3-knob fuzz. The more I play it, the more I feel we succeeded in doing so.”

So who was the builder that re-interpreted the Regulus VIII fuzz?

It was the late Mr. Chris Bradford of El Músico Loco. The Wee Beaver Fuzz was his interpretation, and it’s one of my all-time favorite fuzz pedals. While that pedal made it onto my pedalboard on a few occasions, I often felt it was a bit limiting in that the fuzz was always full-on with the only option to cut the input gain being to reduce your guitar’s onboard volume control. This works pretty well if you like controlling your fuzz from your guitar, but I generally like being able to establish my gain level from the pedal first and adjust further from the guitar as desired. Also, when stacking a fuzz pedal with other overdrive and distortion pedals, it helps to have full control over the amount of saturation coming from the fuzz in the chain. Sadly, I was never able to discuss possible improvements with Chris as he passed away unexpectedly.

Mr. Joel Korte is the modern builder who re-interpreted the circuit from a pedal that Chris personally gave to me. Ayahuasca’s fuzz isn’t really a clone as Joel ended up putting his own unique spin on the whole thing. The input gain could also now be adjusted from its own knob for a wider range of fuzz saturation. Joel & I listened to a few circuit variations and decided on an iteration we were both happy with.

The former pedal’s unique tone control was also further modified. The tone-stack in Ayahuasca is quite possibly the most special thing about the pedal’s fuzz circuit, and we opted to label the tone knob “Color” in reference to the wide palette of textures available from this single knob.

The Art of Ayahuasca

So we had an insane Gravitas inspired tremolo that could get crazy fast and extremely choppy, and we had one of the best fuzz pedal sounds I’ve ever heard. We just needed the all-important art component to bring Ayahuasca to life. One person was up to the task for the initial first batches: Hannah M. Haugberg.

Hannah is one of the most widely known pedal-painting artists. She’s painted somewhere in the neighborhood of 3000 pedals during her time working with ZVex Effects. That’s not to mention her commissions for other builders.

Hannah painted the first 3 batches of Ayahuasca pedals and the Vision Quest batch. The artists, Andy Dolan and Fiona Carlone, also painted batches. Jack Nelson of Dropping Acid Pedal Etching contributed etching on 4 batches with Carl Sandusky’s art appearing on the 3 Spirit Molecule etched batches.

Ayahuasca Batch History

Here’s a brief batch history of the Ayahuasca pedals released so far.

Ayahuasca “Jungle” (serials #1-10)



Painted by: Hannah M. Haugberg

This was the first hand painted limited batch with art inspired by the Amazon jungle.

Ayahuasca “Shipibo” (serials #11-20)



Painted by: Hannah M. Haugberg

This was the second hand painted limited batch with a design inspired by the visionary art of Shipibo women.

Ayahuasca “Cielo” (serials #21-30)



Painted by: Hannah M. Haugberg

This was the third hand painted limited batch with art inspired by the jungle and the cielo ayahuasca vine also known as “sky ayahuasca”.

Ayahuasca “Ceremony” (serials #31-40)



Painted by: Andy Dolan

This was the 4th hand painted limited batch with original art by Aindriais Dolan that was inspired by his own connection with Ayahuasca.

Ayahuasca “Acid Etched” (serials #41-50)



Etched by: Dropping Acid Pedal Etching

The 5th batch was the first to deviate from hand painting in favor of a straight-forward acid-etched design by Dropping Acid Pedal Etching. While the hand-painted versions have abbreviated dip-switch labels, the etch versions have full text dip-switch labeling.

Ayahuasca “Spirit Molecule” (serials #51-60)



Art by: Carl Sandusky, Etched by: Dropping Acid Pedal Etching

This beautiful acid-etched batch was conceived by Mr. Carl Sandusky and etched by Dropping Acid Pedal Etching. The design features an original “Ayahuasca” logo, a new font for surface parameter labels, and a dimethyltryptamine molecule between the foot-switches. Also, Carl’s idea for a two-toned etch was beautifully executed by DAPE.

Ayahuasca “Vision Quest” (serials #61-70)



Painted by: Hannah M. Haugberg

Hannah returned for another batch of hand-painted pedals. The Vision Quest batch is highlighted by its colorful psychedelic design and decal lettering for the logo. While an additional unnumbered pedal was created alongside Hannah’s first 3 batches (as mentioned below), no additional Vision Quest pedal was painted, making this the most scarce of the batches painted by Hannah.

Ayahuasca “Spirit Molecule II” (serials #71-80)



Art by: Carl Sandusky, Etched by: Dropping Acid Pedal Etching

Due to the popularity of the first Spirit Molecule batch, an additional batch was created using the same design, this time in green & purple with purple knobs. This color choice was inspired by the original Ayahuasca themed Gravitas pedal.

Ayahuasca “AYA” (serials #81-90)



Painted by: Fiona Carlone

Fiona Carlone who paints for Loe Sounds brought this batch to life with a unique vision and connection to the spirit of this project. It’s perhaps the most remarkably different painted batch with a bold and mesmerizing style that contrasts with previous interpretations. The Ayahuasca has been affectionately known as simply “Aya” when referenced, and that term of endearment became the moniker for this exceptionally unique batch of Ayahuasca pedals. The name “AYA” can be seen on the surface of the pedal, and “AYAHUASCA” is on the bottom side.

Ayahuasca “Spirit Molecule III” (serials #91-100)



Art by: Carl Sandusky, Etched by: Dropping Acid Pedal Etching

Rounding out the first 100 numbered Ayahuasca pedals, a final batch of Spirit Molecule themed acid-etched pedals was released in red and black.

Ayahuasca Prototypes & Other Pedals

Some other Ayahuasca pedals exist. Here are a few of the noteworthy pedals.

Ayahuasca “Black” & “White” Prototypes

These were a couple of enclosure housed circuit variations for testing during the conception of Ayahuasca. One was Black. One was White. The Black one was given to the founder of AMIME Records. I still use the White one.

Ayahuasca “Jungle” Prototype

This pedal (also seen at the top of this page) was the 1st Ayahuasca enclosure painted by Hannah M. Haugberg. It has different labeling as final parameter names had yet to be decided upon. Interestingly, this pedal was brought by SWIM to a medicine woman to form a conduit with the spirit of Ayahuasca and receive blessings for the project… whatever that means. SWIM says it went well. This pedal is currently in the possession of Mr. Joel Korte.

Ayahuasca “Jungle” #00000

This pedal was painted by Hannah M. Haugberg. It features the final parameter labeling and was made specially for Knobs. It was also photographed for product imagery seen on Abracadabra Audio.

Ayahuasca “Jungle”, “Shipibo”, & “Cielo” (Unnumbered)

One extra unnumbered pedal was commissioned with each of the first 3 batches. They were painted by Hannah M. Haugberg and were originally made for archival purposes. It was later decided to give these pedals away so that they might be played instead of sitting in boxes. A giveaway for these pedals was held at BestGuitarEffects.com in celebration of the site’s 4-year anniversary.

Ayahuasca “AYA” (Unnumbered)

An extra “AYA” pedal was painted by Fiona Carlone and is kept by Loe Sounds. This pedal has gold snakes (instead of silver) and some beautiful ornamental variations on its sides.

So that pretty much sums up the Ayahuasca story so far minus some weird synchronicity stuff. Speaking of weird stuff, what the heck is Abracadabra Audio? And what’s happening next over there?

Abracadabra Audio

So check out Abracadabra Audio, and if you want to stay informed about other upcoming happenings, get on Abracadabra Audio’s mailing list. There’s usually an email sign up box at the bottom of the site.

As for other new AA pedals, some things have been said between industry people and some ideas have been shared. I may continue being involved, but it’s not entirely up to me how AA progresses if it does continue to exist. If there’s something interesting you’d like to see from AA, reach out via the site’s contact page and share your idea(s).

Going Forth

Participating in the Ayahuasca project has been super amazing. I feel very lucky and fortunate to have had a part in helping manifest this unique pedal.

Thanks to Joel Korte & Chase Bliss Audio, Hannah M. Haugberg, Knobs, Andy Dolan, Jack Nelson, Carl Sandusky, Fiona Carlone, Aisha Loe, Chris Bradford, anyone who likes this pedal as much as I do, and the readers of Best Guitar Effects. Keep doing the Great Work and making awesome things happen.

Cheers,

Gabriel

Gabriel Tanaka