Michael Klein Audio Designs Husk Tortured Blackened Distortion Pedal

Overview
HUSK is the result of a bruh-team of myself and Mike Thompson of Withered. He came to me with the idea capture the sound he uses in Withered in one pedal. Mike made my role simple, as he is versed in electronics and design...and was able to really communicate what his goal was. Sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and I feel that way about HUSK.

This circuit is largely based around the vintage MIJ DS-1, favored by bands like Grave for their aggressive, but not pigeonholed sound. From there, Mike and I really went to work. I focused hard to adjust the noise floor (which interestingly was more a function of board design than circuit bending), tune the response of the Tone control, and control the frequently overwhelming high-frequency harmonic content with a variable presence-like low-pass filter. I also came up with a simple voice switch that catered the circuit to earlier vs modern Withered tones.

From there, we incorporated a true clean blend/mix that allows 0-100% clean signal. This finally is connected to a powerful linear boost to push the front end of an amplifier. It might sound like a lot...because it is. But the result is a design I’m as proud of as any. It’s aggressive, complex, unique, and very versatile. Mike and I both are confident you’ll dig it.

Construction and connections
The construction uses precision metal film resistors for the lowest noise floor possible, WIMA polyester film caps, Lumberg audio and DC jacks, and audio-grade Nichicon Fine Gold electrolytic caps. It also uses sealed Alpha pots, which help keep the pots from getting noisy from dust or humidity on the carbon track.

As mentioned, I’m also using vintage opamps and semiconductors from my stash of nearly 20 years of building and designing to capture the sounds Mike and I both sought.

This, coupled with my construction techniques, is all to maintain your tone as neutral as possible, in as low a noise floor possible.

Connecting HUSK is self-explanatory but note the power jack is the industry standard 2.1mm “Boss style” center negative 9VDC connection.