Earthquaker Devices Data Corrupter Guitar and Bass Demo and Review

The Earthquaker Devices Data Corrupter comes to us from the Andrew Rinard bass board, and I have never been so intimidated by a guitar pedal. But, let me tell you, it makes some amazing noises.

The Data Corrupter is a "monophonic analog harmonizing PLL," which is a chain of words that means very little to me and probably means a lot to other folks.

Basically, it's a fuzz and a three-voice guitar synth with modulation.

This demo is more of a reaction video than an education demo, but here's some insight into the controls.

At the top you have Voice Mixer. This has controls for Square, which is blending in a square wave fuzz in your original octave, the Subharmonic blend, which "assimilates the input signal into one of eight lower octave programs between one and three octaves below the original," and the Oscillator blend.

The Subharmonic blend takes the options from the Subharmoic section, which features those eight lower octave programs at set intervals.

The final section is the Master Oscillator, which is simply beyond my basic understanding, but the manual says, "The three-position switch on the Master Oscillator control panel labeled Root feeds your input to the signal harvester in its original octave (Unison), one octave down (-1) or two octaves down (-2). Use the Master Oscillator’s Root Switch to fine tune the Data Corrupter’s tracking response for maximum compatibility with your preferred instrument and frequency register. Once you’ve chosen your input octave, the Data Corrupter will perform its calculations and spit out a synthesized frequency, the octave and/or interval of which may be selected via the Master Oscillator’s eight-position rotary switch."

Those are certainly words, and this pedal is certainly fun!

Guitars are Tunatone Teeny Tuna and Fender Mustang Player Series Bass
Amps are Strymon Iridium and Darkglass Alpha Omega

Support Get Offset by...

[devilsdoorbell]

Bought this pedal a couple years ago when it first came out. I love it as the 'weirdo' pedal on my board, and the one that means every time I use it, I'll have a different result. Some of the EQD settings for it on their instagram account are solid useful weird combos. There is no end to it, and I'll never get tired of what it can or might do. This is a pedal that was described to me as "you play to the pedal and let it do what it's going to do."

[phillippitts]

I’m going to go broke buying all these pedals ! I swear, everyday you show me another one I want bad ! That pedal is crazy wicked.☠️☠️☠️👍🏼

[skyviewdesign]

Definitely a fun noisemaker! It kinda dabbles into synth territory, which is rad.

[baileywatts]

between this and the spatial delivery, i'm kinda not ready for whatever earthquaker devices has next

[inevitableveganfuture]

This is the 6th video I've watched with 'bass' in the title trying to figure out if this pedal works with BASS. Every single one goes straight for the 15th fret and nobody spends any serious time with the lower strings. Makes me think this pedal doesn't really work for bass, and would be completely useless with an extended range down to B or lower.