The Ghoul Screamer overdrive from KHDK - the company founded by Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett and sound designer David Karon in 2012 - has long been one of the brand's most popular drive pedals. Now, the company also presents the Ghoul JR, a wicked-sounding pedal with exceptional tonal flexibility. This micro-format pedal features two voice settings and three styles that cover everything from fuzz through to sizzling crunch and creamy overdrive. What is more, the Ghoul JR has twice as much gain on tap as its bigger brother. And it goes without saying that the KHDK Ghoul JR, like all of the brand's other pedals, is hand-built in Paducah, USA.
Alongside the obligatory controls for drive, volume, and tone that are found on virtually all overdrive pedals, the KHDK Ghoul JR also provides two interesting options that vastly expand the pedal's sonic flexibility, in the form of two switches labelled "Voice" and "Style". The "Voice" switch effectively shapes the bass and mid frequencies, while the "Style" switch can be used to select from three different gain settings that range from a transparent clean boost through to juiced-up crunch sounds and all the way to infernal levels of distortion. These features together with the tone and drive controls mean you have a wealth of sonic possibilities at your disposal.
The KHDK Ghoul JR is an obvious addition to the pedalboard of any player looking to capture the sound of Kirk Hammett and Metallica. However, the pedal's selection of different voices and styles together with its impressive gain reserves make it a veritable Swiss army knife for all types of Rock and Metal music. As well as a transparent sound, the pedal also delivers outstanding dynamics and thus provides a similarly organic playing feel to that of a real tube amplifier. The housing of the Ghoul JR is compact enough to fit effortlessly into any gig bag, and it won't take up too much real estate on your pedalboard either.
The US company KHDK Electronics was founded in 2012 by Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett and sound designer David Karon. The company is based in Paducah/Kentucky and produces effect pedals for guitar and bass. In order to achieve a high standard of quality, these are exclusively handcrafted on an analogue basis by a small team. The range of products is confined to boost, overdrive, and distortion pedals which cover an enormously wide sonic range that goes from warm clean boost through to infernal distortion and are not only intended for metal musicians. Besides Kirk Hammett, who actually uses his own pedals, KHDK Electronics pedals can also be found in the arsenal of other big names in the Metal genre, including Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian and Gary Holt of Slayer.
Whether you are using the KHDK Ghoul JR to push your amp's overdrive channel further into saturation or to provide distortion on a clean single-channel amp, you can be sure that this compact pedal will deliver the sound you want from its broad repertoire, all with its characteristic, lively dynamics. Last but not least, the Ghoul JR also delivers extremely high signal quality and keeps unwanted noise to a minimum, while the "Voice" and "Style" switches give the player a range of practical options for adjusting the sound of the pedal to suit their equipment and their own individual taste.