Death By Audio Crossover Fuzz Review

Key Takeaways

  • Intuitive fuzz effect signal splitting and shaping
  • Precise effect control with dedicated high and low signal settings
  • Dynamic filter shaping for wild, spacey effect tones
  • Extensive control connectivity through expression control
  • Inspires a sci-fi serial cliffhanger

Cross your heart?

What is it about fuzz that keeps us coming back? What is it about that element of "Yeah, but what if... " that constantly compels us to turn the page on new chapters? For a team like Death By Audio, whatever that thing is, it hasn't shaken yet. Everyone's favorite band of distorted merrymakers today make the rounds once again with their patented brand of mad science for something fresh, experimental, weird, warped, and endlessly inspirational. We're here to talk about it, so why waste any more time?

This is the Death By Audio Crossover Fuzz.

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Crossing Over

Introducing the Death By Audio Crossover Fuzz

If you're new to Death By Audio and their flavor of inverted experimentation but you're already in the kind of camp of "crank-first-ask-questions-later," wouldn't you know it, you're in good company. Death By Audio's design ethos, constantly driving them toward their next unwieldy, otherworldly effect, has brought them to the pedalboards of the many likeminded shoegazers and noise merchants of the world. Just take a look at any of their classic pedals like the Fuzz War, Bass War, Space Bender, or Octave Clang, and you're sure to get in on the fun before long.

Fairly notable, Death By Audio's lineup of effects is concise, stylistically consistent, and works toward a common musical goal. Take on any DBA effect pedal and you'll know exactly who you're playing with. Their love for noisiness and all the beauty it's capable of pairs with that ever-important touch of finesse and artistry for every ensuing DBA catalog entry. In short, if you're a fan of causing a ruckus, you can trust in Death By Audio. They don't just make noise, they live and breathe it.

All of this brings us to the pedal on the docket today – the Crossover Fuzz. This piece from the New York-based brand comes to the table with a classic DBA design approach with a large, bold, imposing, and stylish casing, enticingly twistable knobs of varying size, and a distinctly outside-the-box tone too true to deny. Let's get into it.

A Dramatic Schematic

Death By Audio Crossover Fuzz Design

Like many other Death By Audio devices, the Crossover Fuzz takes a novel approach to a classic effect experience. Centering the experience around filtered fuzzes and extensive signal-routing options, the Crossover Fuzz presents an interesting prospect: What if your fuzz was not only split, but divided into highs and lows?

The Death By Audio Crossover Fuzz relishes in this prospect. "What if...?" indeed. Through Death By Audio's endlessly creative sonic wizardry, we're let in to this pedal's highly intuitive and inspirational design setup.

At the helm of the Crossover Fuzz, we're treated to two inputs and two outputs. Where this might conjure up memories of traditional signal splitting, Death By Audio has a little extra something baked into the Crossover Fuzz's DNA. The central attraction of Death By Audio's latest creation is its automatic splitting of incoming signals into high and low frequencies. What this means at the jump is that an incoming signal is split out (and consequentially shaped by individual Volume and Gain controls) into two distinct signals – a high and a low. Anyone whose anxiety might be firing up about any required additional wiring needed for this kind of stereo-minded magic need not worry – Death By Audio has you covered.

Stereo, StereoWith the Crossover Fuzz, DBA puts power in the hands of players to fully experience the pedal's wizardry no matter how they hook their cables up. The Crossover Fuzz can utilize up to all four of its connections to be run in mono, mono-to-stereo, stereo, and stereo-to-mono, while only a minimum of one input and one output is required. DBA's mastery over this unique design means that the pedal's full signal splitting and shaping capabilities are up for grabs as you plug a single input (like a guitar) in and get DBA's high and low signal control to a mono output all the same.

The Crossover Fuzz can accept up to two signal inputs and output up to two signal outputs. Where this leads us is a world wherein you send the pedal's low frequencies to one amp and its high frequencies to another – all tailored to taste. Again, all the stereo sound sculptors out there salivating at creating vast, expansive, fuzz soundscapes with multiple amps aren't the only ones the Crossover Fuzz is designed for. Death By Audio's design also accommodates mono players where, even with a mono output, the Crossover Fuzz's high and low frequency controls still work completely fine.

With this setup, Death By Audio calls upon their players to come up with new signal-shaping conclusions. Split your mono signal to stereo for a dual-amp assault, meld two inputs into a mono output for consolidation on routing... however this fuzz strikes your fancy, the control allowed is precise and effective in bringing out the best in the Crossover Fuzz's sound. Speaking of sound...

Double Crossed

Death By Audio Crossover Fuzz Tones and Further Functions

If you're even vaguely familiar with Death By Audio's sound palette*, whatever you're imagining of a "signal-splitting filtered fuzz" from them is probably already on the right track. The Crossover Fuzz is dedicated to interesting, intersecting equations of high and low signal shaping. At its core, the Crossover Fuzz produces a full, heavy, cantankerous fuzz that falls right in line with DBA's reputation for cacophony. The pedal's segmented high and low controls enable this fuzz to be beefed up or quieted down as either signal is shaped. If you want a more bass-leaning fuzz, no one's stopping you from turning the high signal output volume to zero and just rocking from there – and the same goes for the inverse! As the pedal's central fuzz engine funnels out to either signal, there lays great opportunity to sculpt the character of the fuzz on a level of detail usually reserved for more involved, less intuitive effects.

Or even if you could just predict it from their pedal's visual designs

What's more, the fun doesn't stop there. The other oddity you might notice, should you be so observant, is the Crossover Fuzz is home to a dedicated filter section to further stoke the fuzzy flame. With these more synth-style controls, Death By Audio provides players with additional angles of attack to smooth your fuzz over, spike its more abrasive qualities, and get into definitive ray gun blast territory. The Crossover Fuzz produces a formidable effect that roars, snarls, chirps, beeps, and boops. Whether you're on the hunt for something a little more traditional with a hefty dose of sustain and volume on tap or something straight out of a sci-fi serial rocket ship's cockpit, the Crossover Fuzz is a feast of fuzz.

Death By Audio Crossover Fuzz Effect Pedal Review

Like any great sci-fi serial, there's always a cliffhanger to get you coming back next time. Death By Audio's proverbial cliffhanger manifests in features like the Crossover Fuzz's external expression control. With this onboard expression connection, players can hook up any number of expression devices to alter the pedal's crossover effect in real time for real-time tonal adjustment. In classic Death By Audio fashion, an aesthetic flourish couldn't be forgone. A reactive LED display, in addition to signifying real-time filter positioning, can have its colors changed from yellow and cyan to red and blue, however your DBA mood board manifests.

Death By Audio Crossover Fuzz Final Thoughts

Death By Audio's Crossover Fuzz is a fuzz that embodies so much of what makes the brand so intriguing. Centered around the delivery of pure, unadulterated, blissful, and enlightening fuzz, the Crossover Fuzz does quite a bit to vogue itself down the catwalk and strike a few flourishes along the way. The Crossover Fuzz offers perspective-expanding control over its outgoing signals. The Crossover Fuzz leans into the kind of sound that made DBA a household name through a sonic palette unafraid of straying into the sweetly synthetic. The Crossover Fuzz stokes daydreams of an extensive, distorted, signal-splitting wonderworld limited by only the confines of imagination. In so few words, it's an inspiration.

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