“Conjuring nightmarish soundscapes through a sinister blend of distortion and synthesis”: Jack White's Third Man Hardware teams up with Eventide on Knife Drop – a sub-octave fuzz and analog synth powerhouse of a pedal

Third Man Hardware's Knife Drop pedal on an amp with a blurry yellow background.

Third Man Hardware has joined forces with Eventide to release the Knife Drop – a new pedal that promises “aggressive octave fuzz” merged with “earth-shaking analog synth tones,” developed in collaboration with Jack White. As is typical of White, the pedal puts extreme experimentation at the forefront.

“Collaborating with Eventide on the Knife Drop has been an inspiring and exciting experience that expanded into some amazing sonic possibilities,” comments Dan Mancini from Third Man Hardware (who also happens to be White's guitar tech).

“We’re so excited to get the Knife Drop into people’s hands, to make their own sounds and feel the same excitement we had.”

So, what does this pedal, which boasts “sonic chaos,” include? It comes equipped with two footswitches: one for engaging the effect and the other for toggling the octaves on and off.

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The three knobs control Synth, Drive, and Level – or Attack, Resonance, and Cutoff – with these alternate options accessible via the Alt LED button on the right-hand side.

Additionally, the Octaves LED button serves as a handy visual aid, toggling between Off (all octaves off), Green (upper octave only), and Red (upper and sub octaves).

There are also precise filtering options with pre/post distortion routing, and the envelope for filter attack can be adjusted between 0 and 1000ms for instantaneous or gradual filtering.

What's more, the pedal allows users to save five presets, with room for more via MIDI. In fact, presets crafted by White himself – named Knife Drop, Dub Drop, Chainsaw, Hard Bounce, and Obsidian – can be accessed right from the get-go.

And for extra oomph, the pedal’s dynamic capabilities can be amplified via an external expression pedal, with added stereo capabilities via the mono/stereo and line/guitar inputs.

The Knife Drop is now available at Third Man Records' storefronts for $299, while supplies last. It’s also available for preorder exclusively via Third Man Records’ website in the United States and internationally through Eventide’s authorized distributors.

For $333, there’s a limited edition yellow version available exclusively on the Third Man Hardware Reverb storefront.

The release of the mono synth/fuzz pedal follows that of the La Grotte spring reverb pedal, which Third Man Hardware launched in August in collaboration with Anasounds.

For all the latest drops, visit Third Man Hardware.