PastFX is a guitar effects company out of Brisbane, Australia, that specialises in reproductions of classic stompboxes, and its latest release is one for Nirvana electric guitar tone chasers out there, for anyone looking for a vintage-voiced chorus pedal.
It’s called Kurt’s Cologne, and it is a BBD-driven analogue stereo chorus inspired by the EHX Small Clone, and Kurt Cobain's Nevermind-era tone. This is one for nailing those seasick Come As You Are Tone – but it is not just that. There is a lot more going on here.
With a three-way decade mode switch, and the Panasonic MN3007 PastFX’s choice of chip, this offers three distinct flavours of Small Clone chorusing from the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, and there are plenty of options for fine-tuning it.
Unlike the original Small Clones, on which a slider adjusted the depth of the chorusing, here we have an eight-way rotary dial to set the depth, and it is configured to make the original settings easily available. Position 3 on the depth dial gives you the “slide down” position of an original Small Clone. Position 8 gives you the “slide up”.
The Rate control sets the speed of the LFO and interacts with the LED, which will pulse in tie with the LFO. There is also a phase switch that reverses the phase of the second output, and if that’s not all then you also have hi-cut and low-cut switches to further tweak the sound of the effect.
Elsewhere, you’ve got the usual Level control to adjust output volume, while the all important Mix knob sets the balance between the wet processed signal and the input signal.
Not that we ever advise anyone to touch the trimpots inside of a pedal – it always feels like an exercise in opening Pandora’s Box – but there is an internal trimmer for adjusting the stereo volume.
You can run this off a regular DC pedalboard power supply at 9V or 18V and PastFX promises low-noise performance from the unit and a current draw of 50mA.
It is priced $299 AUD (approximately £159/$199) and shipping is free to many territories. For more details, head over to PastFX.
If this is the missing piece of your Nevermind-era pedalboard yet you still struggle to cover the more unsanitary tones of In Utero, Nirvana tone guru Aaron Rash’s The Utero Sessions IR Pack should have everything you need in software form. You can read more about Rash’s epic Kurt Cobain tone quest in MusicRadar’s interview with him.
