$249.99

The Sawbones is a noise-free, full-featured optical compressor that’s ideal at the beginning of your signal chain as a tone conditioner or boost.

In addition to it not adding any noise to your signal, the Sawbones is transparent, meaning it leaves the sound of the rest of your rig intact while you dial in the compression level you want. A rail-to-rail, studio grade JFET opamp, combined with the ability to run up to 18 volts, means you’ll never have issues with headroom.

A clean control allows you to mix in your uncompressed dry signal, so there’s none of the ‘dullness’ you might hear when using compression.

While some compressor pedals include a ‘tone’ knob, the Sawbones offers a full, active tone stack with bass and treble controls to help you dial in the exact sound you’re after.

Note: All pedals are made to order and there might be a short lead time between your order and when your pedal is shipped.

Optical compressor

Sawbones

Technical specifications

    • Volume: Overall output level

    • Sustain: Intensity of compression effect

    • Clean: Amount of unaffected clean signal mixed into output

    • Bass: Lower frequency level

    • Treble: Higher frequency level

    • 9 to 18 volts DC

    • Center-negative 2.1mm plug

    • 24 mA current draw

    • Protected against reverse polarity, over-voltage and over-current conditions

    • True bypass

    • Mechanical relay rated for minimum 2 million cycles

    • Industrial momentary footswitch rated for minimum 1 million cycles

    • Built-in memory restores pedal to it’s previous state when powered on

    • 100% analog signal path

    • Studio-grade, Mosfet opamps

    • Metal-film resistors

    • Audio-quality film capacitors

    • Noise-filtering choke

    • Hand-wired

All pedals come with a lifetime warranty and a 30-day return policy. If you need a return, contact Bolt & Forge within 30 days of receiving your pedal. Customers are responsible for return shipping.

  • Dual optocouplers

    Optical compressors offer a few advantages over other compressor designs. They don’t have the hiss noise or pumping sound associated with OTA designs or the distortion of JFET designs.

    These qualities make optical compressors ideal to use as an always-on tone enhancer or a boost into a dirt pedal or tube amp.

    The Sawbones was designed with these uses in mind and it’s side chain parallels two optocouplers for consistent performance.

  • Clean blend

    Compressors can have the undesired effect of “dulling” guitar tone by squashing the initial attack.

    The Sawbones’ clean control allows you to mix your clean, unaffected guitar signal into the pedal’s output without any changes to the compression level or signal path.

    This control not only allows you to preserve your guitar’s original tone, it means the Sawbones can transition between a traditional compressor and a “guitar sustainer” effect.

  • Tone shaping

    An active tone control offers flexibility not commonly available on guitar pedal compressors.

    Used in conjunction with the clean blend control, the tone stack allows you to dial in a sound tailored to fit your guitar and amplifier.

    The Sawbones was designed to enhance the sound of your gear without taking over your tone.