PRODUCT REVIEW
Skull
Tone Box
By STEvE OUIMETTE
I first saw the Skull Crusher overdrive pedal
while watching a Phil X video on You Tube. With
its skull shape and glowing red eyes, it totally
screams rock ‘n’ roll. Hearing the pedal through
a Vox AC10 immediately showed off what it was
capable of, but as with most of Phil’s videos you
can’t help but get wrapped up in his persona. I
had to hear this thing for myself. Not more than
a week later, an “aged” Skull Crusher arrived
on my doorstep to give it a whirl. What I didn’t
know at the time was that it was built by John
Kasha of Rockmod and Quickmod fame. For
those of you who weren’t around in the ‘80s, he
was an early pioneer of the non-invasive high-gain mod (Quickmod) that plugged into the V1
position of the preamp tube socket of a Marshall
or similar amp. When I found this out, I bet
myself that the Skull Crusher would be an excellent complement to a JCM 800, among others.
Crusher
The Skull Crusher is totally unique in its look
and it comes in four different finishes: Stainless
Steel, Gun Metal, Aged, and Ancient. A stomp
switch is located at the top of the skull, which
when engaged lights a blue LED by the switch
and simultaneously makes the eyes glow an
eerie, burning red. The ins and outs are on
either side of the skull, where the ears would
be, and the controls are located on the back of
the skull. Looking at the face of the pedal there
is an AC adapter input on the right bottom and
a Turbo switch on the left bottom. Controls
consist of a 4-way Voicing knob, a Tone control
and a Gain knob. The voicings are labeled Clear,
Ice, Chains and Body. Black knobs with white
pointers clearly show the position of each knob
from a distance. The physical design is a work
of art, and from some of the videos I saw, he’s
got serious artisans working on the finish of the
Skull Crusher. Let’s just say I saw something that
looked like a mini-blowtorch applying the finish
and aging it. And although you may think that
something shaped like a skull might not sit well,
it’s remarkably heavy ( 3 lbs) and has no prob-
lems staying put on the floor.
tete-a-tete
I had the unique opportunity of hearing the
pedal in a variety of settings, which doesn’t
usually occur during a typical review. In addition
to playing it at my own studio, I just returned
from NAMM, where it was being demoed at
the ToneBox booth. Hearing it this way allowed
me to check out tones I might not naturally dial
up with my own rigs. It also separated me from
the first-person experience of being swayed by
the way it feels, which can be rather seductive.
I’ll start with my own experience. Knowing that
Kasha had done a lot of work with Marshalls
back in the day—and that I had my JCM 800
at the ready—that was the first test. I plugged
in my Les Paul Standard with Sheptone PAFs
into the Skull Crusher and set the JCM 800 to
a medium crunch tone (Master at 10 o’clock,
Gain at noon). The cab was a Krank 1x12 with
Eminence Governor speaker. This is pretty
standard Marshall/Les Paul tone to my ears…
enough gain for riffs but not enough to solo
without a lot of work. Engaging the Skull
Crusher set to Clear, and the Tone and Gain at
noon, produced a slightly thinner version of the
