When it comes to drive pedals, names can sometimes be misleading. “Super overdrive” might mean distortion to some, and to others it’s something that’s not enough to solo on. With the name Pet Yeti, Cosmodio Instruments has a pedal that lives up to its name of a wild hairy beast, but that’s workable drive-wise.
The usual Level, Gain and Tone knobs reside here, and do exactly as they would on pretty much every drive pedal. The Gain however is massive, yes it can do cooler lower gain crunchy stuff, and when maxed out, reacts and cleans up nicely with a guitar’s volume control. Range-wise, this is certainly on the heavy and high gain side of things. It can get into that hard clipping fuzzy zone easily after the noon position.
Using just these 3 controls, it’s easy to get nice and heavy distortions that are massive for chords and low note riffage, and plenty of cut and bite for leads. However, there are some extras thrown in for some good measure. A clean knob allows a non-effected sound to be blended in for extra clarity. It could also be used with the gain at 0 and just using the level and gain control it’s a great clean boost. Putting an additional drive pedal afterwards, and adding in that clean sound can add some extra driven layers.
For added sculpting the shape knob can add depth. At 12 o’clock it’s neutral, and going counterclockwise it adds more top end, while going clockwise it fattens up the lower frequencies, and at lower gain settings (noon and below) it plays nicely with the tone control. Ever play with a drive pedal that only had a single tone control, and felt it was close, but not perfect? This can really dial in a cutting edge that’s not shrill, or add in lows that don’t get muffly. Push the gain harder, and it seems to feel more like a rectifier with a saggy/sludgy feel.
There are toggles galore, a strength level with three options of the input level, a three-way voicing switch that covers asymmetrical hard clipping and a strong midrange presence. Symmetrical hard clipping of germanium diodes that is softer, but fatter. The third voice is a wide-open version and feels like it has less coloring. Finally, a bit crusher toggle adds in that gated, glitchy response that gets somewhat unpredictable and synthy.
Using this with traditional guitar amps as well as running into our Strymon Iridium connected to our DAW, this is certainly a unique pedal, and steps out of the normal pedal options with just a tweak of ANY of the toggle switches. There are gain and volume variances that affect the entire level and tonal control when playing with the voicing and input strength.
Players who find their fave tone might want to find a way of marking them or remembering them, as it would be easy to see a toggle switch accidentally move while it’s on a board in transit or while getting set up. Trying to remember the toggle positions might not be easy during a busy gig’s setup. The way every control interacts with each other means just one flip of a switch can easily change the entire character of the pedal.
Cosmodio also had bassists in mind for this, using the clean blend control to allow for an unaffected signal to pass through, while blending in the drive for the added grit, balancing the clean articulation. Using this on a synth or drum machine makes sense as well, boosting and adding in gain as needed while maintaining clarity.
Overall, it’s a very flexible high gain heavy drive pedal that has enough tricks up its sleeve to work in a variety of settings of heavy guitar. There are enough options for drive pedal snobs, and even as a sampler for players to try out things like clipping types and bit crushing, without having to go for other pedals.
PROS
Tons of heavy drive options, applications for bass, synths and drum machine processing
CONS
none
STREET PRICE
$219