New Pedal Day: Dirge Electronics Double Karaoke Party

Double Karaoke Party on the left, 555 oscillator with light sensor on the right

DIRGE!

While I want to reserve the Review tag for production pedals, I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the amazing custom job Dirge Electronics built me. This huge box, as big as two Boss pedals side by side, is a beautiful monster. Skullservant decorated it with his usual flair and it looks like a high school notebook rendition of a black light poster. I feel metal just looking at it. There are 4 big bright LEDs, 4 knobs, and 3 footswitches, thus making it the most complicated overdrive I’ve ever used. The control scheme is quite useful, once you get used to it, though. Each Karaoke Party has its own on/off footswitch and LED, but the pedal is in bypass unless the master on/off is on, which has two indicator lights. So, if you want one half or both, you turn them on and use the master switch to turn the pedal on or off. I found that it really cut down on the double pedal tapdancing that leads me to prefer individual pedals over doubles. The top two knobs control the volume and gain for the left side and the bottom row controls the right. As with all Devi Ever circuits, the two knobs are very interactive and there are tons of sounds to be found by manipulating the knobs together.

What the Double Karaoke Party sounds like is, well, loudness. It is one of the loudest goddamn pedals I’ve ever used. With the volume set very low, it is still very, very loud if you engage both sides. Skullservant described it as sounding similar to a Sunn amp breaking up and I have a hard time arguing otherwise. With one side engaged, it is a boost with just a hint of breakup. With both sides engaged, it has a brief, but powerful, decay. It reminded my most of a speaker on the verge of tearing. Alone, it easily creates the clanging of Swervedriver’s “Duel” and it knocked the BD-2 and LMB-1 off my board.

I recorded some samples. The first part is just the DKP with both sides engaged. Then I ran through the other pedals I had on my board at the time: Bukowski FY-2, Boss HF-2, EQD Rainbow Machine, EA Parallel Universe, and an MXR Analog Chorus. I don’t think that is the order, though. Dirge Electronics sells all sorts of awesome stuff through their website. Buy some.