Gerlt Technologies makes hundreds of customizable rack effects, at prices comparable to guitar pedals.  It's time to dump that pedal board and get Your Tone off the floor!

 

 What We Do

You know them as guitar pedals

We build them as rack effect modules you can customize to get Your Tone

Put several rack effect modules into a 3U rack enclosure

Connect power and audio on the back like guitar pedals, adding connections for remote switching

Add a remote footswitch unit to turn rack effects on and off

Add as many rack effect modules, enclosures, and third-party products as you like. Plug in your guitar and amp. Rock it! It's that simple.

 

Quick Hits:

  • Check out our GT Effects Overview to see why we do this

  • Check out our Compares To charts to see the full list of effects we offer

  • Follow the menus from Products, to Modules, to Modules By Type to get a list of our effect types.  Select any effect type to get a list of all our effects of that type.  Select any effect to get full information including pricing.

 


 

Hello Effects Fans!

 

I hope all is going well for you!

I’m back in the USA now, after a lengthy time away.  I’ve taken a bit of time to survey the post-post-COVID business climate and think about our next steps.   As is often the case, there are conflicting signals to sort through.  I won’t bore you with all the details.  The result is that I think the time is still not right to resume normal operations. 

One of the primary reasons is personal.  About a year ago I jumped into a really fun, non-work opportunity that took me out of the USA for most of the past year.  I will be out of the country again most of the coming year before things settle down to a new normal for me.  It’s a lot of fun, but wasn’t really part of any plan I had, so I need to adjust my plans.  I’m not able to operate Gerlt Technologies while I’m away, so the shutdown will continue for probably another year due to that until I can get my personal and professional plans realigned. 

Beyond that, the post- post-COVID situation is still unsettled.  I expected a period of ripple effects from COVID shutdowns, supply chain problems, and other world economic and political events that impact our business.  I’m starting to think those ripples aren’t going to die away and return us to something similar to the world we knew before 2020.  If some of those changes become permanent, much work and difficult decisions may be necessary.  At the moment, the parts I couldn’t obtain are now available, but some others are now unavailable.  Costs are both up and down for components, but shipping costs are now a large and growing portion of component cost and would probably force a general price increase, an action I’m very reluctant to take.  In a market that is difficult to read, it is difficult to justify additional investment.  As long as we remain cautious, we can continue to wait for time and change to bring about a better situation, even if it takes a while.

In the meantime, I will have some time to work on the less exciting “internal stuff” that is necessary to the process of building and delivering our products.  Our internal processes are a bit messy as a result of rapid product line growth, shutdown of some suppliers and vendors, and other reasons.  If we were to resume taking orders, these problems would quickly tangle up our operations.  So while we have “quiet time”, I’ll work to clean up some of those issues so we’ll be better positioned for the future.

I hope to also be doing some of the fun work, such as completing some new products, or at least moving them further along, and possibly some marketing events.  So keep an eye on us while we work through some of the issues that are holding us up at present.  I’m not sure exactly when I’ll return from my next sojourn, but it will likely be about this time next year when I pop up and take another look around to see how it looks.

Until next time,

Bill Gerlt

President, Gerlt Technologies

Dallas, Texas

21 June, 2023

 


 

 

Hello, Effects Fans!

Today we announce our new Nectarine Fuzz module.  The Gerlt Technologies Nectarine Fuzz compares to the Frantone Peachfuzz.  Fran Blanche began building Frantone pedals in the '90's.  You may remember that she also worked with EHX to design the v9 "NYC Reissue" Big Muff Pi.  The 2-knob (no Tone) version of the Peachfuzz was introduced somewhere around 1996.  A pause in production of these hand-built pedals from about 2009 to 2016 made them somewhat scarce (and pricey) on the market.

This is a big, no-holds-barred fuzz, a bit on the dark side.  You should have no problem getting a thick and heavy fuzz tone.  It is a simple circuit of three distortion-producing op amp stages feeding a Big Muff style hi cut / lo cut Tone control, then out through the Volume.  The heavy sound is achieved by letting a good deal of the bass go through the circuit, so bass players take note.  Usually, a fuzz tends toward muddiness or flub when the bass isn't trimmed back, but that doesn't happen in this circuit except maybe a bit when you wander into the extreme ranges of the Fuzz and Volume controls.  

At first, you may jump to the conclusion that it is another "blanket over my amp, bassy fuzz.  You need to twiddle with it for a minute to figure out that isn't the case.  Yes, the Tone is shifted more toward the bass end, but if you dial it the other direction, the bass rolls down and more highs come through.  Either way, you've got a good fuzz going on.  Another thing you'll notice is that your guitar tone is still coming through in all that fuzz.  For instance, you expect those woodier tones on the higher frets and you get them, nicely fuzzed up, but clearly there.  This might be a good fuzz for stacking, staying articulate and not getting muddy.  The fuzz itself will go from kind of cleanish to heavy duty.  It sounds and feels somewhere between a heavy fuzz and a high gain distortion.  You can hear what your fingers are doing more than you can with most heavy fuzzes.

There's a good amount of Volume on tap.  With humbuckers, the fuzz tends to thin out more than clean up with the guitar volume.  With single coils, it cleans up a bit more.  But that's not what it is about.  It's best to think of it as a medium to heavy high gain fuzz, with the top end trimmed back a bit.  The trimming of the top end keeps the noise pretty low.  It didn't seem that remarkable when we first started playing it - just another woolly, heavy fuzz.  But the more we played it, the more we liked it and now we "get it".  Find your settings and let it rip!

Nice as this fuzz is with guitar, it seems to pair equally well with a bass.  The controls feel like they have a wider range with bass.  Fuzzes have some noise, of course.  That noise is trebly by nature and can be more apparent when you are just sending in bass.  But a quick adjustment of knobs on our bass or the module let us dial it out to yield a surprisingly noise-free, heavy fuzz bass on our J-Bass with N3 pickups.  As with guitar, the fuzz stays nicely articulate and you can still clearly hear your base tone.  This fuzz doesn't cover up sloppy playing like some others, so you can easily hear what your fingers are doing.  Very nice.  Best bass fuzz...???  That's pretty subjective, but if you haven't found your bass fuzz yet this one is worth a try.

You can see more details about our Nectarine Fuzz module at: Nectarine Fuzz.  Or look for it in the Fuzz Modules section under Products -> Modules -> Modules By Type.