Olinthus Cicada Miniature Overdrive Pedal

Product Description

TINY BUT MIGHTY.

We took the world’s most iconic overdrive sounds and stuffed them inside the smallest effects pedal ever created. Cicada may be minuscule, but it has more than enough might to fatten your tones and give new energy to every sound wave you throw at it.

WAY SMALL. BIG SOUND.

The Circut

We Rethought Everything, Except the Sound.

Cicada faithfully recreates the sought-after sounds of the original Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer and shoehorns them into the smallest effects pedal on the planet. You get a huge variety of silky smooth, complex overdriven tones. In a comically small footprint.

The Science

Fatten Your Tone With This One Simple Trick.

Cicada utilizes a tried-and-true single-stage soft-clipping circuit, with filtering before and after the gain stage, resulting in a thick and tubelike overdrive sound. The original dynamics of your signal are preserved, even as gain is increased. The circuit’s signature mid-range boost makes it an ideal choice for fattening your sound without sacrificing clarity. It’s like magic, but it’s actually science.

HONEY, WE SHRUNK THE PEDALS.

Why So Tiny?

Ridiculous Is Kind of Our Thing.

Cicada gives you full-bodied drive sounds and luscious sustain in a package that’s nearly as small as a 9-volt battery. Yes, we’re aware that an overdrive pedal this tiny is a bit ridiculous. But by challenging our notions of what an effects pedal has to be, a new world of possibilities opened up that we never expected. Turns out, making it small also makes it pretty awesome.

Fit Anywhere.

Go Where No Pedal Has Gone Before.

No matter how little space you have, there’s always room for the huge overdriven sounds of Cicada. Its small size allows it to be placed where no pedal has gone before. Running out of room on your pedalboard? No need to kick other pedals off your board—Cicada fits in the smallest open spaces in your rig. You can even place it on top of another pedal. Pedal sandwich? Yes please!

New Possibilities.

Let’s Get Weird.

An effects pedal this small is weird, but want to get even weirder? Stick Cicada on the side of your guitar. No space left in your Eurorack setup? Drop Cicada right on top of your modular rig. Want a little overdrive for your keys? Place Cicada next to your keyboard’s controls.

Pocket Pedalboard.

Is That a Pedalboard In Your Pocket, Or

Want more sounds than just overdrive? Don’t tell anyone, but chances are we’ll release other flavors of tiny pedals, and then you can make a pedalboard that fits in your pocket.

INFREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS.

Why is it so small?

Why are other pedals so big?

No really, why is it so small?

We’re aware that an overdrive pedal this tiny is a bit ridiculous. It really did begin with the completely absurd question, “What if we made the world’s smallest effects pedal?” What started out as a lark quickly turned into an ambitious engineering exercise to see if it could be done. And we quickly learned that by challenging our notions of what an effects pedal has to be, a whole new world of possibilities opened up that we never expected.

How do I connect to my rig? There’s only one jack?

Cicada features one TRRS jack combining input, output, and power. Cicada comes with a TRRS breakout cable for your connections. Blue is INPUT, red is OUTPUT, and black is POWER. Pro tip: If you’re using Cicada on a Pedaltrain® pedalboard, you can easily hide the breakout cable and your connections under the board.

How do I turn it on?

The whole pedal is the switch. It’s hinged at the top. Press below the knobs to turn it on. Press again to turn it off. Yes you can press it with your foot, even if you step on the knobs.

How hard can I step on it?

Even though Cicada is small, its switch mechanism has been tested to withstand up to 250 pounds of force. That said, we don’t refer to it as a “stomp” box. Don’t press the pedal with all of your weight—a light tap will do the trick.

What’s included in the box?

Here’s what you get:

• Cicada Overdrive pedal
• TRRS breakout cable
• Quick start card
• Olinthus sticker
• Reusable metal container
• Recyclable/compostable packaging and shipping materials

Can you show me some boring specs?

Sure thing!

Design:

• Premium analog overdrive circuit design utilizing top-shelf components
• Single-stage soft-clipping circuit with filtering before and after gain stage
• Three sound shaping controls for a wide variety of sonically complex overdriven tones
• Absurdly small green anodized aluminum chassis

Ins / Outs:

• One top mounted TRRS combination jack
• Three connections available via included TRRS breakout cable:
• High impedance (500 kΩ) 1/4″ mono input
• Low impedance (1 kΩ) 1/4″ mono output
• 9V power input
• Power requirements: maximum 9 volts DC center-negative, with a minimum of 50mA of current (power supply not included)

Dimensions / Weight:

• Width: 30mm (1.2″), Length: 45mm (1.8″), Depth: 22mm (0.9″)
• Weight: 30g / 1.1oz

- Olinthus Pedals