EarthQuaker Devices - Sunn O))) HalfLife Octave Distortion + Booster

# Sunn O))) HalfLife Octave Distortion + Booster — EarthQuaker Devices There's a lineage here that drone and doom players have been chasing for years. The Life Pedal — EarthQuaker's collaboration with Sunn O))) — became one of the most imitated pedals in the underground, a front-end chain built around the recording sessions for *Life Metal* that somehow bottled the feeling of standing inside a collapsing amp stack. The HalfLife takes that same circuit and squeezes it into a compact, pedalboard-friendly enclosure without losing a single gram of mass. Half the size. Every bit as heavy. The core of the HalfLife is a distortion section faithfully modeled after the classic "White Face" unit — the same circuit that powered the Life Pedal V3, right down to the approximately 60dB of available gain. What's new here is the three-position clipping switch, which opens up the character of the distortion in ways the original didn't. OpAmp mode removes the diodes entirely, letting the op-amp clip raw and uncompressed — it's grinding, loud, and a little unhinged. Asymmetrical mode pairs two silicon diodes with an LED for something smoother and more organic, with a slight give that feels closer to a pushed valve stage. The stock symmetrical silicon diode mode is exactly what Life Pedal devotees already know and love: tight, punchy, and dense. Then there's the Octave. It's an all-discrete analog full-wave rectifier sitting at the very front of the signal chain — before the distortion hits — which means the octave gets mangled along with everything else. Blend it in gradually with the Octave knob and you get a subtle shimmer riding underneath the saturation. Crank it with single notes above the 12th fret on the neck pickup and things start to dissolve into something that sounds less like a guitar and more like a weather event. At full tilt, it's closer to a vintage Super Fuzz than a clean octave effect — swarming, unstable, and deeply satisfying. There's also an expression input on the Octave control, so you can sweep the blend hands-free mid-performance. For Sunn O))) fans, that's not a gimmick — it's practically essential. The Filter control is a low-pass that sweeps from around 500 Hz all the way up to 30 kHz, giving you real control over the top-end bite. Roll it back and the distortion gets woolly and thick. Open it up and there's a glass-edge clarity underneath all that saturation that cuts through even dense, slow-moving music. The booster sits at the end of the signal path — Octave into Distortion into Boost — with its own independent footswitch and Magnitude control. Use it to push your amp harder, compensate for volume drop when you kill the distortion, or just to remind everyone in the room who's in charge. EarthQuaker's Flexi-Switch technology handles the switching duties on both footswitches, meaning you can run either section in standard latching mode or hold it down for momentary bursts of octave-drenched doom. It's relay-based true bypass, so power is required for signal to pass — worth knowing before the gig. This one's built for players who want something monolithic. Vintage valve amplifiers are going to bring out the best in it — the way a slightly overdriven tube stage responds to that much gain on the front end is exactly the kind of interaction this circuit was designed around. But even through a solid-state rig it's enormous. It's the kind of pedal that makes you play slower, lower, and louder than you planned. Designed and built by EarthQuaker Devices in Akron, Ohio. Covered by a lifetime warranty. --- **Specifications** - **Signal Path:** Octave → Distortion → Boost - **Clipping Options:** OpAmp (no diodes) / Asymmetrical (2 silicon diodes + 1 LED) / Symmetrical (2 silicon diodes) - **Octave Type:** All-discrete analog full-wave rectifier - **Expression Input:** Yes — controls analog Octave blend - **Controls:** Octave, Distortion, Filter, Amplitude (distortion output), Clipping Switch, Magnitude (boost output) - **Footswitches:** Right — Octave Distortion; Left — Booster (independent) - **Switching:** Flexi-Switch® relay-based true bypass (latching and momentary) - **Gain:** Approximately +60 dB - **Filter Range:** ~500 Hz to 30 kHz - **Octave Distortion Input Impedance:** 1 MΩ - **Octave Distortion Output Impedance:** <1 kΩ - **Booster Input Impedance:** 500 kΩ - **Booster Output Impedance:** <1 kΩ - **Power:** 9V DC, 2.1mm negative center barrel (do not exceed 9V) - **Current Draw:** 15 mA - **Out of Box Dimensions:** 5" x 2.75" x 2.25" - **Out of Box Weight:** 0.735 lbs - **Boxed Dimensions:** 5.5" x 3.25" x 3.25" - **Boxed Weight:** 0.88 lbs - **UPC:** 810019915369 - **SKU:** EQDHALFV1USA - **Warranty:** Lifetime - **Made in:** Akron, Ohio, USA