Aclam The Windmiller Pre-Amp Overdrive Effect Pedal Aclam

Aclam has found the ‘secret sauce’ behind Pete Townshends late ’60s guitar tone: he originally used a Grampian 636 Spring Reverb between 1966 and ’67 to saturate his tone and really push those Marshalls to the limit. Even though it was intended as a studio reverb unit, Pete used the built-in preamp of the 636 to fatten his tone and boost the guitar signal, bypassing the reverb altogether.

Aclam set out to replicate the pre-amp sound of the 636 and have really nailed it, just like their incredibly successful other pedals! The treble response has been refined by adding a Hi-Cut control which allows you to add a sweet sparkle to muddy humbuckers or tame brighter single coils, as well as a Lo-Cut knob to control bass content better, so the player can decide the tightness of the resultant tone. Another thing Aclam achieved was to refine its background noise. The vintage Grampian has a remarkable hiss, especially when the Aux Channel was used (Townshend’s choice). Chapter two of the Windmiller designing process was to eliminate that hiss whilst maintaining the character and behavior of the original Grampian 636 preamp.

After experimenting with a great variety of components and fine-tuning the circuit to make it as quiet as possible, they finally succeeded! And finally, in order to pay tribute to the last detail, they’ve included the overload indicator lamp found on the Grampian 636, which is sensitive to your playing and responsive to your attack, and you may agree, looks really cool!