Frequently asked questions

In the same place they’re designed: Manchester, in the United Kingdom. They’re also built by the same people who design them, so you always get the very best quality.

We are a family run business and we make sure our products meet high quality standards with low failure rates. Our failure rate sits below 2% and we monitor serial numbers through out a products life, repairing older products if we have the available parts and always making sure our customers get the best service.

There’s no such thing at the right or wrong pedal. Pick one that excites you and makes you want to plug in.

However to point you in the right direction, our best selling pedal has been the PDF-2 and QBoost. These are simple pedals that allow you to easily dial in your perfect tone.

We make our boutique guitar pedals in the UK, but you can get them almost anywhere in the world. You can buy from us directly, but there may be restrictions on shipping to certain countries. We always do our best to make it work though, so if you’re not sure, just get in touch.

We don’t make money on shipping costs. We ship free to the UK, and provide free shipping for any orders over £200 in value. We may run free global shipping from time to time on certain products.

For other international orders, we subsidise the shipping cost, but the total will depend on where you are, and any other export restrictions or charges – so please check the shipping cost at checkout.

With regards to EU shipping and import duties you will have to check locally what they will be. If they are too much we would recommend buying through one of our dealers.

If you have a faulty product, you should first read the F.A.Q under TROUBLESHOOTING. If you can’t get in touch with the dealer you bought it from or if you bought directly from Stone Deaf, you should contact us here: [email protected] and someone will get back to you as soon as possible.

PLEASE NOTE: Do not send your pedal back without permission as you will need a returns number to track the return properly our end.

You must put a note in with the following information:

1) Your name and address for the replacement product / order information

2) The reason for return or fault

If your pedal is still covered by a warranty, we or the dealer you bought it from will take care of the repairs free of charge (although in some cases you might have to pay for shipping). If the warranty is expired, we can still work something out, but we might have to charge you a ‘workbench’ fee. Get in touch, and we’ll talk details. Contact [email protected] for more info.

We wouldn’t recommend it. Our pedals are pretty complex, so it’s always best to get in touch with us first. If you tamper with one, you might void your warranty. However if you contact us at [email protected] we do offer a service where by we can send out replacement parts in certain types of situations. This is on a case by case basis.

If you’re wondering how to use guitar pedals, a good first step is to read the manuals of any equipment you’re planning on incorporating into your rig. That way, you’ll know exactly how to power pedals safely, and how to get the right sounds out of them.

There should be. If there isn’t, it might have been removed, or the pedal might be a self-explanatory add-on effect (like our EP-1 Expression Pedal). A missing manual might have been removed by a dealer, but don’t worry, you can find everything on each product page where the manuals are located.

If you can’t find the manual you are looking for please contact: [email protected] and we will send you a PDF of the manual.

Guitar effects pedals are just one part of a larger signal chain. If there are any issues with one, try testing it in isolation without any other effects. If there’s still an issue, contact us and we’ll help you get to the bottom of things.

The main issues are:

• Pedal not passing sound:  This could mean 1 of 3 things:
  • Component Failure: Usually a 3pdt footswitch.
  • Tremotron / Syncopy out of calibration
  • Wrong Power supply (under powering of product) Usually affects the Tremotron or Syncopy. Both need 250mA minimum.
• Excessive Hum: This usually happens when our pedals are used with a non-isolated power supply such as a single daisy chain or wall wart power supply. These are not isolated. All of our pedals have to be used with an ISOLATED POWER SUPPLY. This means a power supply that is solid state or transformer isolated away from the 60 cycle hum from your plug socket as well as sometimes each power output on the power supply.
• Ground Hum problem: This typically happens when running a stereo rig or large pedal boards where some pedals have a common ground or using non-isolated power supplies. Check power supplies, amp grounding and try and isolate the problem to a device or devices. Our pedals are active, therefore they add gain and not passive and with non isolated power supplies or proper grounding will amplifier any noisy rigs.
• Tremotron & Syncopy LED’s light up but no sound: This is usually caused by the board to board connectors that connect the pcb coming apart slightly. This can be caused by expansion and contractions when in transit or the jack within a jack socket being moved around excessively or the pedal being accidently dropped.
  • Solution is to unscrew the pedals enclosure using all 8 screws.
  • Unscrew 3 x jack sockets
  • Take 1 x footswitch out of the enclosure.
  • Without removing any PCB Press each PCB together using finger and thumb at the RED board to board connector. They should be flush to each other and there is  x 3 of them.
  • Test before assembling back together.
  • Assembly in reverse order with footswitch going in first, then jack sockets then screws.
• I get no sound from my Tremotron or Syncopy and no lights:

This is either:

• • PCB’s have come apart at connectors: See above solution to solve.
  • Out of calibration as someone has messed around with internal trim pots
  • Underpowered with non isolated power supply: Needs to be 250mA minimum with a full isolated power supply at 9v.
  • Over voltage of power supply. Fractions of voltage increases can cause low volume in the Tremotron and Syncopy. Meaning if you use a cheap power supply thats not properly regulated at 9v and is 9.6v it can cause a volume drop within these pedal. If its under 9v so 8.6 it can cause a volume increase / distortion. Again usually caused by poorly designed cheap power supplies.
• EP-1 doesn’t work:
  • You need to use the stereo cable provided to connect the EP-1 to the drive pedals. If not in the box, it has been stolen by someone at a dealer or wasn’t shipped accidently with the EP-1. You can use any stereo TRS jack to connect the EP-1 to the drives pedals.
  • Mechanical failure of the rack and pinion. This is usually cause by it being dropped either in transit or accidental.
  • Control knob on the side sets the frequency for when the EP-1 is bypassed. You set this and match it to the position that’s on your drive unit.
  • To get WAH and Phaser Tones: You must set the band width to Thin and the Height / Cut Boost to maximum clockwise or counter clockwise.

You should always check the specific manual to make sure you know the exact requirements for each pedal. In general though, all of our pedals use a standard center-negative 9VDC power supply (with a 2.1mm connection). 

A few power supply brands we recommend are:

• Strymon
• CIOKS
• MXR
• Voodoo Lab
• Walrus Audio
• Mooer

We always recommend using an isolated power supply to reduce noise and protect your pedals. Cheaper, non-isolated power supplies and ‘wall warts’ are never recommended.

The minimum current draw for our pedals is: 

• EP-1 – 20mA
• Fig Fumb – 55mA
• Kliptonite – 35mA
• Noise Reaper – 65mA
• PDF-1X – 50mA 
• PDF-2 – 35mA 
• Syncopy – 250mA (Can take 300mA adaptors)
• Trashy Blonde – 35mA
• Tremotron – 265mA (Can take 300mA adaptors)
• Warp Drive – 55mA
• Q Boost – 65mA

The Stone Deaf EP-1 Expression Pedal has been specially designed to work with all of our drive pedals (PDF-1X, PDF-2, Kliptonite, Fig Fumb, Warp Drive, and Trashy Blonde). These won’t work with other brands, as we use custom components to achieve the frequency response on our parametric EQ. You’ll also need a stereo cable, which is supplied with the EP-1, and is very cheap to replace.

Our other pedals like the Syncopy and Tremotron will work with any standard 10K expression pedal that you might have handy – cheap or expensive.

If it’s the same pedal but different artwork (like the V1 and V2 Fig Fumb or Trash Blonde), then the only difference will be the artwork itself. If it’s a different product name (like the PDF-1X and the PDF-2), then it’s a different product and you should pick the one that sounds best to you.

Both pedals use the same type of circuit, however one has a gain knob and one has a volume knob in replacement of the gain knob.

PDF-2 has a gain knob

PDF–1X has a volume knob but also has an internal trim pot to set the gain. This is also a LTD edition run.

Both use the same clean channel.

Both are a utility pedal to be designed to be used standalone and at the end of your effects pedal chain before modulation to EQ and Add dirt to your effects chain or as an enhancer.

More often than not people place them at the end of their drive chains. This is because they are an Active EQ with a distortion or fuzz element. They play wonderfully stacking with other pedals and will allow you to accurately cut through the mix while playing using their parametric EQ.