Sleep Champion Devices Horse Cult Gain Pedal Review

This is an amp-like saturation machine with simple controls, simple aesthetic, and a name that pokes fun at pedalheads.

Image credit: Sleep Champion Devices

What Do We Have Here?

Hailing from Vancouver, British Columbia, our next pedal demo and review tackles the new Horse Cult pedal. This pedal has been teased for a few weeks now, but was just officially launched by Sleep Champion Devices. The best way to describe the Horse Cult is that it aims to bring amp-like performance and gain structure to a pedal. It’s not trying to replicate a specific amp per se, but to my ears it is a bit like cranking an old Fender or Vox amp into bright, glittery gain.

The Horse Cult is NOT a Klon clone, as the circuitry is very, very loosely based on a schematic in one of Brian Wampler’s old pedals. If anything, it is more of an AC30 emulator than anything else, as the original inspiration came from Wampler’s take on the classic Vox amp. But make no mistake, the Horse Cult is not designed to be a clone of anything specifically.

The Horse Cult is incredibly simple, with only volume and gain knobs that work closely to shape your tone from a mellow boost to an amp on the verge of destruction. It’s gritty, raw, and doesn’t have the artificial smooth profile of most boutique drive profiles. Suffice to say, I love it! The two toggles are for treble and bass EQ profiles. You get two versions of each, one is more, the other less. It’s very simple, user friendly, and meant to be plug in and play ready.

The Horse Cult is $199 (CAD pricing) and available from Sleep Champion Devices directly.

Demo Time

In this demo I’m playing my Fender HSS Strat (unmodified, Made in Mexico) into the Horse Cult. I use the Donner White Tape echo before it hits the UAFX Dream (Fender Deluxe Reverb amp sim). All of that hits a DI Box (Walrus Canvas Stereo) and the interface (UA Volt276).

My Thoughts

I think the best sounds come from cranking the gain all the way on the Horse Cult. You get this natural and gritty overdrive and distortion that’s really fun. It feels like the sound of those early punk records where amps were way too loud, into a mic that was way too hot, overloading the board. It’s really quite fun.

That is not the only good sound here, it’s just my favorite of the bunch. There’s a lot of ground to cover with the gain and volume knobs used together, as you can do boost, light drive, and more on the way to ripped speaker tones. There’s a lot of brightness and chime, which is why I compared it to a Fender or Vox-style amp sound. There’s not really those ice pick highs that will make you wince, but just a lot of vintage-style sounds where the guitar is filling space with volume instead of EQ.

While the Horse Cult may not be a revolutionary take on gain or schematics, it’s a fun and versatile dirt box that should appeal to a wide audience. I think specifically vintage guitar tone enthusiasts or fans of raw punk and post-punk tones should take note. I’m sure anyone could add a compressor or EQ pedal and really expand the possibilities with the Horse Cult, however I am more of a plug and play guy. So to me, the fact that I can throw this on a board and transform any of my amps into a cranked tube amp is a big selling point.

TLDR: A fun, flexible take on a pushed tube amp pedal that is built for fans of simple stomps, not complex or groundbreaking.