Radio Wave Effects Launches The Nervous Energy! The Only Gain Pedal You Need

Few gain pedals have made such a genuine impression on me across 7 years of pedal reviews.

Meet The Nervous Energy!

New from Radio Wave Effects we have the Nervous Energy!, a multi-faceted gain pedal that covers all things from boost to Big Muff and Marshall-flavored dirt. You may remember Radio Wave Effects from our earlier review of their Dalliter Fuzz. While that was a wonderful, but relatively straight ahead pedal, their newest effort has a lot more to discuss.

The Nervous Energy is a do-it-all gain stage, and is actually somewhat reminiscent of my highest ranked gain pedal ever, the Shotmaker Instruments Heroine. It has 3 voicing options that range from Big Muff, Marshall Amp, to classic overdrive based on the type of waveform you select. While these three voicings provide wonderful flexibility, it’s really the sensitivity of the four controls that really shake things up. You have both input and output volume, with the input volume working like your guitar’s volume knob to influence the amount of gain and clarity. That output volume serves as more of a master volume for the whole pedal. Then you have dedicated sustain control, which adds sustain but also some gain (like a Muff), and finally there’s an EQ of sorts, that shapes the hi and low content. Some of this may sound like a lot to handle, but you’ll find once you have the pedal it’s superbly easy to interact with and tweak.

Demo Info

I’ve got the Player II Modified Telecaster running into the front of the Nervous Energy!, which then ran right into my UAFX Dream ’65 and Walrus Canvas stereo for recording into my laptop.

My Thoughts

This is one of those rare gain pedals that actually deserves an extraordinary review. I have covered a lot of good and great drive pedals, all that deserve some love! But most of them won’t unseat my preferred drives or force me to shake up my personal pedalboard. This one does.

The Nervous Energy! is shockingly flexible, with bell-like chime or pulsing, gritty distortion always at your fingertips. While the three distinct voices are awesome, these controls are so freaking sensitive that you can conjure up almost any dirt sounds you want. Radio Wave Effects based this circuit on an old circuit called the Double-Beat Fuzz Wah, but this dirt box never really sounds derivative. It’s not a Klon, TS-9, or BluesBreaker clone like most of the gear that passes through. It’s very amp-like, like the Horse Cult on steroids, which it demonstrates through incredible touch and pick attack sensitivity. You can clean up or pulverize your tone with just a few flicks of the wrist, and I love that. Ultimately, the Nervous Energy! becomes a key part of your signal chain that you can interact with, not just a coloring box.

My favorite sounds are the the big distortion sounds that elicit an amp-like rumble, even running into a clean Fender Twin-style amp simulator. The noise through my headphones was just massive, something I’ve missed a lot in my new stripped down, amp-less recording space. This is a pedal that will likely slot on to my gigging or home board for years to come, as it just removes any digital sterility that it touches. Props to Radio Wave Effects for doing something difficult in making me pay attention to and really passionately defend yet another overdrive pedal hitting the market.