NOKILL Pedal Co. Loves Dogs And Glitchy Fuzz Pedals – And So Do I

The Borzoi Glitch Fuzz is a gnarly, nasty fuzz pedal with momentary glitch capabilities and synthy sounds.

Over the years I’ve accumulated quite the collection of glitchy, synthy, weird noisemaking fuzz pedals. It’s just a very fun sub-genre of pedals that has always called to me. I love making a guitar sound broken, even if it can be a challenge to incorporate that into a song. It’s probably driven by my laziness to learn new scales, voicings, and innovate on the guitar playing side of things. But in all fairness, that stuff is hard! And for us simpletons out there these noisemakers can really help to spice up a song, riff, or jam without needing a lot of mental gymnastics.

In all seriousness though, I have often found a lot of motivation and inspiration as a songwriter from the gear around me. NOKILL Pedal Co. was kind enough to send me a set of a pedals to review and I decided to start things off with one that that really suits the types of songs, riffs, and solos I like to write. The Borzoi Glitch Fuzz is your favorite chaos noodle-themed glitchy fuzz with filter, volume, and blend controls plus a toggle that activates a two octave down voicing. Simple but powerful controls – off to a good start!

Let’s Hear How It Sounds

One feature of the Borzoi that I could not showcase during my demo was the momentary glitch switch, which is a real treat for live players. I typically show off pedals without them at my feet, but I can confirm I had a ton of fun with this footswitch off camera, and can see this sliding in nicely on my gigging board before my next gig. But otherwise, I had an easy time dialing in different sounds and showcasing the range this pedal has. It can get weird quick, but it’s very musical and capable of more mild “normal” fuzz tones as you can hopefully gather from above.

My Thoughts

$150 for a glitchy fuzz pedal is hard to beat, especially one with a few cool tricks up its sleeves. More importantly, NOKILL has also made the Borzoi very user friendly, making it a more accessible offering compared to some of their equally fun, but very wild fuzzy offerings out there (like the upcoming St. Bernard fuzz on my to-do list). I’m not claiming for this to be the most innovative glitch fuzz, but I find it much more usable than previous pedals of the ilk such as the Glitchwave or a previous Time Box Effects unit I had used. The ability to specifically blend in the “glitch” with the fuzz lets you have real nice control over how traditional or wild you want the pedal to be.

And again, having the momentary switch helps a lot for figuring out how to work this into a gig, especially for memorable solos or breakdowns. NOKILL Pedal Co. has also said that the versions of the Borzoi available to buy will also have a latching footswitch, as opposed to the momentary on my version here. Ultimately, it’s a fun fuzz pedal that’s not overpriced nor overly complicated. I’ll cut to the chase; it’s a great pedal to add if you’re in the market for noisemaking! While I’m super excited to review and demo some more adventurous and complex NOKILL Pedal Co. creations, I have a feeling the Borzoi is the one that will end up on my gigging board.