Considering Halloween is swiftly approaching as I write this, it seems fittingly creepy that a boutique pedal named the “Bloody Finger” has arrived on my desk.
Shockingly, the Bloody Finger is neither bloody nor includes any severed fingers, much to the dismay of my gruesome expectations. However, the pedal does come in a mirrored plexiglass enclosure, which, to my horror, casts my own reflection upon all its surfaces, and that is indeed scary enough.
But all ugliness aside, the Guitar Tone Company Bloody Finger is a one-of-a-kind, colorful buzz saw of a distortion pedal that also functions well as a treble booster and overdrive with stabs of fuzz.
The Bloody Finger is a large pedal, similar in size to ProCo’s Rat distortion stompbox, and completely handmade. It is stark and simple in appearance, with two large metal controls for volume and tone, an LED and an on/off switch. It’s true bypass and powered by a 9-volt battery or 9V adapter.
The Bloody Finger already has gobs of vicious gain, so how it sounds is dependent on where you set the volume and tone controls to interact with one another. Turning up the volume not only boosts output but also increases gain and brilliance, which works amazingly well for adding even more sustain and definition to an overdriven amp.
The tone control performs as a musical filter—once you get past noon, it sweeps in cutting midrange and compression, making its distorted crunch sound like a hot-rodded Seventies Marshall Super Lead at full throttle. Moving the tone control counterclockwise achieves a saturated cocked-wah sound and adds fuzzy bottom-end rumble to notes. Don’t be afraid to get your hands on it; the Bloody Finger is a thick-sounding pedal with plenty of bite.
Paul Riario has been the tech/gear editor and online video presence for Guitar World for over 25 years. Paul is one of the few gear editors who has actually played and owned nearly all the original gear that most guitarists wax poetically about, and has survived this long by knowing every useless musical tidbit of classic rock, new wave, hair metal, grunge, and alternative genres. When Paul is not riding his road bike at any given moment, he remains a working musician, playing in two bands called SuperTrans Am and Radio Nashville.
