Olinthus

That time Vanessa Wheeler () recorded a bunch of sick clips with our tiny fuzz

Earwig delivers a huge range of thunderously beautiful fuzz sounds, stuffed into the smallest effects pedal on the planet. This pedal may be tiny, but it has more than enough might to invade your ears with ferocious distortion and sustain.

⁉️ Why so small? No matter how little space you have, there’s always room for the colossal fuzz sounds of Earwig. Its small size allows it to be placed where no pedal has gone before. Running out of room on your pedalboard? No need to kick other pedals off your board—Earwig fits in the smallest open spaces in your rig.

⁉️ How do I connect? Earwig comes with a breakout cable for your connections, providing 1/4” input, 1/4” output, and a jack for 9V power. Easily integrate into any rig.

⁉️ How do I turn it on? The whole pedal is the switch, it’s hinged at the top. Press anywhere on the lower half of the pedal (even on the k***s) to turn it on or off.

Here’s how this tiny compressor pedal can affect your sound! Despite its incredibly small size, Pillbug delivers pure analog vintage-style compression, from gentle squeeze to soaring sustain. It packs more than enough might to tailor your dynamics for any style or setup.

Inspired by two iconic compressor pedals that we love—the 1974 Ross Compressor and the 1981 Boss CS-2 Compressor/Sustainer, Pillbug skillfully shapes your front-end tone with warm, smooth, and musical compression that thickens clean tones, adds depth to leads, and keeps chords articulate. All packed into a comically small footprint.

Buy Pillbug! ► olinthus.com

⁉️ Why so small? Compressors are often “always-on” or “set-and-forget” utility pedals that lay the foundation of your tone—so it seemed like the perfect application for our tiny pedal platform. Why take up a ton of real estate for a device you rarely need to touch? Pillbug fits in the smallest open spaces in your rig. You can even place it on top of another pedal!

⁉️ How do I connect it? Pillbug comes with a breakout cable for your connections, providing 1/4” input, 1/4” output, and a jack for 9V power. Easily integrate into any rig.

⁉️ How do I turn it on? The whole pedal is the switch, it’s hinged at the top. Press anywhere on the lower half of the pedal (even on the k***s) to turn it on or off.

I was walking around my neighborhood and found this super rad Casio keyboard just sitting in a pile of trash! So I rescued it. Let’s plug it in, run it through some effects (including our tiny Cicada overdrive and Pillbug compressor) and record a song with the first thing I play!

Some notes for the gear nerds:

🎹🎛️ Keyboard effects chain: Casio SK-370 » Olinthus Pillbug Compressor » Olinthus Cicada Overdrive » TC Electronic Sentry » Malekko Charlie Foxtrot » Fairfield Circuitry Shallow Water » Peavey DEP-16 » Neunaber Immerse

🎸🎛️ Guitar 1: Fender Strat » Olinthus Cicada Overdrive » Line 6 Helix Native (US Double Vib model, low gain, Transistor Tape delay)

🎸🎛️ Guitar 2: Guild Polara » Olinthus Cicada » Line 6 Helix Native (US Double Vib model, low gain)

The Olinthus ORIGIN STORY! We are Olinthus, we make the world’s smallest effects pedals. How did we both end up running a company that makes such ridiculous little things? Let’s go back in time with Charles and Ethan to see where this all started!

What really motivated us to set out and start our own company was a desire to design gear that simply fills us with joy. To build products that push boundaries, reject convention, and make you smile. And to build products that we’re pretty sure nobody else would be weird enough to make! Ultimately, we just want to have fun every day.  Lucky for us, making musical products is pretty much our dream job.

We’ve released three tiny pedals so far and have been blown away by the response. So we’re making more—up next is a tiny reverb, delay, and the world’s smallest pedalboard. We’ve got so many more ridiculous and fun ideas that we can’t wait to show you.

Thanks for being a part of our journey!