Electronic audio experiments THE BARD

The The Bard is a pedal offered by the Electronic Audio Experiments brand.

The Bard pays homage to one of our most misunderstood amplifiers from the past: the Music Man HD130. Made between 1974 and 1984, these amps combined a solid-state preamp with a tube power amp, an unusual choice that made them seriously underrated in their day. However, the HD130 and its brothers are among our favorite amps, thanks to their pristine (but not quite vintage) clean tones, trashy overdrive, and very wide frequency response, ideal for guitar and bass. As fans of passionate, unique projects, we've distilled our favorite elements of this cult classic into a compact overdrive pedal: The Bard.

The Bard circuit evokes a classic American amplifier from the 1960s, reinvented with operational amps instead of tubes. Clean sounds are crisp and sparkling, with a slight midrange rolloff from the passive tone stack. Increasing the Drive produces mid-gain sounds with a glassy edge, especially when the Bright switch is on. At the highest Drive settings, op amps distort in a decidedly different way than tubes – a characteristic of the original amps. The tone stack, located before the main gain stage, helps highlight specific textures within the overdriven sound. The Bard is a versatile artist, able to navigate easily between traditional and contemporary styles.