Chained and Charged: The Basilisk Circuit

When we started designing the Basilisk, we knew it needed to be more than just another distortion box. It had to feel like unleashing something ancient and powerful. Something dangerous but controlled. Like a beast sleeping under the city, waiting for the right signal to rise.

This is how we locked that creature into a circuit—and gave you the footswitch to set it free.

From Silence to Summoning – The Signal Path

The Basilisk is built to push boundaries—but it starts in silence. Your signal first passes through a pre-gain shaping stage, designed to clean out the mud and carve a path for everything that follows. This initial boost tightens the lows, trims excess, and lifts the signal with about 10dB of gain. Think of it as clearing your throat before a scream—focused, sharpened, and ready.

From there, it hits the Drive stage, where the distortion truly begins. This section uses soft clipping to add saturation and sustain while still keeping the sound musical. It responds well to dynamics, letting chords bloom and single notes sing—even before things get really intense.

Shape the Beast – Active 3-Band EQ

Next comes the Active EQ stage, which is one of the core features of the Basilisk. This is where you truly sculpt your tone. Each band can be boosted or cut, letting you chisel your sound from brutal buzz to thick wall to cutting lead.

• LOW – Adds subterranean rumble or tightens the bottom end. This control is tuned to the kind of doom-thick bass that fills a room—or leaves it empty.
• MID – This one’s special. It lets you scoop into chainsaw territory or push the mids forward to cut through like a blade. The range is tuned to give either full-on sludge or snarling clarity.
• HIGH – Shapes the attack. Turn it down for brooding darkness or up for searing presence. It lets your pick attack slice through even the thickest fuzz.

The EQ isn’t just about tone. It’s about identity. Whether you’re after the sound of collapsing stone or precision-cut steel, this stage gives you the tools.

From Saturation to Brutality – Hard Clipping & Beyond

After the EQ, we enter the hard clipping stage—the moment when the Basilisk fully bares its teeth. Here, we used high-threshold MOSFET transistors, wired back-to-back to clip the signal in a raw, brutal way. Unlike soft clipping, which compresses and smooths, hard clipping here adds aggression and edge. This is where the Swiss Chainsaw gets its growl.

To keep the pedal stable and powerful, the clipped signal is then passed through a gain recovery stage—a final boost to ensure your output stays strong, even after all that destruction.

And finally, the LEVEL knob lets you dial in just how loud you want this beast to speak. Whether you’re boosting into an amp or running it wide open, the output is bold, clear, and unapologetically loud.

Why It Roars

The Basilisk is designed to balance chaos with control. Each part of the circuit builds on the one before it, stacking gain, shaping character, and finally unleashing saturated, focused destruction. But even at its nastiest, it never gets out of hand. You can tune it, push it, sculpt it—own it.

Whether you’re summoning blown-out doom riffs, hypnotic desert grooves, or punishing sludge textures, the Basilisk gives you the tools to dominate the low end, carve the mids, and command the highs. It’s not just distortion. It’s tone warfare.

You step on it. It wakes up.

Stay tuned for more RhPf Electronics Behind the Scenes!

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