Introducing the Catalinbread Airstrip, a full-featured console preamp based on the Trident A-Range desk that gives you everything from rich cleans to amp-melting fuzz.

The Trident A-Range console dominated the UK recording scene from the late ‘60s to the early ‘80s, largely because of its exceptional sound quality. At its core is a discrete preamp equipped with germanium components and transformers, which can be adjusted to suit various tastes—from the tones of Lou Reed to the fuzzy explorations of Frank Zappa. When driven hard, console preamps can distort, saturate, and produce rich harmonics and other desirable tonal artifacts.

Our Airstrip pedal captures these legendary sounds in a compact stompbox format and includes several additional features. It utilizes a discrete op-amp based on a vintage UREI design, allowing for blissful gain when desired. On the back end, a tailored treble filter lets you adjust the brightness of the preamp to match your rig, while a specially selected transformer adds a touch of warmth to the signal.

The Airstrip is capable of producing a wide range of gain sounds, from warm, “mastered”-style cleans to gritty, collapsing fuzz. It essentially brings the capabilities of a mixing desk to your pedalboard in a much more convenient package.