Mythos-Ology
Every single member of the staff at Wildwood Guitars is obsessive about their guitar tone to an extent that most rational human beings would find completely and utterly nuts. We don’t think we’re crazy—we just care about tone, we swear—but one area where our obsessive tendencies verge on unhealthy is our pedalboards. One of our favorite topics of conversation around the shop is what pedals are going on our boards this week, and we’re always swapping overdrives and changing fuzzes to get closer to the mythical sound we hear in our heads.
The reason for this strange, time-consuming preoccupation is simple: most of us love the tone of our guitars and our amps, but we also want more. More gain, more sustain, more hair, more everything! The problem is, lots of effects pedals don’t necessarily give us the elusive “more” that we’re looking for, and they become subtractive rather than additive. So, we keep questing for tone and swapping pedals, sometimes to a ridiculous degree. For instance, one staff member had a collection of eight hundred pedals (don’t worry—he’s down to just sixty now).
The only thing that matters more to us than our pedalboards is our customers’ pedalboards (and maybe our families), so we’ve worked hard to curate a selection of effects pedals that meet our (admittedly insane) standards. It’s difficult to impress a group of tonehounds like us, so any pedal that gets the Wildwood stamp of approval stands a cut above the rest. Now, we are proud to present the latest addition to our family of elite pedal brands: Mythos.
Mythos Pedals is a small, family-owned pedal company based out of Nashville, Tennessee. Zach Broyles and his wife make each and every Mythos pedal by hand, and though their meticulous attention to detail certainly plays a large part in the Mythos sound, what really sets them apart is how much care goes into each pedal. From the moment Zach walked into our shop to talk to us about carrying his pedals, we knew he was a kindred spirit. Like us, he suffers from Obsessive Pedal Disorder, and the incredible sound of his stompboxes reflects his deep, abiding love of great guitar tone.
Mythos makes lots of killer pedals that do a lot of different things, but they all have one thing in common: their expressiveness. Good pedals feel like an extension of your instrument and amplifier, but great pedals like the ones made by Mythos feel like an extension of your hand. They respond to your touch and give you all sorts of new timbres, colors, and hues to use in your compositions. They can inspire you to play differently, or they can inspire you to find new ideas in familiar territory. Most importantly, Mythos pedals give you more. Each and every pedal they make facilitates creative expression in a unique way, and since Mythos is a family-owned company, we figured we should give each member of their pedal family a quick introduction!
First, there’s the Chupacabra, a deceptively simple two-knob fuzz/overdrive meant to emulate the guitar tones on the first couple ZZ Top records. Though it will certainly make the beard of any ZZ Top fan quiver, it has a wide range of potential applications in many types of music from ripping garage rock to Hendrixian psychedelia to snarling Iommic sludge.
Next, there’ the Erlking, a low-gain overdrive circuit based on one of the best-kept secrets of the pedal world, the Nobels ODR-1. Though country players will flock to the Erlking for its mix of sparkle and grit, players of all genres will love it for its amp-like response and incredible touch-sensitivity.
And we mustn’t forget Mythos’s favorite hoofed son, the Mjolnir! The Mjolnir is based on the Klon Centaur, and it does a great job of paying homage to the magic, transparent sound of the original while offering a few important tweaks that improve clarity and consistency.
Then there’s the Daedalus, a bluesy low-gain overdrive inspired by the Marshall Bluesbreaker pedals from the eighties. Fans of the great blues Kings (Albert, B.B., and Freddie) and their British acolytes (Clapton, Peter Green, and Rory Gallagher) will find the Daedalus endlessly inspirational!
If you dig fuzz and hate unnecessary knobs, you’ll love the Golden Fleece! Inspired by a pedal on Wilco guitarist Nels Cline’s board, the Golden Fleece is a an aggressive-yet-dynamic fuzz with full response across the whole frequency spectrum. With the volume all the way up, the Golden Fleece can lay waste to entire cities, but rolling back your guitar’s volume cleans things up nicely and provides you with a wide range of sounds!
Last and definitely not least, there is the Heruclean, Mythos’s take on a classic screaming green overdrive from Japan known for its powerful midrange push. It nails the classic tones produced by the best vintage examples of the circuit, but it adds all sorts of improvements that enhance consistency and tweakability for the demanding modern player.
Wildwood Guitars invites you to wipe the drool off your keyboards and peruse our selection of Mythos Pedals here. It’s rare that we find a pedal that inspires us in the same way as, say, a Custom Shop Strat or ’59 Reissue Les Paul, but Mythos Pedals are a rare breed. We know that they will inspire you every time you click one on, but be careful: once you get used to their tone, they’ll become just as integral to your rig as your guitar or your amp. You may never want to turn yours off!