Crowther Audio Prunes & Custard

Up for sale is a now discontinued Crowther Audio Prunes & Custard.

Crowther Audio is New Zealand-based company, founded by Paul Crowther, the drummer for Split Enz. Crowther is best known for their Hot Cake overdrive (a staple for guitarists like Beck) and later became well known for their Prunes & Custard (which was a favorite of Justin Meldal-Johnsen).

In short, the Prunes & Custard can be thought of as a heavily filtered overdrive that almost sounds like wave folding distortion at its highest gain settings. It’s basically the main line of Headhunters’ Chameleon in a box.

There are some great reviews of the Prunes & Custard online, so I recommend doing a little research. That said, JMJ and Juan Alderete did a pretty good video on the P&C on Pedals & Effects, so I linked that below.

Also, here’s a little blurb from Crowther – “The Prunes & Custard is a two-stage circuit. There is a preamp stage, the gain of which is adjusted with the Drive control. This stage is followed by a special waveshaping distortion circuit.”

I purchased this pedal direct from Crowther’s main distribution center in Newport Beach, CA in 2017. That said, this website is inactive today so I’m assuming that this pedal is essentially discontinued (unless you happen to live in NZ and can track Paul down).

This pedal was never gigged – it was strictly used in my home studio for recorded parts. As with a lot of the gear I’m selling, my sonic needs have changed a lot in the last year so I’m parting with gear that no longer fits my sets to make room for new gear.