Dead Skink Audio offers handmade, customizable effect and amplification products aimed at guitar and bass players who are tired of the generic sounds of generic effects, but have the sense to recognize boutique prices are artificially inflated. Why spend $400 on a modded TS9/TS808 when you can get the EXACT SAME SOUND PLUS your own modifications for a fraction of the cost?

We here at Dead Skink Audio start with basic circuits or circuit modules and offer you two options. Take it as we built it, or confer with us and we'll tweak the circuit to your sonic tastes. Like the grit and flavor of an old MXR, but wish you could have it with more control over the tone? Maybe you want more bottom end in an overdrive? More dirt in your distortion? That's what we do -- we put Killer Tone In Your Hands™. The rest is up to you.

    The Original Skink

Dead Skink Audio was born out of the desire for a GOOD and AFFORDABLE portable amplifier. There are small amps out there (and they sound it) and there are portable amps out there, but $100 for a small battery powered amp just seemed ridiculous (no matter how famous it might be or recognized by its pig-snout control knob). So, the Original Skink was born. Our goal was big sound in a small package, and we feel we've hit the nail on the head. Everyone who has heard one agrees.

The stock Original Skink is built in a wood box, just like a combo amp or cab unit. The wood resonates, just like your guitar, for a fuller, fatter tone than you'll get from a plastic case (or a cigarette pack for that matter). Base configuration of the Original Skink is a one-knob affair - volume. However, tone control and/or a separate drive/distortion channel are offered as well.

We can even build your Skink in just about anything you wish. Feel free to get in touch with us about making almost anything into a portable amplifier with an immeasureable cool factor.

    The Salamander
       Smooth and slippery

Reminiscent of early overdrive units from the 60s, the Salamander's gain boost is frequency dependant - the higher the tone, the more the boost. Think Brian May or early Clapton, and you have a good idea of what the Salamander can offer. It's EXTREMELY responsive to your playing dynamics-- you can easily set it up such that your normal attack strength gives you little to no effect response, but get into it hard, and that gain starts to kick your tone up over the top, giving a subtle, warm break-up. Works great with solid state amps, and even sweeter with a tube unit already on the edge of break-up.


    The Iguana
       Full bodied and strong, with serious teeth when you want 'em

The heart of the Iguana is a 70s style distortion unit (an op-amp with diode clipping for you techies) like the old MXR and early DOD offerings. Those units offered a nice, not-so-subtle distortion that was less wooly than fuzz units but more broken-up than simple overdrives. We added a tone control stage that offers more variety and shaping than most one-knob tone stacks, and what we ended up with was a nice, solid distortion box with a wide variety of applications-- Much like what can be had from ANY manufacturer these days. Not nearly unique enough for Dead Skink standards, in other words. So, we gave this lizard it's teeth -- a switchable pre-gain stage that clips the signal going into the main stage. With independant pre-gain control, what we ended up with was a unit that can go from subtle to dirty to fuzzy-wooly to flat out damaging, all in one package. If you can conceive of the tone, chances are you can dial it in on the Iguana.


    The Newt
       Petite, but not small in tone or power

The seemingly unassuming Newt is far more than what first glances might convey. There is no bypass switch on the stock unit (If you really want one, we're happy to put it in for you), and a familiar two-knob interface-- tone and level (which is just an output volume control). The Newt is built to run at FULL GAIN at all times, but can clean up a bit if you back off the guitar volume. While it's modelled after the 60s era "Fuzz" type units, it has a far more modern feel, as we use silicon parts in places where the originals would have gone with germanium. This imparts a nastier (in the good way) grit to the resulting tone, which feels more punk than psychedelic. It's equally suited for rhythm or lead, but is designed for those times when the distinction between the two is minimal to non-existant.