Jon Cusack, founder of Cusack Music, is a Bonafide guitar effect inventor. He originally gained prestige as a senior design engineer in the corporate world, primarily working on appliance controls. This background perfectly prepared him for a return to his true passion, music and sound. His keen understanding of consumer intuition has led him to create effects pedals that guitarists never knew they needed, but now cannot live without.
Cusack Audio was founded in 2002 in the humble, tulip-loving town of Holland, Michigan. One of their early models was the Screamer Fuzz, which added a distinctive fuzz tone to a TS9-style overdrive. The brilliance of this simple design cannot be overstated. Guitarists naturally want the option to engage massive amounts of dirt, but more frequently require a moderate amount of gain, reined-in by a tight low end. The Screamer Fuzz does it all, from classic to chaos. Today, Cusack offers numerous variations on the Screamer Fuzz, such as Screamer Fuzz Bass and Screamer Fuzz Germanium.
Some of Cusack’s greatest innovations in the pedal world involve tap-tempo technology. Originally conceived of as a feature on delay units to synchronize repeats, Cusack was the first pedal maker to implement tap-tempo on phaser, tremolo, and phaser units. Jon Cusack was inspired to do this after fellow boutique pioneer, Zachary Vech, told him that his engineers had tried and failed to add tap-tempo to their Ooh Wah pedal. Cusack now hosts a whole roster of tap-tempo models, such as the Tap-A-Whirl Tremolo, Tap-A-Scream Screamer, and of course, Tap-A-Delay.
We here at Midwood Guitar Studio are inspired by Cusack Audio’s dedication to improving the way players interact with their pedalboards. With a keen sense of pragmatism, Cusack has developed multi-loop switching systems, never-off pedals, and soft-touch true bypass switches. They even have a pedal for vocalists called the Pedal-Cracker, which integrates a microphone preamp and XLR line output into a standard effects loop. We are thrilled to be a Cusack Audio dealer and look forward to talking with you about how this line can enhance your overall experience with effects pedals.
