Hamstead Ascent Clean Boost Pedal

Hamstead Ascent Clean Boost Pedal Overview

Hamstead Ascent Amplitude Controller - a boost for the music industry. The world has been going through some incredibly challenging times over the last year, with so many people in the live music industry having been severely affected. At Hamstead we wanted to see how we can play our part to help. This is Ascent: more than just a high grade, pure clean boost, but a pedal that gives back to the core of the live music scene.

The Idea:

The concept came to us when trying to think of a way to directly help some of the people in the live music industry that have lost their work and livelihoods due to the Covid 19 pandemic. All major festivals this summer and many gigs for the rest of the year have been cancelled leaving the future very uncertain.

Ascent has been designed to be made remotely by backline technicians who we can pay for their time and skills, creating a really special pedal, built by the pros, in the process.

We have an amazing group of techs from bands including: AC/DC, Iggy Pop, The 1975, Mumford & Sons and Queen on board to build the pedals. Each pedal will be hand soldered, signed and dated by the tech that built it.

Another key part of the concept is to give techs who are suddenly out of work a project to be creative and a distraction from the sad state of the industry that we all know and love. The Ascent project is not just a quick fix, but designed to offer both financial and mental health support to people that make live music happen.

Every pedal sold enables us to give financial support direct to the builders and also give 10% of the profits to www.helpmusicians.org.uk to try and help as many people as possible.

What is it?

Ascent is a pure clean boost pedal, offering a huge 20dB of gain with near zero tonal colouration or distortion across the whole frequency range. This is of course coupled with Peter Hamstead’s usual design refinements including ±15v internally isolated power for super high 30v headroom and a VCA-based design for incredibly linear and transparent boost.

Ascent features our standard OptoKick footswitch from Daniel Steinhardt and the team at TheGigRig, who are also partnering with us to contribute 15% of the cost of every footswitch to the cause. Ascent will be the most accessible Hamstead product to date and every sale will be giving directly back to the techs that have built them and the Help Musicians charity.