Chase Bliss Dirt Bird Limited Edition Overdrive Distortion

We’ve got a special pedal for you all today, kiddos – a rare, sought-after dirty beast that pushes the sonic envelope in more ways than you can count. The Chase Bliss Dirt Bird Overdrive Distortion is a limited edition run of pedals that only resulted in 250 being made, worldwide, hence the rarity and intrigue. While this one is based on another now-discontinued Chase Bliss unit, it has a mind of its own, and will truly blow yours away…

The Dirt Bird is so rare, in fact, that you couldn’t even buy it originally – it could only be obtained via Chase Bliss’ 2024 Mystery Box promotion, as they were put randomly into the purchased boxes and sent out into the world. The Dirt Bird is very similar to Chase Bliss’ original Condor pedal, but with one key difference: There is a particularly nasty distortion artifact that happens on original Condors (one of the reasons they made the Condor HiFi), but it turns out there’s a “sweet spot” if you lower the headroom on that design far enough where it really just comes alive. Even though it’s very much a happy accident type of thing, Joel from CB says it might be his favorite thing that they’ve ever created…

Under the hood, the Dirt Bird is an analog multi-effect that allows sophisticated control over a wide range of effects including EQ, Overdrive, Boost, Tremolo and Filter tones. It has a powerful parametric Mids control that ranges from 150Hz to 4kHz, along with three separate Low Pass Filter or Bass boost/cut modes. Along with expansive frequency controls, this unit has Gain and Volume knobs, and a switchable overdrive circuit for sculpting your ideal guitar tone. Like all Chase Bliss pedals, all of these settings can be stored in presets, as well as ramped or controlled via expression pedal. Every knob and switch is connected to a little digital brain while your guitar signal stays 100% analog and never gets digitally processed.

If you’re wondering, I did NOT get a Dirt Bird in my Mystery Box last year – the guys at Cosmodio Instruments were kind enough to let me borrow theirs for this review and demo, thanks again!! Since only 250 exist, prices on the secondary market are pretty outrageous, but if you’re pretty wealthy, or want to start saving now to grab one of these, I highly recommend it. The Dirt Bird is very unique, sounding like no other drive, and with all the usual bells and whistles Chase Bliss is known for, this one is an experiemtner’s dream. Be sure to check out our demo and subscribe to our YouTube channel – cheers!!