Rise up and make your music stronger.
$99

BUY NOW
Rise up and make your music stronger.
$99

BUY NOW
Rise up and make your music stronger.
$99

BUY NOW

TINY BUT MIGHTY.

We took the world’s most iconic overdrive sounds and stuffed them inside the smallest effects pedal ever created. Cicada may be minuscule, but it has more than enough might to fatten your tones and give new energy to every sound wave you throw at it.

We took the world’s most iconic overdrive sounds and stuffed them inside the smallest effects pedal ever created. Cicada may be minuscule, but it has more than enough might to fatten your tones and give new energy to every sound wave you throw at it.

Videos.

Way Small. Big Sound.

We Rethought Everything, Except the Sound.

Cicada faithfully recreates the sought-after sounds of the original Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer* and shoehorns them into the smallest effects pedal on the planet. You get a huge variety of silky smooth, complex overdriven tones. In a comically small footprint.

Fatten Your Tone With This One Simple Trick.

Cicada utilizes a tried-and-true single-stage soft-clipping circuit, with filtering before and after the gain stage, resulting in a thick and tubelike overdrive sound. The original dynamics of your signal are preserved, even as gain is increased. The circuit’s signature mid-range boost makes it an ideal choice for fattening your sound without sacrificing clarity. It’s like magic, but it’s actually science.

controls.

Ins/Outs

Cicada features one TRRS jack combining input, output, and power. Cicada comes with a breakout cable for your connections. Blue is INPUT, red is OUTPUT, and black is POWER.

Tone

Shapes the contour of the overdriven tone. Left is darker, mellower, and moodier. Right is brighter with more sparkle. And glitter. And pizzazz. It’s great for parties.

On/Off Switch

Where’s the footswitch? How the heck do I turn this thing on? With Cicada, the whole pedal is the switch. It’s hinged at the top. Press below the knobs to turn it on. Press again to turn it off. Press it again if you’re feeling fancy.

Level

Left for quiet, right for loud, but you already knew this. It controls the output volume of the overdriven signal without affecting your original input signal, so that’s cool.

On LED

LED is illuminated green when the pedal is on. LED may also illuminate in the middle of the night while you’re asleep, but will turn off when you wake up.

Drive

Controls the amount of overdrive. Left for less, right for more. Lefty loosey, righty tighty.

HONEY, WE SHRUNK THE PEDALS.

Ridiculous Is Kind of Our Thing.

Cicada gives you full-bodied drive sounds and luscious sustain in a package that’s nearly as small as a 9-volt battery. Yes, we’re aware that an overdrive pedal this tiny is a bit ridiculous. But by challenging our notions of what an effects pedal has to be, a new world of possibilities opened up that we never expected. Turns out, making it small also makes it pretty awesome.

Go Where No Pedal Has Gone Before.

No matter how little space you have, there’s always room for the huge overdriven sounds of Cicada. Its small size allows it to be placed where no pedal has gone before. Running out of room on your pedalboard? No need to kick other pedals off your board—Cicada fits in the smallest open spaces in your rig. You can even place it on top of another pedal. Pedal sandwich? Yes please!

Cicada fits anywhere

Let’s Get Weird.

An effects pedal this small is weird, but want to get even weirder? Stick Cicada on the side of your guitar. No space left in your Eurorack setup? Drop Cicada right on top of your modular rig. Want a little overdrive for your keys? Place Cicada next to your keyboard’s controls.
Cicada new possibilities

Is That a Pedalboard In Your Pocket, Or

Want more sounds than just overdrive? Don’t tell anyone, but chances are we’ll release other flavors of tiny pedals, and then you can make a pedalboard that fits in your pocket.
Cicada pocket pedalboard

Infrequently asked questions.

Why is it so small?
Why are other pedals so big?
We’re aware that an overdrive pedal this tiny is a bit ridiculous. It really did begin with the completely absurd question, “What if we made the world’s smallest effects pedal?” What started out as a lark quickly turned into an ambitious engineering exercise to see if it could be done. And we quickly learned that by challenging our notions of what an effects pedal has to be, a whole new world of possibilities opened up that we never expected.
Cicada features one TRRS jack combining input, output, and power. Cicada comes with a TRRS breakout cable for your connections. Blue is INPUT, red is OUTPUT, and black is POWER. Pro tip: If you’re using Cicada on a Pedaltrain® pedalboard, you can easily hide the breakout cable and your connections under the board.
The whole pedal is the switch. It’s hinged at the top. Press below the knobs to turn it on. Press again to turn it off. Yes you can press it with your foot, even if you step on the knobs.

Even though Cicada is small, its switch mechanism has been tested to withstand up to 250 pounds of force. That said, we don’t refer to it as a “stomp” box. Don’t press the pedal with all of your weight—a light tap will do the trick.

Why do other pedals have sides?

Here’s what you get:

  • Cicada Overdrive pedal
  • TRRS breakout cable
  • Quick start card
  • Olinthus sticker
  • Reusable metal container
  • Recyclable/compostable packaging and shipping materials

Sure thing!

Design:

  • Premium analog overdrive circuit design utilizing top-shelf components
  • Single-stage soft-clipping circuit with filtering before and after gain stage
  • Three sound shaping controls for a wide variety of sonically complex overdriven tones
  • Absurdly small green anodized aluminum chassis


Ins / Outs:

  • One top mounted TRRS combination jack
  • Three connections available via included TRRS breakout cable:
    • High impedance (500 kΩ) 1/4″ mono input
    • Low impedance (1 kΩ) 1/4″ mono output
    • 9V power input
  • Power requirements: maximum 9 volts DC center-negative, with a minimum of 50mA of current (power supply not included)


Dimensions / Weight:

  • Width: 30mm (1.2″), Length: 45mm (1.8″), Depth: 22mm (0.9″)
  • Weight: 30g / 1.1oz

 

PHOTOS.

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Eco-Friendly Packaging.

Garbage Out.

When you receive Cicada, you will find the pedal nestled within a recyclable/compostable pulp insert, packed inside a reusable metal box. The pulp insert can be thrown in your recycling bin or compost, and this metal box can be easily repurposed for guitar picks, coins, or mind altering drugs. Completely up to you!

Thanks.

Thanks for taking the time to learn more about our tiny overdrive pedal. Olinthus is a small company just getting started out, and we’re delighted that you’re interested in what we’re up to!

 
*All third-party product names are trademarks of their respective owners, which are in no way associated or affiliated with Olinthus. These product names, descriptions and images are provided for the sole purpose of identifying the specific products that were studied during the Olinthus circuit design and sound design process. Ibanez®, and Tube Screamer® are registered trademarks of Hoshino Gakki Co., Ltd. Pedaltrain® is a registered trademark of Pro Stage Gear, LLC.