Time to fly, again.
In 2018, we released the original Condor. At its core it’s an EQ pedal but it can do a whole bunch of things with gain and filtering. It’s always been one of my favorite designs and I’m very proud of it, but it was super difficult to market. It made a minor splash on release, but after three years sales on Condor pretty much ground to a halt. We had made around 1500 in total and I decided it was time to discontinue it (though it made me a little sad).
But Condor did continue to live on in other ways, and I don’t think this reissue would be happening if not for another pedal we released in 2020 – Preamp MKII. Preamp MKII used Condor’s “mids” section in its design and I was really happy with how it sounded in that context. Preamp MKII also had a really neat power supply that internally boosted the 9V input voltage to 30V, and I discovered an op amp along the way that I’ve developed a great deal of admiration for – the OPA1662 by Texas Instruments.
A few years after being discontinued I noticed that Condor was starting to gain a bit of popularity and I thought people might appreciate another chance to try out a tone bird. So that’s what brings us here – good ol’ Condor flies again, with a couple upgrades folded in.
What is it?
Condor HiFi is extremely similar to the original, with two key differences that I alluded to earlier:
1.) It has that new, higher headroom power supply from Preamp MKII.
2.) It uses the OPA1662 op amps which are lower noise and have a different clipping characteristic than the original.
How many Condor HiFi are you going to make?
The short answer is 2000. We’ve made 2000 of the Condor HiFi analog circuit boards.
The longer answer is that we have 1000 units fully assembled and ready for sale right now for $399. They have snazzy new artwork, a new field guide, all that jazz.
What about those extra 1000 circuit boards?
We’re setting those aside for now so that original Condor owners can send in their pedals to upgrade. This will cost $49 / €49 and we’ll cover the return shipping cost, worldwide. After the upgrade your original Condor will be exactly the same as Condor HiFi.
Folks have three months to do this if they would like (until May 31st). Our Japanese distributor, Umbrella, is also prepared to do this for Japanese customers. We are not making any money on this service, but it felt right to us that original Condor owners could update their pedals if they so desired. There are no changes that affect the labelling / control scheme, so the old design, artwork, and enclosure still make sense with the HiFi upgrades.
After that three month window we will take whatever is left and do a 2nd, full production run of Condor HiFi with those circuit boards. If 300 people send in their old Condors for the update, for example, then we’ll have 700 circuit boards left over. We’ll turn those 700 into completed pedals and make those pedals available for purchase for $399 later this year.
I hope this makes sense, please feel free to ask any questions where clarification is needed.
Is there any advantage to keeping the original Condor stock?
Yes, I believe so. The original Condor has a very gnarly clipping characteristic when it runs out of headroom and hits the power rails. I’ve called it “Power Rail Distortion” in the past. Condor HiFi does not do that, and clips in a more traditional way. I attempt to demonstrate this on my oscilloscope in the video below as well as give a brief sonic demonstration in the video below.
Limited edition things are stupid! Why are you doing this?
I’ve gone back and forth on the whole limited edition concept a few times since we caught a bunch of flak for Bliss Factory a few years ago. Honestly though, it’s just way easier on the business side of things for me on a release like this. I have some idea of the demand for Condor, and I think that ultimately releasing 2000 with the new spec is appropriate. It’s really nice to be able to just make them all at once and then tuck this little tone bird into its nest, one last time.
Will you do anything like this for any other old, discontinued pedals?
I’m not entirely sure yet. If you are personally clamoring for any of my past designs, definitely let us know. I have really enjoyed this process of revisiting an old pedal and doing some tidying up. All of my old pedals are a bit weird in different ways though, and some would require a lot more work than others to breathe new life into.
Let us know if you have any questions:
help@chasebliss.com