The Proxima by Twilight Pulse Audioworks lives a double life. On the lower end of the gain range it behaves like a preampy overdrive, thick and articulate with just enough grit. Push the gain further and the clipping diodes kick in and the whole thing evolves into a ripping, full-range fuzz. Two extremes in one pedal, which is exactly the point. Kit named it after Proxima B, an exoplanet tidally locked so one side is permanently dark and the other permanently bright. That contradiction is baked into the circuit on purpose.
I knew Kit from Twilight Pulse Audioworks was a talented builder after demoing his Konstante. The Proxima is a whole other animal.
Controls
Three knobs, reading the panel left to right: Gain, then Mass at the far right, with Refine sitting between them on the lower half. Gain sets the drive level and is where the overdrive-to-fuzz crossover happens. Mass is the master output volume. Refine is the tone control: counter-clockwise darkens and warms, clockwise adds brightness and high-frequency presence.
In the demo above I’ve set up sweeps for the Gain and Refine knobs so you can hear exactly what each does. The Gain sweep runs from 0 to 10 with Mass at 5 and Refine at 8, so you can follow the character shift from clean breakup through to full fuzz in one pass.
How It Sounds
The Low Gain preset (gain at 0, mass at 5, refine at 2) shows the preampy side: an articulate, warm drive with the Refine rolled back to keep the top end in check. Medium Overdrive (gain at 5, refine at 5) is the crossover territory, gritty and full-bodied. Full on Fuzz (gain at 10, refine at 10) is where the NOS RFT silicon diodes do their thing: saturated, fizzy, and thick.
What makes the Proxima genuinely interesting is how it responds to your guitar’s volume knob. The Guitar Volume Down preset (same settings as Medium Overdrive) demonstrates this: roll back your guitar and the drive cleans up into a wonderful, articulate drive. I recorded the main guitar track on the bridge pickup, but it’s also very lovely with a neck pickup and the guitar volume rolled off. That sound just didn’t fit the more energetic track in the demo.
Bonus: the Proxima is also great on bass. It’s on the bass track in the demo above. One of those bass overdrives that just works without much post-processing.
Proxima vs Konstante
Both pedals come from Kit at Twilight Pulse Audioworks, but they’re built for very different jobs. The Konstante is a transparent low-to-medium overdrive with an EP-style switchable boost, and its character stays buttery and smooth. The Proxima starts where the Konstante leaves off and then goes much further, from a fat MOSFET breakup into full fuzz territory. If you want the builder’s voice in a refined, touch-sensitive drive, the Konstante is the one. If you want that same DNA with a much wider gain range and the option to get genuinely gnarly, the Proxima is the answer.
Who It’s For
Players who want one pedal to cover both a clean-ish preamp overdrive and a full-range fuzz will find the Proxima covers that ground without compromise. It works on guitar and bass. The guitar volume knob cleanup is a real feature, so volume-knob players will get a lot out of it. Kit uses hand-selected NOS components, which means runs are limited. If you want a singular, wide-range dirt pedal from a boutique builder who clearly thinks hard about circuit design, this one earns serious attention.
If you prefer a pedal with a clearly defined character that stays consistent across its range rather than one that shape-shifts through several characters, look elsewhere. The Proxima’s personality changes are the whole point, not a quirk.
Specs
Circuit: MOSFET overdrive and fuzz
Op-amp: NOS Harris/Intersil CA3260E BiMos
Clipping: hand-selected NOS RFT silicon diodes (GDR era)
Controls: Gain, Mass (output volume), Refine (tone)
