Sunn O))) Life Pedal V2

Life Pedal V2 is a two-stage guitar effect: an octave distortion and a booster, each with its own footswitch. The signal path runs Octave, then Distortion, then Boost. The distortion side is based on a classic LM308 rodent-style circuit with tantalum capacitors, and the octave is an all-discrete analog full-wave rectifier using a pair of germanium diodes. The octave is monophonic and works best on single notes played high on the neck with the neck pickup.

A three-position clipping switch selects no diodes (op amp), asymmetrical clipping (two silicon diodes and one LED) or the standard symmetrical silicon-diode setup. The Filter control is a low-pass filter, and the Distortion knob provides about +60 dB of gain. The booster is a clean, high-impedance MOSFET stage with its own Magnitude volume control, meant to push an amplifier's preamp into saturation.

The octave blend can be controlled with an expression pedal through a dedicated input. Both footswitches use relay-based true bypass with Flexi-Switch, allowing latching or momentary operation, so the unit needs power to pass signal. It runs on a 9 V DC supply with a 2.1 mm negative-center barrel and draws 15 mA. The V2 was limited to 2,500 units worldwide.