There’s only one Kaya… literally. S. Husky Hoskulds made it by taking an old Ampex tube tape deck and hardwiring the preamp directly to the tape head. He calls his unit ‘Pa’, a minimal box with swampy distortion and a very heavy bottom.
I started with Pa’s dirt, then added controls to make it more flexible. An assymetric Treble control can rebalance the sound towards the top, or tilt it down into murky darkness. An Abuse knob does exactly what you’d expect it to do. Blend allows you to tuck in the overall effect for subtler applications.
What I love about Kaya is it never harshes out, it’s always warm even when it’s gone nuclear. A one-trick pony, but what a trick it is.
