I was up late last night tinkering with many fuzzes in my current library including this new arrival, a Built by Ryan Fender Blender Clone. Ryan often posts his creations for sale on Reverb and does quality work. When I noticed he had produced a Fender Blender clone that appeared more solid than may of the reissues recently posted, an impulse buy was soon in progress. I owned one of the Reissue Blenders and an MMFX Blender clone many moons ago and enjoyed the dense, sinister bloom, tight muting attack, and scrambled sustain they produced a great deal. The Built by Ryan version seems similar to other examples of this type of octave fuzz I've encountered with slight, more doomy deviation from the original design. The control scheme is identical to the original, and (unlike the aforementioned versions) only functions on 9V DC power (no batteries). The LEDs are super bright and complement the unique paintjob quite well. Ryan informed me that he used silicon transistors similar to those in various Big Muff iterations. Tone wise, there seems to be a bit more bass, less treble bite, and a tinge less gain compared to other Blenders I've played. Additionally, the non-tone-boost mode has sucked mids instead of simply sounding quieter (kind of like a muffled Superfuzz). It cascades well into other fuzzes and sounds like the Bubonic plague descending upon 14th century Europe when cascaded into other high gain fuzzes. The tonal differences of this version were initially a bit of a turnoff, but grew on me over time. Definitely a keeper.
