- So many knobs! So many toggles! Pic by McSpunkle
Apparently, this thing started life as Spunkies' take on a Big Muff, only narsty & glitchy. Then he added a sorta-clean blend (which kicks ass on its own), diode switches, a phase-canceling octave section in the middle, a gate control, and a tone control that can go flat or scoopedy. When I saw it in person, I went:
However, for an unlabeled pedal with five knobs and four toggles, it's very user friendly. Definitely a pedal that screams for bass (what with the cleanish blend and all), but I think it could definitely rock on guitar - given the way the clean blend fattens up the tone, it seems like doomy stoner stuff would be a gimme. But with the oscillations & fizzy octave possibilities & gate, just about any fuzz-friendly genre could make use of this thing! Hell, the ability to dial in woolly muffy tones with a gate makes this ideal even for regular ol' rock & roll. And the clean blend on it's own has some serious boosting power - anyone wanting to drive their tube amp hard would do well with this sucker. So clearly, there's a little something for everyone. Everyone who loves fuzz, that is.
But how does it sound? Well, funny you should ask! I spent a little time recording with it, and have a clip right here for ya! I hope you don't mind the same riff being played over and over, since that's what I do here (at least until I start gaffing it up towards the end). This was recorded with my Fender Jazz, going bass > Gnomeratron FTF > Line 6 Bass Pod > M-audio Fast Track Pro > Garageband. The settings breakdown goes like this:
0:00 - clean
0:11 - blend only
0:25 - blend + knob 1
0:40 - blend + knob 2
0:55 - blend + knob 2 & 3
1:13 - blend + all knobs
1:34 - blend, all knobs, toggle 1
1:52 - blend, all knobs, toggle 2
2:14 - blend, all knobs, toggle 3
2:36 - blend, all knobs, toggle 4
2:53 - blend, all knobs, toggles 1 + 3
3:17 - blend, all knobs, toggles 2 + 4
3:36 - blend, all knobs, all togges
4:00 - blend, all on, less gate
4:17 - blend, all knobs, toggle 3, less gate
4:40 - blend, knobs 1-3, toggle 3, gated muffy
4:57 - no blend, all toggles, all knobs, gated
5:21 - no blend, all on, more fizz, less gate
5:43 - blend, all on, more fizz, less gate, general wankery
It should be noted that I could have gone on for much, much longer - the knobs and toggles are all very interactive, and there are many, many more tones to be had here. I'm hoping that we'll be able to get a decent guitar player on this thang, so we can see how it does with those six-stringed things.
The clip I recorded is a little hugetastic, so I've uploaded it to my old band's defunct site. Make with the right click + save here: http://www.ellisonrocks.com/gnometastic.mp3
