ilovefuzz.com

in more interesting normie guitar news, the new Squiers are hitting the web and they’re doing some interesting stuff. there’s a Telecaster with double binding, a humbucker in the neck, and a Bigsby styled like the vintage “F”-branded ones from the 60s. i don’t really need it—in fact i don’t get on with regular Teles which is why the one i’m building has such weird specs—but fucking hell it looks like a weapon. also Esquires in new colors and Duo Sonics on the pattern of the recent Fenders. their bridge HBs are IMO a mistake, but it’s easily rectified. would someone please tell them i’m trying to get out of the project guitars market before i start coming up with justifications? please?

This Friday I had a meet-up with a British friend who is living with his wife in Japan. He is staying in Europe for a few days and we met in picturesque Augsburg, which is 450 km away from Duisburg where I live. For me that was a travel with two fast ICE trains that I had bought tickets for in the one direction - 5½ hours, with one hour delay - and seven slow trains back home with my monthly ticket that allows for taking any regional public transport in whole Germany - 13½ hours! I was awake for 31 hours straight and I am still very exhausted.

But it was such a nice day there and for about seven hours we were talking about so many things and had a proper stroll through the inner city of Augsburg with all the old Bavarian buildings. And my friend had some things for me that he managed to stuff in his suitcase!

Four years ago my friend Laurie from Calgary had been building his ³²TB2 and ³²OD pedals and due to problems with the German customs (that had caused me some headache in previous years) he sent the ones that I ordered from him to our dear member lordgalvar who is living in Los Angeles. Initially lordgalvar was trying to include these pedals in a Christmas parcel that he wanted to send me in late 2021. But then he was having severe health issues and other problems, plus we all still had to deal with the pandemic situation and everything came to a stop.

There was a lot of radio-silence and I had almost given up getting my hands on these pedals. A few weeks ago lordgalvar suddenly replied again to tell me that his health issues are almost completely gone now (I hope so) and after a few days he gathered all the stuff that he has been hoarding for me all the time and sent it on to my friend in Japan. There were no customs claims this way and also none when he was leaving the plane here in Europe. As a parcel to Germany the customs could have been very strict, sending the two pedals back that aren't RoHS compatible. To my huge joy this way they slipped through and on Friday these were finally given to me:


I have only been able to give them a short test drive at bedroom volume level today (Sunday), but so far I'm very pleased with Laurie's pedals.

The ³²TB2 is the first Tone Bender style pedal that I have ever tried. Definitely another breed than the Fuzz Face. Doesn't get as clean with the guitar's volume knob, but still offers a great boost this way. And it sounds quite massive with more bottom, if I'm not completely wrong here.

And the ³²OD is pretty much how I expected and hoped it to be. A very nice break-up sound and the possibility to add a portion of the clean signal (unaffected by the EQ knobs, yay!) offer awesome transparent sounds.

The empty enclosures are for the two plain white "Fuzz Architect" pedals of my brother and me - proper Fuzz Face tributes that Laurie built a few years earlier.

Then there was also one of two Hotone pedals that lordgalvar purchased for me. The tiny Phaze is an analogue four-stage (I think) phaser with the vintage sound that I love. Unsurprisingly remarkably good, like most of the small Hotone Skyline pedals that I have been collecting all the years! This one hasn't really been distributed in Europe and I simply don't know why. Maybe at that point it was already clear that the Skyline pedal series was not going to be continued anymore, which I think is a very sad thing. These are reliable and superb sounding units and I had loved to see more of them in the future.

(Also, glad to hear lordgalvar's feeling better. )

I almost expected you to post about this new Seppuku I saw briefly on Reverb:



https://reverb.com/item/89950110-seppuk ... oxide-fuzz

I have watched the short videos of the Oxide Fuzz at YouTube and decided to sit this one out! Too wild, even for my taste!

I hope that lordgalvar will be visiting ILF again as well, soon.

Pepe wrote: ↑Sun Aug 03, 2025 11:26 am
---snip ----

Four years ago my friend Laurie from Calgary had been building his ³²TB2 and ³²OD pedals and due to problems with the German customs (that had caused me some headache in previous years) he sent the ones that I ordered from him to our dear member lordgalvar who is living in Los Angeles.

I bought a ToneBender from Laurie on your recommendation-- it's absolutely fantastic. It's so responsive to my playing, even depending on what position I am on the neck. I don't think any of my other pedals can do that. It's so expressive. It's also like instant Mick Ronson "Spiders From Mars" and sounds like tons of classic 70's records that I love. The only down side is that it has to be first in the chain, and batteries only. But it's easily one of the best pedals I've ever used.

Oh, that's great to hear! Laurie only had enough NOS Eastern European Germanium transistors for nine pedals in total (hand-selected from a batch of 1000 transistors!). So you must have bought the one pedal that didn't go to a member of the Boss Area Forum.

And every pedal that Laurie has developed in the last years is based on lots of research, mathematics and physics. Everytime he is explaining his stuff in-depth I feel like a third-grader listening to a professor at the university.

EDIT: I found the old conversation and now I remember again. Horrible how much can be forgotten in four years!

Buying more stuff I don't need lol... I got a "broken" Fender Super Sonic amp from GC for $200 last week. Came with a Vintage 30 in it, a cover, and the foot switch. Opened it up and a random piece of wire clipping inside was shorting out the heaters and now it seems to work fine lol.

Gonna keep tinkering to see if there is something else going on but probably the easiest fix I've had in ages. This thing sound really really good to me.

i tell you, those new Squier Teles and Esquires are taking rooms in my imagination. it’s as if they calibrated them specifically for me, especially the Lake Placid Blue Telecaster Custom with the neck humbucker, Jazzmaster bridge, and F-branded Bigsby B50. that’s a different solution to fixing the things on a regular Tele that don’t work for me but i could work with it, especially if i stuck a spicier bridge pickup in. the Sherwood Green Esquire is also giving me brain fade, though it’s more of a standard Tele than i prefer. it’s weird that Squier continually seems to run conceptual laps around the parent company when it comes to versioning the past, and hard to think of anything comparable.

Pepe wrote: ↑Sun Aug 03, 2025 11:42 am I have watched the short videos of the Oxide Fuzz at YouTube and decided to sit this one out! Too wild, even for my taste!

Wow! Just listened to that and I agree; I think I prefer some guitar with my noise! Feels like something for the pure noise crowd… it feels like it would probably make those sounds even if there was nothing plugged in! It reminds me of some of my failed DIY fuzz experiments…

incoming! will be the 2nd one i've owned traded a bunch of pedals for it - a bad stone, a DD7, some TC pedlols....

Cool! I read awesome things about it in the huge book "Stompbox".

Oh, I had one of these. I wish I had kept it but I was in a "keep only what you actually use" mood and sold it. It was the last pedal I sold and I will probably get another one as soon as one surfaces at an acceptable price.

It’s been a nice summer largely free of GAS of any kind for me. Many pleasant journeys.

However now I’m back and, through powers I am unable to resist or understand, I found a used Randy and Cooper Outward for great prices locally- and they are comingggg.

Really I just want to try these out- I never had a chance to in all the years they’ve been floating around.

don’t know the Outward, but the RR is my favorite ring modulator. every home should have one.

Picked up a bargain price OxEAE fuzz. Seriously impressed, there’s some nice lower gain sounds in there as well as total destruction.

Was considering the new chase bliss, but any spare money laying around I just blew on that Amen Ra Lichtlaerm pedal, which was a bit excessive but since I’ve been using a providence stampede or derivative as my main distortion for a while, it looks practically perfect for my needs.

I also preordered the Motor pedal a while back but it was toward the end of the preorder window, so might not be seeing that for a while.