ilovefuzz.com

All right, so this is one of the many reasons I love ILF. Last week, I got wind that our one & only McSpunkle was working on a secret project with lots of knobs and switches. I sent him a PM with something creative & witty in the subject line like "I KAN HAZ, PLEEZE? DROOOOOOL..." And then on Friday, it arrived on my doorstep! To test, of course, not to keep. Our fine Dr. McSpunkle still wants to tweak his little creation, but I have to say that for a prototype, it's pretty damn bitchin'.



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

Drool...

And listen with speakers that have good bass or your missin' out lots.

Thanks for the review and clip, dude!

Definitely a pedal worthy of a bass. Not a single bad-sounding setting in the bunch! Really like the octaves you get out of it.

Ok so I love the clip! So when you going to mass produce the things

If I don't get the interest to build a lot of them, I'd be glad to build them for anyone that wants them individually.

I'm gonna try to have what a final model will cost tonight.

Cool!

After doing some rough numbers, I'll sell these pedals (in their upgraded form) for $120 (shipped, of course) if anyone wants one.

The upgrade includes a switch make the fuzz louder, a simple high-cut tone control on the clean blend, 3-way diode switches with asymmetrical clipping, 3 way tone control for flat, scooped, and louder high-cut style control.

McSpunckle wrote:After doing some rough numbers, I'll sell these pedals (in their upgraded form) for $120 (shipped, of course) if anyone wants one.

The upgrade includes a switch make the fuzz louder, a simple high-cut tone control on the clean blend, 3-way diode switches with asymmetrical clipping, 3 way tone control for flat, scooped, and louder high-cut style , and a boosted output (possibly on a switch-- I haven't decided because of how cramped the pedal is gonna be).

Do it! Just rotate the enclosures

McSpunckle wrote:After doing some rough numbers, I'll sell these pedals (in their upgraded form) for $120 (shipped, of course) if anyone wants one.

The upgrade includes a switch make the fuzz louder, a simple high-cut tone control on the clean blend, 3-way diode switches with asymmetrical clipping, 3 way tone control for flat, scooped, and louder high-cut style , and a boosted output (possibly on a switch-- I haven't decided because of how cramped the pedal is gonna be).

Sounds good, just as long as it isn't this month... I've been bad...

Jrmz,your avatar,Spunx's pedal. That is all. The last clip was my fav

FUK!



elwd

Haha. Already got a couple of PMs. That's pretty awesome. It's not ready for production quite yet. The final version needs to be built first just to make sure everything works out. Of course, if you just -need- one... I do like money.

So, final say on the production version: It'll have a tone control on the clean blend, and that will be the only additional external control. The diode and tone switches will be changed the 3-ways to make the pedal more versatile, and there will be a booster after the fuzz volume control so that the volume can compensate for the diodes better. There will also be at least one internal trim pot to set the gain of the pedal. There -may- also be one on the clean circuit, which will make the clean more distorted, but louder.

dude this thing sounds so gnar i can't wait to get it. i might make the tour box come back to me/ make our bass player buy one when it's time to re-amp the bass because he's lovin' his russian muff, but this thing seems like the latest in muff killers with more versatility than even HT has in bed

Wizard wrote:with more versatility than even HT has in bed

I hardly think doing exactly what I tell him to do qualifies as "versatility."



Love ya, Sammy!