Just got it a few days ago and I freaking love it.
I wrote a review at the other forum and decide to post it here too. Some of you guys might be interested in it.
Mine is exactly the one in the pictures.
Basically Shizzle is based on "range master into fuzz face" sound, and fine tuned with some tweaks. So it's not only "just another fuzz face clone." It's a different animal. The boost part is switchable, so it can act as a fuzz face.
The fuzz face part alone is well worth the price.
It's ultra smooth and the low end is massive, and it's really really loud for a fuzz face. The unity gain is around 12 o'clock with my jazzmaster. Lots of volume on tap unlike many other fuzz faces out there. The whole range of the fuzz is usable and sounds great. Backing off the fuzz knob would make it less saturated, but it wouldn’t become dull sounding, which is great in lower gain setting. The clean up is exceptionally well and I like the jangle clean tone from Shizzle better than the original jazzmaster’s clean, so I basically leave it on all the time. There’s almost no added noise at all. Pretty much noise free with my pedalpower 2.
To my surprise is that the Shizzle goes really well with other gain pedals before or after it. In my experience, fuzz face doesn’t like to be pushed, except with an octavia. With higher gain stuff, fuzz face can easily sound like a broken radio. However, I’ve tried frazz dazzler, tone reaper, devi’s fuzzes, box of rock, etc. in front of Shizzle, and they all sound great and full without losing their characters. It is the first time I can just simply leave a fuzz face on all the time and stack it with other pedals, which opens up a lot of possibilities for quick tone changes.
Turning on the buffer switch would make Shizzle act closer to an overdrive pedal, a super touch-sensitive one. There’s more high end coming through the pedal, making the frequency response flatter, but it’s still warm and thick. I like it better than my OCD in this application, less honky mid range and fuller frequency response to the instrument. Turning down the fuzz and boosting the amp a little would make it sound like the extension of the amp. Rolling off guitar’s volume knob doesn’t clean up, but yields a jazzier overdrive sound, like all the good overdrive out there.
The boost part is where the crazy stuff comes in and make the Shizzle unique. First of all, I had tried treble booster->fuzz face combos before ordering Shizzle, and it’s a tricky combo. Most of the time there’s too much extra noises in the back ground, too squeezy, or the worse, squealing like hell with unpleasant feedbacks. In better situations, it can still sound brittle from time to time. However, Martin really did a great work on the design of Shizzle. There’s none of the above problem. None. It just sounds right and awesome in every setting. Set the fuzz low and use the boost to drive the fuzz face will give you a cutting clear distortion, like treble boost driving a tweed amp would like. In more extreme settings, there are those Neil Young over-saturated tones with so many variations it’s nuts. The fat knob controls the low end amount of the input signal, so the “attack time” can be set to taste. Rolling off the guitar volume would give back the headroom and sounds like a tasty tweed-in-a-box. I can basically cover Neil’s songs by just playing with the volume knob. It feels natural and responsive when doing this. I can get the Shizzle sound like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVnGf_8-S24, no problem at all. The handy part is that there’s a trim pot inside, controlling the input gain of the fuzz face when the boost is on, so it can get crazier or smoother by taste.
Martin is a super talented and nice builder. Great communication with him and I’ve been extremely happy with every pedal from him, and the Shizzle is just overwhelming.
