juliet collective

The influence of Eric Clapton’s Disraeli Gears-era tones spans generations. Weeping, soaring, and oh-so emotive, those sounds combine fluid B.B. and Albert King phrasing with raging SG, Marshall, Fuzz Face, and Cry Baby wah. Getting Clapton’s tones without that gear isn’t easy, and playing loud tends to be an essential part of the formula. Most gearheads would tell you to get a good fuzz and a stack, but the Juliet Collective believes they have another answer: a distortion called the Orangecream, which uses two parallel clipping stages—a hard-clipping fuzz section and a softer distortion stage—to approximate Clapton’s Fuzz Face-and-Marshall blend.

A Steel Keg
The Orangecream’s cylindrical enclosure evokes the flying-saucer-shaped Fuzz Face, a welcome throwback to the days when effects pedals didn’t all have the same rectangular shape. The footprint doesn’t differ much from that of the Dunlop’s recent Fuzz Face Mini, though the pedal is taller. You can power it with a 9V battery or a standard power supply, though you need a 3/32" allen wrench to open the enclosure and replace batteries. Inside, a PC board housing 2N2222 transistors is mounted to the enclosure.

Two knobs control the output. The left-hand one adjusts the crunch range, with higher settings tightening the bottom end and yielding a spikier attack. The right-hand knob smoothes the output when turned clockwise while acting as a master volume.