Although inspired by the classic Fuzz Face, this stomp brings more to the hair-growth game with wide-ranging bias and low-cut controls.
One-ups the Fuzz Face in tonal versatility and pure, sustained filth, with the ability to preserve most of the natural sonic thumbprint of your guitar or take your tone to lower, delightfully nasty places.
Pushing the bias hard can create compromising note decay. Difficult to control at extreme settings.
$144
Catalinbread StarCrash
catalinbread.com
Filthy, saturated fuzz is a glorious thing, whether it’s the writ-large solos of Big Brother and the Holding Company’s live “Ball and Chain,” the soaring feedback and pure crush of Jimi Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady,” or the sandblasted rhythm textures of Queens of the Stone Age’s “Paper Machete.” It’s also a Wayback Machine. Step on a fuzz pedal and your tone is transported to the ’60s or early ’70s, which, when it comes to classic guitar sounds, is not a bad place to be.
Catalinbread’s StarCrash is from their new ’70s collection, so the company is laying its Six Million Dollar Man trading cards on the table—upping the ante on traditional fuzz with more controls and, according to the company’s website, a little more volume than the average fuzz pedal, while still staying in the traditional Fuzz Face lane.
The Howler’s Viscera
Arbiter Electronics made the first Fuzz Face in 1966. The StarCrash is inspired by that 2-transistor pedal, but benefits from evolution, as did almost all fuzz pedals in the ’70s, when the standard shifted from germanium to silicon circuitry to improve the consistency of the effect’s performance. The downside is that germanium is gnarlier to some ears, and silicon transistors don’t respond as well to adjustments made via a guitar’s volume control.
While Fuzz Faces have only two knobs, volume and fuzz, the silicon StarCrash has three: volume, bias, and low-cut. Catalinbread’s website explains: “We got rid of that goofy fuzz knob. We know that 95 percent of all players run it dimed, and the remaining 5 percent use their guitar’s volume knob to rein it in.”
I suspect there are plenty of players who, like me, do adjust the fuzz control on their pedals, but the most important thing is that the core fuzz sound here is excellent—bristly and snarling, with a far girthier tone than my reissue Fuzz Face. It’s also, with the bias and low-cut controls, far more flexible. The low-cut control allows you to range from a traditional, comparatively thinner Fuzz Face sound (past noon and further) to the StarCrash’s authentic, beefier voice (noon and lower). Essentially, it cuts bass frequencies from 40 Hz to 500 Hz, resulting in an aural menu that runs from lush and lowdown to buzzy and slicing. And the bias control is a direct route to the spitty, fragmented, so-called Velcro-sound that’s become a staple of the stoner-rock/Jack White school of tone. The company calls this dial a “dying battery simulator,” and it starves the second transistor to achieve that effect.
Sweet Song of the Tribbles
Playing with the StarCrash is a lot of fun. I ran it through a pair of Carr amps in stereo, adding some delay and reverb to mood, and used a variety of single-coil- and humbucker-outfitted guitars. While both pickup types interacted well with the pedal, the humbuckers were most pleasing to my ears with the bias cranked to about 2 o’clock or higher, since the ’buckers higher output allowed me to let notes sustain longer before sputtering out. Keeping the low-cut filter at 9 o’clock or lower also helped sustain and depth in the Velcro-fuzz zone, while letting more of the instruments’ natural voices come through, of course.
With the low-cut filter turned up full and the bias at 10 o’clock, I got the StarCrash to be the perfect doppelganger of my Hendrix reissue Fuzz Face. But that’s such a small part of the pedal’s overall tone profile. It was more fun to roll off just a bit of bass and set the bias knob to about 2 or 3 o’clock. Around these settings, the sound is huge and grinding, and yet barre chords hold their character while playing rhythm, and single-note runs, especially on the low strings, are a filthy delight, with just the right schmear of buttery sustain plus a hint of decay lurking behind every note. It’s such a ripe tone—the sonic equivalent of a delicious, stinky cheese—that I could hang with it all day.
Regarding Catalinbread’s claims about the volume control? Yes, it gets very loud without losing the essence of the notes or chords you’re playing, or the character of the fuzz, which is a distinct advantage when you’re in a band and need to stand out. And it’s a tad louder than my Fuzz Face but doesn’t really bark up to the level of most Tone Bender or Buzzaround clones I’ve heard. In my experience, these germanium-chipped critters of similar vintage can practically slam you through the wall when their volume levels are cranked.
The Verdict
Catalinbread’s StarCrash—with its sturdy enclosure, smooth on/off switch and easy-to-manipulate dials—can compete with any Fuzz Face variant in both price and performance, scoring high points on the latter count. The bias and low-cut dials provide access to a wider-than-usual variety of fuzz tones, and are especially delightful for long, playful solos dappled with gristle, flutter, and sustain. Kudos to Catalinbread for making this pedal not just a reflection of the past, but an improvement on it.
Catalinbread Starcrash 70 Fuzz Pedal - Starcrash 70 Collection
StarCrash 70 Fuzz PedalStompboxtober rolls on! Enter today to win a pedal from Electro-Harmonix. Keep coming back for daily chances to win!
Electro-Harmonix Lpb-3 Linear Power Booster & Eq Effect Pedal Silver And Blue
The effect that launched Electro-Harmonix gets a makeover with the Electro-Harmonix LPB-3 Linear Power Booster & EQ. With an active EQ featuring a Parametric Mids control and up to a walloping 33dB of boost, the LPB-3 is the perfect tool for any tone tailoring task. Boost your sound into saturated bliss with transformative precision like never before.
The LPB-3 is capable of boosting up to +33dB of gain with the powerful tone shaping of a 3-band EQ with parametric Mids. The active 3-Band EQ features TREBLE and BASS knobs plus a powerful parametric Mids control with adjustable MID FREQ and Q. BOOST sets the overall output of the pedal with the MAX switch toggling between 20dB and 33dB of maximum boost. Use the PRE-GAIN knob to fine-tune the total gain and boost.
Additional features include selectable Buffered/True Bypass switching and internally extended 30V power rails for enhanced headroom.
Intrepid knob-tweakers can blend between ring mod and frequency shifting and shoot for the stars.
Unique, bold, and daring sounds great for guitarists and producers. For how complex it is, it’s easy to find your way around.
Players who don’t have the time to invest might find the scope of this pedal intimidating.
$349
Red Panda Radius
redpandalab.com
The release of a newRed Panda pedal is something to be celebrated. Each of the company’s devices lets us crack into our signal chains and tweak its inner properties in unique, forward-thinking ways, encouraging us to be daring, create something new, and think about sound differently. In essence, they take us to the sonic frontier, where the most intrepid among us seek thrills.
Last January, I got my first glimpse of the Radius at NAMM and knew that Red Panda mastermind Curt Malouin had, once again, concocted something fresh. The pedal offers ring modulation and frequency shifting with pitch tracking and an LFO, and I heard classic ring-mod tones as the jumping off point for oodles of bold sounds generated by envelope and waveform-controlled modulation and interaction. I had to get my hands on one.
Enjoy the Process
I’ve heard some musicians talk about how the functionality of Red Panda’s pedals are deep to a point that they can be hard to follow. If that’s the case, it’s by design, simply because each Red Panda device opens access to an untrodden path. As such, it can feel heady to get into the details of the Radius, which blends between ring modulation and frequency shifting, offering control of the balance and shift ratios of the upper and lower sidebands to create effects including phasing, tremolo, and far less-natural sounds.
As complex as that all might seem, Red Panda’s pedals always make it easy to strip the controls down to their most essential form. The firmest ground for a guitarist to stand with the Radius is a simple ring-mod sound. To get that, I selected the ring mod function, turned off the modulation section by zeroing the rate and amount knobs, kept the shift switch off and the range switch on its lowest setting. With the mix at noon and the frequency knob cranked, I found my sound.
From there, by lowering the frequency range, the Radius will yield percussive tremolo tones, and the track knob helped me dial that in before opening up a host of phaser sounds below noon. By going the other direction and kicking the rate switch into its higher setting, a world of ring-mod tweaking opens up. There are some uniquely warped effects in these higher settings that include dial-up modem sounds and lo-fi dial tones. Exploring the ring mod/frequency shift knob widens the possibilities further to high-pitched, filtered white noise and glitchy digital artifacts at its extremes.
There are wild, active sounds within each knob movement on the Radius, and the modulation section naturally brings those to life in more ways than a simple knob tweak ever could, delivering four LFO waveforms, a step modulator, two x-mod waveforms, and an envelope follower. It’s within these settings that I found rayguns, sirens, Shepard tones, and futuristic sounds that were even harder to describe.
It’s easy to imagine the Radius at the forefront of sonic experiments, where it would be right at home. But this pedal could easily be a studio device when applied in low doses to give a track something special that pops. The possible applications go way beyond guitars.
The Verdict
The Radius isn’t easy to plug and play, but it’s also not hard to use if you keep an open mind. That’s necessary, too: The Radius is not for guitar players who prefer to stay grounded; this pedal is for sonic-stargazers and producers.
I enjoyed pairing the Radius with various guitar instruments—12-string, baritone, bass—and it kept getting me more and more excited about sonic experimentation. That feeling is a big part of what’s special about this pedal. It’s so open-ended and controllable, continuing to reveal more of its capabilities with use. Once you feel like you’ve gotten something down, there are often more sounds to explore, whether that’s putting a new instrument or pedal next to it or exploring the Radius’ stereo, MIDI, or expression-pedal functionality. Like many great instruments, it only takes a few minutes to get started, but it could keep you exploring for years.
Red Panda Radius Ring Modulator/Frequency Shifter Pedal
Ring Modulator/Frequency ShifterHand-built in the Custom Shop with Alnico magnets and signed raw steel bottom plates, these limited-edition sets evoke the early days of blues, rock & roll, and country.
Seymour Duncan, a leading manufacturer of guitar and bass pickups, effects pedals, and pedal amps, is proud to announce Joe Bonamassa's 1950 Broadcaster Set.
In the history of electric guitars, few are as iconic as the Fender Broadcaster. As few as 250 of these instruments are believed to have been built from the fall of 1950 to the spring of 1951 before Fender transitioned the model to what we all know as the Telecaster at the end of 1951. To say Broadcasters are incredibly rare is an understatement, and to find one in pristine condition is an even greater challenge. Lucky for all of us, our friend and vintage guitar authority Joe Bonamassa had a very special one in his collection with a tone so remarkable that he wanted to share it with the world. Carefully testing and documenting the original guitar’s pickups, the Seymour Duncan team was able to faithfully recreate the sound and look of Joe’s coveted 1950 Fender Broadcaster.
The Joe Bonamassa 1950 Broadcaster pickups are a faithful replica of the set found in this guitar. Joe describes the neck pickup as bright and perfectly balanced with the punchy flat-pole bridge pickup. Authentic to Leo Fender’s original design, these pickups evoke the early days of blues, rock & roll, and country.
Built-in the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop, this set features Alnico 2 magnets in the neck, Alnico 4 magnets in the bridge, and a cloth push-back cable. The raw steel bottom plates of the first 250 sets will be signed by Joe and Seymour W Duncan and will also be aged to match the original set from Joe’s guitar. These sets will be numbered in limited-edition packaging.
After the 250 limited edition sets have sold out, Joe and the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop will offer these pickups as built-to-order models.
For more information, please visit seymourduncan.com.
Introducing Joe Bonamassa's 1950 Broadcaster Set - YouTube
Featuring top-notch converters, real-time UAD DSP processing, and innovative new features like Monitor Correction powered by Sonarworks, Assistive Auto-Gain, and Subwoofer Bass Management.
Features
- Monitor Correction powered by Sonarworks* - Apollo X users can now import Sonarworks SoundID correction profiles directly to ApolloDSP to precisely calibrate their monitors, headphones, and room in real-time for consistent mixes and masters. Available Q4 2024 for Apollo X Gen 1 and Gen 2.
- Assistive Auto-Gain - Fast, one-click level setting across all input channels, including Unison mic preamp emulations from API, Neve, and SSL.
- Subwoofer Bass Management - Add a subwoofer for full-range stereo and surround monitoring, featuring trim, mute, solo, and crossover controls per speaker.
- Alt Monitoring for Surround Modes - New modes for alternate monitoring allow immersive users to easily switch between immersive and stereo monitoring setups.
- Plug-In Scenes - Perfect for using Apollo onstage, Apollo users can instantly change plug-in settings across multiple UAD Console channels manually or via MIDI.
- Gen 2 Thunderbolt rackmount and desktop audio interfaces with HEXA, QUAD, DUO Core DSP plug-in processing
- Elite-class Apollo X | Gen 2 converters with 24-bit / 192 kHz resolution
- Enhanced D/A for critical monitoring and playback with the widest dynamic range and lowest distortion of any Apollo
- Unison mic preamps, Hi-Z instrument inputs, optical Toslink I/O (ADAT or S/PDIF), AESI/O and Dante I/O on select models
- Updated UAD Console app featuring Monitor Correction powered by Sonarworks,*Assistive Auto-Gain, Subwoofer Bass Management, Plug-in Scenes, and more
- Fully-featured monitor controller with alternate speaker switching and integrated talkback for easy communication with talent
- ALT monitoring support in all monitor modes (2 x ALT mon for stereo, 1 x ALT mon for immersive)
- Onboard DSP supports over 200 UAD plug-ins via VST, AU, and AAX 64 formats in all major DAWs
- Includes up to 100+ UAD plug-ins with Essentials+, Studio+ or Ultimate+ Editions
- Compatible with LUNA, Logic Pro, Pro Tools, Cubase, Ableton Live, and more
- Expandable with Thunderbolt Apollo interfaces or select models over Dante
- Free industry-leading technical support from knowledgeable audio engineers
For more information, please visit uaudio.com.
"We believe that the very best audio tools can 'disappear,' and feel like they are simply a part of the creative process," said Bill Putnam, UA founder and CEO. "The new Apollo X interfaces are about pushing that concept further — bringing the best of analog and digital sounds together in a way that's both inspiring and seamless, to let your music take center stage."