Stop Dave ... this fuzz may blow the whole freaking ship apart!
Expansive range of massive to fizzy fuzz tones. Killer studio tool. Top-notch build. Looks awesome.
Clipping options can make gain settings a maze.
$199
Acorn TMA-1
acornamps.com
I’ll admit it: The Kubrick fanatic in me made it impossible to ignore the HAL 9000-inspired Acorn TMA-1. But I would love the sound of this thing if it looked like an egg carton. Acorn calls the TMA-1 a four-stage transistor fuzz, which is generally shorthand for “Big Muff.” The circuit board looks the part. And certainly, the TMA-1’s biggest voice is as brutish as the nastiest Big Muff. But it’s also highly tunable. The tone knob ranges from doomy to garage-psych ’66 sizzly. There are plenty of growly sub-maximum gain settings to work with, and a ton of volume on tap, too.
But the TMA-1 transcends simple big-fat-fuzz status—and earns the right to its near $200 price tag—thanks to its clipping options. The four clipping diodes and two mode switches mean you can select between germanium diode clipping and silicon diode clipping at two different points in the circuit’s gain stage—or opt for a terrifying bypass of the clipping stage entirely that makes the TMA-1 preposterously huge. Clipping options yield a super-wide range of tones that vary drastically in output volume and span textures from fizzy to all-germanium settings that can yield dynamic medium-high-gain overdrive to massiveness that’s best measured in megatons. Construction quality, by the way, is superb inside and out. And if you can overcome fear of the TMA-1 becoming malevolently self-aware, you might never want to turn it off.
Test Gear: Fender Telecaster, Fender Telecaster Deluxe with Curtis Novak Wide Range pickups, Rickenbacker 330, Fender Tremolux, Magnatone Starlite
Slip 'n' slide away with a middy, massive, and gated Muff-style fuzz.
Fat Big Muff-style sounds and powerful tone-sculpting tools that shape more unique fuzz tones. Subtle but musical gate. Practical and amazing-looking slider controls.
Gated sound can be hard to use predictably and won't be music to everyone's ears.
$199
SolidGoldFX Imperiall MkII
solidgoldfx.com
As jaded as I can be about fuzz (I see and hear a lot of them), it's hard to keep from getting giddy about the SolidGoldFX Imperial MkII. With slider controls and a red-on-black color scheme, it's clearly an homage to the early '70s JEN Jumbo Fuzz, a vintage unit I covet not just for its ultra-sick Big Muff-based tones and quirky gate function, but it's jaw-droppingly awesome Italo-sci-fi graphics.
SolidGoldFX couldn't deliver all the visual deliciousness of a JEN Jumbo Fuzz without turning the Imperial MkII into an impractical, space-intensive, and expensive boutique oddity. But what it may lack in authentic vintage style, it makes up for with massive, ripping, and sometimes mangled fuzz that turns the Big Muff formula on its ear and dishes many deviant and super-tough tones.
Fender Telecaster via SolidGoldFX Imperial MKII into black panel Fender Tremolux and Universal Audio OX (with plack panel Deluxe 12-inch cabinet sim) and Universal Audio Apollo Twin and Luna.
Slideways, Here We Come
It's a wonder and a shame that sliding potentiometers aren't used more often in simple effects. Yep, there's a chance that a fair bit of dust, grime, and cheap beer could work their way through those slider slots over time (particularly if you're the kind of weirdo that gravitates toward a fuzz this filthy). But as visual reference for levels on a dark stage, it's hard to beat four bright white lines in parallel orientation. That the slider array looks so bitchin' is a bonus. But so is the ease with which you can make fast, and even musically dynamic, adjustments on the fly, even with your foot. The potential for dirty pots aside, it's an exceptionally practical and flexible design.
Volume, tone, and fuzz controls do what you'd expect. But the Imperial MKII improves upon the Jumbo Fuzz—at least in terms of flexibility—with the addition of a contour control that scoops or bumps the mids. It can profoundly affect the fuzz voice as well as the performance of the dynamic noise gate that makes the Imperial MKII feel and sound so unique.
At the Gates of Fuzz Heaven
The original JEN Jumbo Fuzz was essentially a Big Muff circuit with a few modifications—most notably a germanium noise gate. Similarly, the original Imperial was SolidGoldFX's own version of a 3-knob, 4-transistor Muff.
Predictably, the Imperial MKII exhibits many sonic hallmarks of a Muff. For starters, it's loud—one of the louder Muff-style circuits I've heard in a while. And while it may have the toppier edge of an earlier triangle Big Muff or a Ram's Head, it still has loads of bottom-end ballast to lend a sense of mass. Getting the most recognizable Muff-style tones is a matter of keeping the contour control low, which scoops the mids. The rich, complex sounds found here are awesome for Dinosaur Jr.-style rhythm tones and punky desert-rock chug. And all of these sounds are enhanced by the sometimes subtle, and occasionally very obvious, gate.
If you lower your guitar volume—especially with a neck-position single-coil—you can dish fat and extra-percussive "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" rhythm stabs.
In general, I'm not a big fan of gated fuzz. I like as much sustain as my rig will permit, and most gates feel rude and intrusive, even when they're doing cool things. But the Imperial MkII's gate isn't too intense. On the original Jumbo Fuzz, the germanium gate was added to keep noise to a minimum. But in heavy rhythm applications, the MkII's gate works beautifully as punctuation for palm-muted patterns. It's not too clipped or harsh and it's surprisingly dynamic. If you lower your guitar volume—especially with a neck-position single coil—you can dish fat and extra-percussive "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" rhythm stabs. Place these clipped but substantial textures against a tight drummer, and the results can be devastatingly funky.
The one thing you won't achieve with the Imperial MkII is soaring sustain in the Gilmour vein. Sustained notes sound huge and smooth—until they don't. And if you attempt an operatic two-step bend you will invariably hear your signal collapse upon itself into awkward silence. If endless rivers of sustain are your first priority, there are many Muff-style circuits that will do the job more elegantly.
The Verdict
For a dude that doesn't care much for gated fuzz, I fell head over heels for the Imperial MkII. The contour control and gate totally recast the Big Muff tone formula in fascinating ways. It's powerful, flexible, unexpectedly dynamic, and the slider-based controls are practical and look fantastic. The Imperial MkII is a terrific Big Muff alternative, but it is an outstanding fuzz by any measure that deserves a category of its own.
Two of the most influential pedal builders ever conspire to clone a classic.
Authentic Tone Bender sounds at the friendliest side of the Tone Bender performance envelope. Lots of range and color in level and attack controls. Excellent dynamic response.
There are only 3,000!
$349
Boss Waza Craft TB-2W Tone Bender
boss.info
Other fuzzes may have been first. Others more famous. Some more ferocious (maybe). But none better embody the primal appeal of '60s fuzz better than the Sola Sound Tone Bender MKII.
In the unlikely event you didn't know, the Tone Bender MKII was the fuzz voice of Jimmy Page in the late-period-original-Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin eras—and about a gazillion other garage and psychedelic bands around the world (especially in its Vox-licensed guise). But as popular as the MKII was and remains, it was never the easiest fuzz to wrangle. It sounds and feels explosive and piping hot. It produces hopping-mad treble peaks that love to feed back. And the low-mid and bass output usually fracture, crumble, and blur thrillingly under the weight of high gain.
Yet these facets of the Tone Bender's performance, in aggregate, are also its strengths. And when you have a great one in your chain, you have a seriously expressive tool at your disposal. Which brings us to the Boss Waza Craft TB-2W Tone Bender, a collaboration between Boss and original Tone Bender manufacturer Sola Sound. The TB-2W is a great MKII. And one of its great strengths is the way it consistently operates at the user-friendliest end of the MKII performance envelope. It's one of the most balanced and controlled Tone Benders I've ever played. And it doesn't seem to sacrifice an ounce of attitude to get there.
A Meeting of Fuzz-Melted Minds
In an age of co-branding efforts gone bonkers, it's easy to imagine a project like this gestating in a board room and emerging as more style than substance. But the TB-2W was born from a serendipitous meeting between two bona-fide pedal maniacs: Boss president Yoshi Ikegami and Sola Sound chief Ant Macari. As meetings between circuit fiends tend to do, it led to an intriguing idea: Could Boss build a MKII that honors a MKII's many quirks and idiosyncrasies, and lives up to their own manufacturing standards?
The effort hinged on a reliable source of germanium transistors. (While it's true that some vintage pedals built with a certain transistor type may sound fantastic, most dedicated pedal builders agree that consistent, matched values—rather than brand and vintage—determine a transistor's suitability for a fuzz circuit.) That quest slowed the project. But ultimately, Ikegami and his crew sourced enough to reliably build 3,000 TB-2Ws. They selected a template: Sola Sound MKII No. 500—picked from Ant's own trove of vintage treasures for its smooth-but-nasty essence—and got to work.
It can be tempting to think of '60s fuzz as thin, but the TB-2W is most certainly not.
Turn It Up! Bring the Buzz
The end product satisfies in all the ways a MKII should. For a classic three-germanium-transistor fuzz, it generates copious gain—particularly at the maximum-volume/maximum-gain settings many germanium fuzz users favor. Bridge single-coils sound punky, primal, and substantial. That's ideal for supercharging Stooges riffs or ripping Yardbirds, freakbeat, and proto-metal riffs. (A Telecaster, as Pagey proved, makes a particularly lethal pairing.) Precision in fleet-fingered, high-gain leads yields searing, detailed, even complex individual notes.
It can be tempting to think of '60s fuzz as thin, but the TB-2W is most certainly not. Humbuckers bring out its burlier side. To my ear, they strip some of the air and clarity you hear in the single-coil/TB-2W relationship—especially when playing chords, which is another TB-2W strong suit. But humbuckers also produce smoother, thicker glam and proto-doom tones. They sound massive in detuned settings, or luxurious and sophisticated if you dial back guitar tone and explore wooly David Hidalgo and Cream-era Clapton zones.
Tone Benders aren't as renowned as Fuzz Faces for responsiveness to guitar volume dynamics. But the TB-2W could smash that barrier. The key to getting the best medium-gain, guitar-volume-attenuated tones from the Tone Bender is to reduce the pedal gain a notch along with your guitar volume. At these pedal gain levels, the TB-2W's fuzz is still savage with a capital "S." But nudge back the guitar volume, too, and the TB-2W produces bristling, toppy overdrive tones that add a live-wire edge to Dave Davies-style power-jangle arpeggios and chords. Humbuckers in this environment tend to sound less sparkly and clear, but can still yield exciting, thick mid-gain overdrive and lead tones.
In general, the TB-2W's dynamic range is superb, and I'd venture better than the average MKII. Even more dynamic range comes via the 3-position voltage switch—a Waza Craft series touch that helps emulate the tone variations that come via fading batteries (7V mode), a standard 9V setting, and the higher headroom of a 12-volt setting. The differences can be subtle and often take the form of less- or more-cohesive low-end tones. But at some particularly saturated amp and pedal settings, the 7V level sounds distinctly more chaotic, while the 12V sounds full and better suited to smooth, singing passages.
The Verdict
Boss makes consistently excellent pedals. And there's great reassurance in knowing that such a personal, obsessive quest shared between two tone-fixated pedal freaks was backed by Boss's considerable R&D resources. But none of that would matter much if Boss hadn't so ably nailed the sound, feel, and visceral thrill of a great Tone Bender.
The TB-2W is a very well behaved version of a fuzz that's hard to keep on a leash. That Boss executed it without sacrificing the Tone Bender's feral nature is no small achievement. It's dynamic, responsive, and offers uncommon and varied colors through the range of its controls—even compared to originals and well-built clones. There's no shortage of competition for good Tone Bender clones at $349. And you'll be lucky just to get one of the 3,000 that exist. But for those of you charmed enough, you can rest assured that this Boss homage can hang with some of the best—and then some.Boss Waza Craft TB-2W Tone Bender Demo | First Look
