One of the furriest, foxiest fuzz machines ever is reborn in a compact and more capable incarnation.
RatingsPros:Rich, sonorous basic fuzz tones. Controlled but nasty octave effects. Footswitchable octave. Mid-boost option. Cons: A few bucks on the spendy side relative to the competition. Footswitches close together. Street: $199 Danelectro 3699 Fuzz danelectro.com | Tones:  Ease of Use: Build/Design:  Value: |
I’ve played original Foxx Tone Machines through big amplifiers a few times, and I can still feel those sounds reverberating in my gut. What I remember best was how throaty and massive the fuzz sounded—even before you activated the eye-watering octave-up function.
Danelectro’s new take on the Tone Machine, the 3699, has an interesting pedigree, because Danelectro is now owned by Steve Ridinger, the man who shepherded the original Tone Machine into existence in 1971. But Danelectro clearly didn’t rely on pedigree in executing this design. It’s burly, refined, sounds authentically vintage, and hits me with a wallop in the same spot where those originals left beautiful scars years ago.
Cut You Down to Size
The original Tone Machine was an odd bird. For starters, the enclosure was literally fuzzy. It was also big and curiously configured—with side-mounted knobs and an octave toggle, and a single, lonely footswitch on top. The 3699 reduces the footprint of the original. But it also adds two features that did not appear on the Tone Machine: a dedicated footswitch for the octave effect and a toggle that switches between the standard fuzz voice and a more mid-forward mode.
The 3699’s footswitches are close together—less than 1 1/2" on center—so you have to take care not to bypass the pedal entirely when selecting the octave. But the footswitch is a practical improvement over the toggle that performed the same function on the original. Elsewhere, output volume, fuzz, and tone controls are straight-ahead and self explanatory.
Brings the Boom
Though the 3699 is an octave fuzz, you’re just as likely to fall hard for the fundamental fuzz tone sans octave. It’s more than a little reminiscent of a Big Muff, with a compressed foghorn-like attack, honey-smooth sustain, and enough sting and definition on top to create perceptible string-to-string separation. Full chords sound surprisingly articulate.
As with many hot silicon fuzzes, you can’t readily transform the 3699 into an overdrive with guitar volume attenuation. It’s fuzzy down at the lowest ranges of its gain, and just gets more menacing and bright as you add gain. But you can coax dank, swampy, and complex sounds that bridge overdrive and fuzz by attenuating guitar tone and volume—achieving settings that can make a Telecaster sound like a Les Paul neck humbucker driving a tweed Deluxe. The tone control is the more effective means of re-shaping the fuzz’s personality, and there are many shades of buzz—from smoky and blunted to searing and metallic.
The octave effect itself dovetails beautifully with the fundamental tones. And at times the shift between straight fuzz and octave fuzz at lower tone and gain levels can be surprisingly subdued. On the other hand, the 3699 octave fuzz can generate punchy, harmonically whole, and sustain-rich chords, where other octave fuzzes collapse into chaos. Conjuring the most intense octave sounds is typically a function of adding top end, and there is plenty of range in the tone control to transform your tone from hazy to hair-singeing. At these higher-end tone levels, the 3699 retains its essential cohesiveness, but takes on an absolutely manic edge. Playing lead lines against droning strings at the 10th fret or higher can even create clanging ring modulated sounds.
The Verdict
The 3699 won’t back you into a creative corner. The fundamental fuzz sounds so good that you might make it your number one. And with the octave in the mix, it’s softer around the edges—even at extreme gain and tone settings—than other Tone Machine clones I’ve heard. To me that’s a good thing. It lends the 3699 a more controlled and predictable feel without surrendering its most feral side—almost as if you were sending your guitar via direct injection to a desk and cranking the gain on the console. To call the 3699 completely civilized might be a reach. At many settings, it can be downright thuggish. But its range of tones add up a multitude of musical options—making it one of the most flexible octave fuzzes you’ll ever play.
Watch John Bohlinger test drive the Danelectro 3699 Octave Fuzz.
It can strain the brain, but this incredibly flexible (and fun) harmonic trem stands out in a multitude of modulated ways. The PG Anasounds Ages review.
Recorded using a Telecaster with Curtis Novak Tele-V and JM-V pickups into a silver-panel Fender Vibro Champ with a Warehouse G8C miked with a Royer R-121 feeding an Audient iD44 going into GarageBand with no EQ-ing, compression, or effects.
Clip 1: Bridge and neck pickup, first with Ages bypassed, then engaged with out at 3 o’clock, depth at noon, and tone at 10 o’clock.
Clip 2: Neck pickup, first with Ages bypassed, then engaged (with triple-cosine waveform selected) in envelope-controlled rate mode, then envelope-controlled depth mode, with out at 4 o’clock, depth at max, and tone at 3 o’clock.
RatingsPros:Lots of lovely tones. Very flexible for its size. Cool attack-sensitive modes. Cons: Can be time-consuming to dial preferred internal settings. No expression-pedal jack. Manual and control labels could be clearer. Street: $250 Anasounds Ages anasounds.com | Tones:  Ease of Use:  Build/Design: Value: |
The term “harmonic tremolo” is almost a misnomer. Most classic tremolo sounds come from amps using a light-dependent optocoupler or either power- or preamp-tube bias shifting to modulate the volume of your guitar signal. But the harmonic effect popularized by 1960s Fender brown-panel amps splits your signal in two—bass and treble—and modulates them in opposition to each other. The net effect—typically colored with grit from the three 12AX7s used to drive it—often sounds more like pitch shift than other tremolo types. Magnatone’s famous vibrato, which is often lumped in the harmonic tremolo category, uses phasing and filters to achieve a similar pitch-shifting modulation effect.
French outfit Anasounds’ new take on harmonic tremolo is the deceptively simple-looking Ages. Even more ambitious than its innovative and pedalboard-friendly Element spring reverb, it packs a host of options into an enclosure with just four knobs, a 3-way toggle, and two footswitches.
Tweaky or Freaky?
Depending on your proclivities, Ages’ controls might seem ingeniously streamlined or a test of your cranial recall capabilities. Because although the basic functions of controls—tap/osc(illation) and bypass footswitches, the mode toggle, and out (effect gain), tone, depth, and subdivisions knobs—are mostly grok-able by name, several hidden options lurk within.
For starters, if you hold down the bypass footswitch for two seconds, the tri-color LED turns from either blinking red (bypassed) or white (engaged) to blue, indicating you’re in “trimpot mode” (which, as we’ll see, is somewhat confusingly named). Trimpot mode enables control of several parameters, including two favorite—and rarely encountered—features in a tremolo pedal: attack-sensitive rate and depth modes. Here, the tone knob becomes an envelope control governing either rate or depth of the effect (depending on the mode you select with the toggle).
If you turn the tone/envelope control left from noon, rate or depth decreases with greater pick intensity. If you turn clockwise from noon, rate or depth increases with greater pick intensity. Meanwhile, in trimpot mode, the depth dial works hand in hand with tone/envelope—becoming a threshold control for the rate- or depth-ramping effect. Lastly, trimpot mode can repurpose the toggle and subdivision knob so you can select one of seven different LFO waveforms (sine, rising-ramp, falling-ramp, square, polynomial, double cosine, and triple cosine). Once you’ve set the waveform, envelope, and threshold, you tap the bypass toggle to save them, then re-position the knobs and toggle to your desired depth, tone, and mode settings.
Dizzy yet? Hold on, because we haven’t even talked about the actual trimpots—oh, and the DIP switches! Be prepared to crack open Ages because, depending on your pickups, these controls could be the difference between loving your Anasounds and not. Two trim pots fine-tune the tone knob by increasing or reducing the range of available treble and bass gain. Two more trim pots govern the minimum and maximum amplitude (range) of the LFOs. And two DIP switches toggle between preset frequency-filter points for the bass LFO, and the treble LFO.
The Verdict
The Anasounds Ages can do so much that it’s hard to cover it all here. At its core, it serves up lush, inspiring harmonic trem sounds with way more control than any vintage amp. But it’s not without its quirks/frustrations: There’s no expression input, yet there’s a mini jack for connecting the company’s magnetic-sensor Spinner product ($140 street). I give Anasounds creative points for thinking outside the box, but this exclusion feels like you’re being nudged toward a proprietary additional purchase with very limited applicability (Spinner currently only works with one other Anasounds pedal). That said, the Ages’ ability to shape tones—deliciously nasty, tweed-style dirt, with a cool cocked-wah EQ curve, for instance—while offering powerful dynamic control options, make it a unique-sounding tremolo powerhouse.
A positively luxurious stomp nails the liquid textures of brown-panel Deluxe bias tremolo.
Top-shelf quality. Immersive, liquid, trem' textures that meld seamlessly with guitar and amp tones. Elegantly simple but capable control set.
Expensive.
$430
Origin Effects Deluxe61 Bias Tremolo
origineffects.com
Editor's note: Deluxe61 Amp Tremolo & Drive is the updated name of the Origin Effects pedal that debuted under the name REVIVALTrem.
Some gear nerd debates get pretty pointless. Disputing the merits of different op-amps in two late-model RATs? Maybe that time would be better spent practicing. But tremolo circuits are another matter. The differences between bias, optical, and harmonic tremolo can be audible and profound. Each has its merits and champions. But in terms of soul and musical utility, it's hard to beat bias tremolo's soft, contoured pulses and mellow-to-throbbing range.
Origin Effects' all-analog Deluxe61 is based on the power tube bias tremolo from the brown-panel Fender Deluxe—a circuit many players regard as the silkiest ever built. Authentically reproducing such a circuit is no task for the timid. Then again, Origin made its name reproducing the topology and performance of the legendary UREI 1176 studio compressor in stompbox form. So it's no surprise they would tackle an effect so nuanced and full of sonic intangibles. What's impressive is how the Deluxe61 nails those elusive, intoxicating bias tremolo colors.
Wave-Riding Luxury Liner
If you love the sense of craft that goes missing in much modern technology, the Deluxe61 will be a treat. It's built almost absurdly well by stompbox standards. Ever wondered what the Rolls-Royce of pedals looks and feels like? This is certainly a contender.
A two-tiered circuit board accommodates the many high-quality components that make up the modulation and drive circuits. (The latter is derived from the company's excellent Revival Drive.) Soft-relay footswitches and jacks are all chassis-mounted independent of the circuit boards. The enclosure feels close to bulletproof. Clearly, the Deluxe61 was built for heavy touring and meant to be serviced in the unlikely event a component fails.
The control set is smart, logical, and simple in practice. Even the two footswitches, which cleverly enable operation of the drive channel independent of the tremolo, are thoughtfully situated toward the outboard reaches of the enclosure—reducing the risk of hitting both switches simultaneously.
There may be more radical tremolos, but few achieve such musical seamlessness.
Watery Wobbles
In some respects, it's easy to characterize the modulations the Deluxe61 produces. They're exceptionally smooth, liquid, and very dreamy. But they are also beguilingly complex. Some stronger settings subtly suggest pitch shifting and phasing without suffering the dynamic penalties those effects can incur—a remarkable bit of sonic trickery. A/B'd against the optical tremolo in a recent-vintage '65 Twin Reverb reissue, the Origin is clearly more complex and watery, its undulations less binary and harsh, and its effects on picking dynamics less intense. Compared to a near-50 year old Vibro Champ that utilizes a preamp-bias tremolo circuit, the Origin nails the very best of the vintage amp's sounds and responsiveness, but sounds richer and offers much more expansive fine-tuning range in the pots.
There are trade-offs for all this intoxicating aqueousness. The Deluxe61's most intense modulations might not be intense enough for players that like the hard pulses of a Vox Repeater circuit or the angular textures of an optical black-panel Fender tremolo. Nor does the Deluxe61 get as woozy as a Magnatone-style circuit (a harmonic tremolo to which brown-panel Deluxe tremolo is often likened). But the payoff is clarity and presence that makes nuanced, complex, and melodic musical passages sound perfectly interwoven with the modulations. There may be more radical tremolos, but few achieve such musical seamlessness.
Then there's the versatility afforded by the extra modulation and drive controls. The 3-position "multi" toggle significantly extends the range of the speed control, enabling super-fast flutters amp trem' can't deliver and giving expressive fodder to experimental tremolo fans. Another toggle activates a harder, almost triangle-shaped wave to generate more intense modulations. The post-drive EQ switch is invaluable for making the effect more subdued or pronounced when switching between dark and bright amps or pickups, but also offers a flatter-response option if you want to route directly to a recording interface or a desk. The drive channel, meanwhile, is delicious—generating sweet and malleable low-to mid-gain drive and body that you may never want to remove from your tone equation, tremolo or not.
The Verdict
The Deluxe61 is expensive at 430 bucks. But the quality is absolutely top shelf and the sounds are, too. What's more, you can enjoy the benefits of bias trem without the extra wear and tear that bias trem circuits inevitably inflict on your tubes. If you're on the fence, perhaps those cost savings can help justify luxuriating in this pedal's priceless tones.
Origin Effects Deluxe61 Tremolo & Drive Demo | First Look
[Updated 10/6/21]
