A Godzilla-sized bass octave fuzz that is capable of doomy devastationāor more nuanced sounds that fit in mellow, organic musical settings.
Surprising selection of hazy, subtle bass-drive tones that transcend doom and desert rock.
Interactive controls can make some tones elusive when fine-tuning on the fly.
$129
Electro-Harmonix Lizard King Bass Octave Fuzz
ehx.com
Bass octave-fuzz effects arenāt typically for the timid. And as its name suggests, theEHX Lizard King largely trades in Godzilla-huge, cityscape-leveling sounds that lift bassists above Bonham-aping drummers and desert-rock guitar players that donāt have to answer to the neighbors. But there are shades of low end beyond simply menacing in the Lizard King.
Electro-Harmonix Lizard King Review by premierguitar
A big part of that flexibility starts with the sun/shadow switch. Sun mode features a mid-boosted fuzz bookended by enhanced treble and bass in the clean side of the blend. The shadow mode features flat bass and treble response and a much tighter fuzz. Each mode can be radically reshaped by the octave, blend, and tone controls, which, in various configurations, span warm overdrive with a little fuzz and fizz, glowing at the edges and thuggish realms. Many of the tones in the latter range are predictably chaotic, belching strange, colliding overtones that can sound quite tattered at more aggressive blend, tone, and octave settingsāespecially when you play down low on the neck. The same tones can be tightened up by playing in higher positions and especially at the 12th fret and above. The most cohesive of these tones can sound devastating while doubling, say, an SG and a Big Muff. But using subtler, hazier, and more modest octave fuzz textures can provide hip juxtaposition to mellower sounds from acoustic guitar to electric piano and synth string ensembles.
Electro-Harmonix Lizard King Octave Fuzz Pedal
Small Supro-inspired simplicity leads to growling, raunchy, bad-attitude drive tones and lead sounds with venom.
Dynamically responsive. Sounds a lot like a little amp made enormous when used with bigger amplifiers. Great build quality.
Some players wonāt dig the midrange focus here.
$215
Skreddy Skunk
skreddypedals.com
Most of the pedals I play that are built by Skreddyās Marc Ahlfs feel like the product of a lot of deep listening and diligent research. They always seem to go a layer deeperāmore detail, more authentic, and just more moving when you plug in and play loud. That certainly goes for the new Skunk Drive Model 1606, a simple, straight-ahead stomp designed to add vintage small-Supro sounds and dynamics to a playerās crayon box. Skunk nails a sort of sound, feel, and responsiveness that strongly evokes Supros and other low-wattage classics. And it can transform the sound of a high-headroom amp while retaining a very organic sense of touch.
Airship Inspirations
If youāre familiar with Skreddyās work, youāll know Marc Ahlfs has an affinity for old-school stomps and the players that made them famous. A few of his fuzzes are revered by the David Gilmour cult. His Little Miss Sunshine is as enveloping as any Phase 90-inspired pedal youāll ever play. And his love of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, among others, inspires fantastic Fuzz Face- and Tone Bender-style stomps that effectively enhance and expand upon the potential of those platforms. The Skunk is, at least in part, another product of Ahlfsā affinity for Jimmy Pageāspecifically Pageyās dalliance with a Supro, and, quite probably, a Solo Tone Bender, on Led Zeppelin I. To many Zepā fans (this author included), those tones are at least tied for Pageyās most-bitchinā-ever sounds. There are many such textures hiding in the Skunk. But Zepā tones are not the whole ball of wax here.
As is typical for a Skreddy pedal, the Skunk, which is fitted into a pretty gold-finished 1590B enclosure, is a tidy piece of pedal manufacturing. The circuit is made up of a fairly modest number of components, but they are arranged on a through-hole board with plenty of space between them. Skreddy will repair any pedal that malfunctions due to defects for three years. The build quality I see here suggests thatās unlikely. But if it happens, servicing the pedal should be no sweat.
Rippinā with Le Pew
For most of the time I spent with the Skunk, I had it hooked up to an old black-panel Fender Vibrolux Reverb. I mention this because my Vibrolux is an especially āsurfyā specimen. Itās clean and sparkly, the reverb is deep and splashy, and the treble will rip your head off if youāre not careful. In many respects, itās the antithesis of the kind of amp the Skunk is built to approximate. And what impresses in this configuration is the Skunkās ability to transform the sound and feel of an amp like my Vibrolux without sounding or feeling like you splashed a cheap coat of paint over your direct tone. Most overdriven sounds have an organic, natural aggression. And though the pedal creates a vivid illusion of a small amp, which flips the character of your amp completely, in a dynamic sense it feels seamlessly integrated with the amplifier on the receiving end. The Skunk doesnāt seem to rob the amp of its intrinsic energy, like some overdrives willāeven though it adds a pretty squishy, almost tweed-like helping of compression to the base tone. It retains responsiveness to guitar volume attenuation and can essentially approximate the clean bypassed sound of the amp (save for loss of a little top-end zing) with a just-right reduction in instrument volume. The Skunk excels at clean-boost tasks, too, with the gain low and the output volume up high, adding a little midrange focus, but never clouding over an ampās essence. At the other end of the gain range, the Skunk flirts with near-fuzz sounds that brim with delectable raunch.
āThough the pedal creates a vivid illusion of a small amp, which flips the character of your amp completely, in a dynamic sense it feels seamlessly integrated with the amplifier on the receiving end.ā
The pedalās midrange emphasis wonāt float everyoneās boat. Depending on the Skunkās settings, and the pickups driving it, it can sound a bit honky and filtered, not unlike a cocked wah at some settings. (Check out āCommunication Breakdownā for reference to hear what Iām talking about.) Depending on your affinity for these types of colors, the tone profile could sound narrow at first. But the midrange emphasis does not obscure clarity. The first and second strings snap and pop with authority and definition that adds heat to leads, and you hear very nice balance between strings in chording situations. Incidentally, situating a Tone Bender fuzz before the Skunk, in true Led Zeppelin I style, generates amazing nastiness. Again, the midrange focus in these sounds wonāt be everyoneās idea of fuzz perfection, but they will stand out in a mix like Wilt Chamberlain in a third-grade-class picture. Personally, they left me giddy.
The Verdict
Even though it delivers the surprise of awesome clean-boost tones. Itās not transparent, and it will shift the voice of a louder amp noticeably and profoundly. But in the process, it really does create the picture of a little amp writ large. How this sound aligns with your tone ideals will be very personal, and you should consider my tone score here as very subjective. If you dig Jimmy Page, Mick Ronson, and other sprouts from the glam, punk, and raw, electric Mississippi blues vines, youāll find a lot to love here. But any guitarist keen to carve out a distinct, visceral place in an ensemble or mix could well find the Skreddy Skunk invaluable.
The passive treble and bass control wiring.
Want more tone control from your guitar? A passive 2-band EQ might be the solution youāre looking for.
Hello and welcome back to Mod Garage. In past columns, weāve discussed improving passive tone controls by doing things like changing tone caps (smaller capacitance for a āwarmth controlā), using different tapers and pot resistance values, installing treble-bleed circuits, etc. But letās take it one step further, this time converting traditional passive tone control into a kind of double-EQ control set.
In general, you canāt increase anything with passive electronics. But you can reshape the tone by de-emphasizing certain frequencies, making others more prominent. Removing highs makes lows more apparent and vice versa. In addition, the use of inductors (which is what a pickup behaves like in a guitar circuit) and capacitors will create resonant peaks and valleys (bandpass and notch), further coloring the overall tone. Some people like this interaction, while others donāt, but it is all relative and it all works at unity gain.
As is often the case when we talk about guitar innovations, Leo Fender created a passive 2-band control that is used on various models of G&L guitarsānotably the S-500, Legacy, and Comanche. This is called the P.T.B. tone control, which stands for āpassive treble and bassā (sometimes also referred to as āpassive 2-band tone controlā). G&L calls the P.T.B. feature ādramatically more effective than a standard tone control. Treble and bass frequencies can be separately cut with this exclusive passive style circuitry.ā
So how does this system work? You have two tone controls in your guitar: One is for treble and the other one for bass, similar to what you can often find on guitar amps. The treble control acts like the standard tone control you know from all your electric guitars. When you turn it down, it cuts some treble, making the tone warmer. The bass control does exactly the opposite, cutting bass frequencies, which is a great option to shape the tone. The latter is sometimes referred to as āclarity controlā because removing some bass will clean up the tone noticeably, bringing back some airiness and dynamics. This is an especially great feature when you play heavy distortion, giving you the ability to prevent muddiness.
Leo Fenderās original design used a 250k audio volume pot, a 500k audio treble control, and a 1M reverse audio control for bass. This was a really clever and well-chosen combination that will work with humbuckers as well as single-coil pickups. Later on, the configuration was changed to three 500k audio controls and an additional 200 pF ācap onlyā treble-bleed circuit between the input and output of the volume pot. I think the configuration changed because of economic reasons, but also maybe because reverse audio pots are easily available but usually not always in guitar-friendly dimensions. Anyway, itās up to you what configuration you want to use, and there is no law against creating a custom one, like 250k volume + 2x 500k for P.T.B., which is cool for single-coil equipped guitars.
āThis is an especially great feature when you play heavy distortion, giving you the ability to prevent muddiness.ā
The original design for the tone caps was:
Treble control: 0.022 Ī¼F, which is pretty much standard even today. Weāve talked about this several times in past columns, so feel free to choose the capacitance you like best. A larger value like 0.033 Ī¼F or 0.047 Ī¼F will cut more treble, while a smaller value like 0.015 Ī¼F or 0.01 Ī¼F will cut less treble.
Bass control: 0.0022 Ī¼F (2200 pF). Donāt make a decimal error and mix this up with the 0.022 Ī¼F from the treble control. The bass cap is another field of experimentation to fine-tune your tone, but here it works in the opposite direction compared to the treble control: the smaller the cap, the greater the bass cut. So if the stock 0.0022 Ī¼F cap cuts too much bass, step up to a 0.0033 Ī¼F or even 0.0047 Ī¼F cap.
Naturally, the Stratocaster comes to mind when thinking about this mod because it has the three knobs you need and itās easy to convert. But in general, you can add the P.T.B. to any passive guitar with at least three pots. If you want to use it in a guitar with only two pots, which is usually master volume and master tone, you can substitute the tone control with a stacked pot, which is two pots using the space of only one. In a Gibson-style guitar with four controls, it can be reconfigured to something such as two volume controls (one for each pickup) + P.T.B., so there are plenty of options.
Iāve shown the wiring as a general wiring that is not for a specific guitar. The hot input wire is usually coming from your pickup selector switch and depends on the guitar and the switch that is used. The wiring shows the now standard P.T.B. version using three pots with a standard audio taper. I left out the treble-bleed circuit for better clarity. If you want to add it, solder it between the input and output lugs of the volume pot. So, here we go (see drawing above):
When using a bass-cut pot with a reverse audio taper, the wiring on the pot has to be changed slightly. Instead of connecting the cap to lugs #2 and #1, it has to be connected to lugs #3 and #2, and the blue wire now connects to lug #3 instead of lug #1. The rest of the wiring stays exactly the same.
Thatās it! Next month, we will talk about the German Hofner control panel from the early ā60s that was used on the famous Beatle bass, but also on a lot of their guitars, so stay tuned!
Until then ... keep on modding!
