Drunk Beaver further improves and shrinks its Ivan Mazepa Soviet Poltava Fuzz-Wah take - now in MK2 Compact Edition

Jul 10, 202617:00 by

Stefan Karlsson

Big Muff Style FuzzDrunk BeaverFuzzGermanium FuzzSilicon Fuzz+-

The Ivan Mazepa 2 takes Drunk Beaver’s celebrated 2022 tribute to the fuzz section of the rare Soviet Poltava Fuzz-Wah (1975) and packs it into a pedalboard-friendly 125B enclosure — roughly half the size of the previos 1590BB version. Entirely distinct from classic Western circuits like the Fuzz Face, Tone Bender, or Fuzz-Tone, this unique hybrid design utilizes NOS vintage Soviet transistors (Silicon KT315B and Germanium GT310B) paired with low-noise modern components to deliver an unmistakable Eastern Bloc character.

While preserving the switchable Big Muff-style tone stack, which makes this pedal an absolute beast on bass guitar, version 2 radically expands the circuit’s capabilities.

Vitalii has significantly extended both the gain and bias ranges, allowing you to venture beyond smooth, vintage saturation and dive headfirst into sputtering, velcro-like, and gated ’broken’ fuzz territory. Paired with carefully refined EQ tweaks, the Ivan Mazepa 2 delivers an incredibly versatile, highly expressive fuzz experience in a compact, modern package.

CONTROLS

Level - adjusts the overall output volume, offering plenty of headroom on tap above unity gain
Fuzz - controls the amount of saturation, from smooth, light fuzz to heavy distortion
Tone - balances the low and high frequencies
Bias - alters the fuzz character, ranging from classic sustain to sputtering, gated velcro tones
Tone stack toggle - switches between the classic Poltava voicing and a heavier, Big Muff-style EQ

For my preferences each of the modes requires slightly different Tone and Bias settings otherwise everything else works well at 3 o'c. And you get decent enough guitar volume cleanup - not Fuzz Face levels, but enough to temper the gain level quite significantly - works surprisingly well for me!

Preferred Poltava Settings : Tone @ 3 o'c, Level @ 3 o'c, Bias @ Max, Fuzz @ 3 o'c.
Preferred Muff Settings : Tone @ 4 o'c, Level @ 3 o'c, Bias @ 1 o'c, Fuzz @ 3 o'c.

Note that I detected some input sensitivity with this pedal - it's been positioned on 3 different slots in my rig - and works by far the best towards the front of the chain - on Slot #5. It sounds absolutely killer there! But a little more diminished further downstream.

The Poltava voicing is very unique - sort of brighter and slightly clangy sounding - very distinct from any other fuzz.

While the Muff voicing is Doomy Heavyweight territory - pretty much thunderous really. I quite like the Poltava voicing, while I totally love the Muff voicing here - it has a lot of low-end mass - and its impact is geological in its enormity!

I've been really impressed with this recent Drunk Beaver Ivan Mazepa 2 release - it's blisteringly good! And the recent Pedal Drop #40 the Druzhkivka Grunge is incredible too - only one of those gems remains as of my writing this, while the Ivan Mazepa 2 is on general release now!

The Ivan Mazepa 2 Dual-Voice Fuzz goes for $175 / €175 / 649 PLN on the Drunk Beaver Rocks Webstore - which equates to around £150. Both those recent Drunk Beaver releases are must-haves for me. You need to be quick if you want to snag the last Druzhkivka Grunge - while the Ivan Mazepa 2 should be around for quite a number of years!