Bolt & Forge's Ol'Ephraim Germanium Sustainer evokes the spirit of early 70's fuzz-tinged rock
Whenever I review a pedal I always try to get into the soul of the pedal to figure out what its core central voicing and range is - and where it sits within the pantheon of guitar effects. I don’t always 100% get it right - in fact on the odd occasion I can get hold of quite the wrong end of the stick as such.
It took a couple of conversation with Bolt & Forge creator, engineer and journalist Jason Lilly - to pinpoint the very essence of the pedal. He states he was simply developing an open plan circuit which would deliver superior harmonic and fuzz-like gain - without any specific preconceptions or targets / signature sounds in mind.
While once he had evolved this unique circuit - and while playing in the middle of the fretboard - he was immediately reminded of the Rod Stewart and Ronnie Woods - Faces 1971 hit single ’Stay with Me’ - funnily their only major US hit. And I have to admit that the upper fret action produces eerily similar tones and timbres to that fuzz-edged 70’s rock. Interestingly the lower down the fretboard you go - the heavier and denser the sound becomes - so that on lower string cowboy chords - it’s really quite bass-heavy. But higher up it rings out pretty bright and sparkly - with plenty of that rock’n’roll rasp - and particular on double stops.
Jason equates it with a cranked small speaker amp sound - while for that song Ronnie was actually playing a custom PAF-loaded Zemaitis guitar - into a 100 Watt Hiwatt DR103. I’ve included a live version video at the end of the demos below as that is such an apt benchmark for the sound of this pedal.
Populating PCBs
Controls - Volume, Sustain, Tone.
To achieve that same sort of tonality on my humbucker-loaded guitar I have Volume, Sustain and Tone all marvellously symmetrically set to 3 o'c each. While when I'm playing across the fretboard - and more on the lower strings and lower notes - then I occasionally kick in a slight Bass-cut.
The overall pedal's tone profile reminds me a touch of how the ThorpyFX Dane, Vemuram Michael Landau Butter Machine, and TWA Scott Henderson SH9 signature pedals are optimised for single coil guitars - and generally I think over the whole fretboard the Ol'Ephraim leans slightly more into single coils - but I was relatively easily able to reproduce those 'Stay with Me' tones with my humbucker guitar - so there is a decent degree of versatility there.
In terms of gain range - it certainly hits the Medium Gain mark - while if you turn the Sustain to its peak it gets increasingly compressed and more sticky. It's about optimal for me between 2 and 3 o'c. I also experience a degree of sensitivity with the pedal when placed further down the signal chain - so for my rig it seems to prefer to be slightly closer to the front of the chain.
In the middle of the fretboard it sounds particularly killer - and very much along the lines of those Stay with me Riffs - a really smartly engineered pedal for sure!
The Ol'Ephraim Germanium Sustainer is available for order from the Bolt & Forge Webstore for $249.99.
These Bolt & Forge pedals really need to be seen up close and personal to witness just how much attention to detail Jason has put into his pedals. The builds are immaculate inside and out - and no! - those are not footswitch toppers as I first presumed but very unique high tensile steel industrial machinery switches - with a lovely short-throw soft-clicking sort of haptic action. I also love the three facia plates which carry the graphics and legends - Top, Front and Rear of the enclosure. Those plates are made of a fantastic textured hardwearing signage material that responds very well to engraving - delivering consistently precise and crisp results. And the enclosure is rounded off by a most elegant Dark Gold Sparkle paint job further embellished by Amber Lightning Bolt shaped LED.
And while for many of us Jason kind of just appeared overnight - he's actually been building pedals for over 17 years. The Bolt & Forge branding is supposed to evoke a fully hands-on frontier town blacksmith's forge - where all is wrought in a most fastidious and journeyman craftsmanlike manner.
Jason has given me a fantastic glimpse into his world - where I witnessed prototypes and previous editions of his current quartet / quadrilogy - and several other pedals besides. Both Jason and I share a love for complex harmonics - and I believe the next project across his anvil will be some sort of really expressive fuzz - of course done the Jason Lilly way!
All of Jason's pedals are pretty unique - where he goes out of his way to always deliver something properly distinct and unique - which while it may loosely dovetail into other genre types on occasion - those pedals of his will forever still mostly be doing their own thing. This is a great new properly innovative and super high quality brand - which really deserved to do well!
Demos & References
12 Degrees of Saturation 2023 Compact Edition
