Calling on all Shoegazers and Tone Chasers - please support our campaign to revive the Blakemore Effects Deus Ex Machina Fuzz
It’s still fairly early days for gathering support for the Deus Ex Machina revival - while we’ve gathered some more details along the way. Michigan native Mike Newman got in touch with both Bob Guido and myself - he’s the owner of Deus Ex Machina #139 - which seems to indicate that there were around 150-200 of these made overall as estimated. Mike acquired his from Motor City Guitar - whose 2012 social media post announced :
"Introducing Blakemore Effects! Built right here in the Metro Detroit area, The Mustang and Deus Ex Machina are some of the top dogs in MCG pedal land! Check out more at http:blakemoreeffects.com".
The ’built right here’ statement clashes slightly with other sources - including Blake Hickey’s own LinkedIn account which states that Blakemore Effects was based in Nashville, Tennessee - possibly Blake moved around somewhat more than the official records indicate.
In any case Mike shared a number of interior photos / gutshots including the main one shared here - which has given us further insights, and the ability to mostly determine the key components used in the construction of this circuit.
The circuit is centred around 3 Opamps - presumable one each for the main circuit functions. A JRC 4558D in the centre, LM833N to the left, and looks like an LM741CM on the right.
The circuit looks like it further has 6 x 1N914 Silicon Diodes, 19 Capacitors, and 27 resistors - overall 55 components in total - this compares with Kit Rae’s quoted typical 46 components for a Big Muff circuit - where this one obviously has 2 additional controls and therefore a few more components in the mix.
We already mentioned that the Deus Ex Machina has the most wonderful searing tones - somewhere between a top-boosted Brian May solo and a MKIII Tone Bender. We didn't really touch much on how popular this pedal is with Shoegazers - of course because of that self same gorgeous texture - but also of course the Clean Blend control which allows you to blend Reverb into the front of the pedal for a stellar Shoegaze tone.
I think there are broadly two camps of supporters for this pedal - the more conventional fuzz fans like myself and Henry Kaiser, and the Shoegaze crowd - including Bob Guido - that will mostly be pushing Reverb into the front of the pedal.
In the previous post I solely focused on the superb Brett Kingman demo - while here I will provide some broader references that support this pedal's wider appeal.
The aim is to gather more support this week - and at the end I will initiate contact with Blake via his blakemoreeffects@gmail.com email and then via his LinkedIn account if required. The more support we can gather the better the chances of getting this pedal back into production one way or another!
Demos
12 Degrees of Saturation 2023 Compact Edition
