Frank Naughton of Teaching Machines and Grindle of Life is Unfair Audio Devices - together engineer the most fantastic and expansive 10 billion combination distortion shaper pedal - the FuzzBillion!

Sprung from the mind of Frank Naughton from Teaching Machines - who is hitherto best known for his incredible Wellspring True Analog Stereo Spring Reverb Unit - which goes for £1,250 - magnificent for sure and a great studio tool in particular, but possibly a little large for practical domestic use!

His new device - the ’FuzzBillion’ consists of 11 component / element roulette wheels - with a clever Up/Down selection Mechanic which together deliver 11 billion combinations overall, but probably only 10 billion of those are properly usable!

The device covers off Multi-Clipping Overdrive and Distortion, Octave Fuzz, and Phase Locked Loop Squarewave Fuzz elements - with really smart controls - including Biasing, Clipping Diodes Selections, Capacitor Selections, and dual Tone Controls. It’s truly a fantastic achievement - made practical by my good friend Grindle of Life Is Unfair Audio Devices who engineered the concept into this relatively compact and smartly appointed unit - with those really slick mechanical components. This is obviously an SMT circuit (dual layered I believe) - as otherwise the unit would have been 4 times the size it is now.

It’s for sure a marvel of engineering prowess - and deserves to be celebrated both for Frank’s original prototype, and the sleek production-ready unit that Grindle engineered to perfection. Grindle is fast becoming the go-to secret weapon for so many different electronics companies - where he also perfected the recent Stylophone Theremin - which is still on my wishlist.

The FuzzBillion is not a particularly affordable device at £435 - but I feel that’s actually really good value for the degree of engineering prowess that has gone into making this device a reality. I love seeing these kinds of pedals - it’s slightly reminiscent for me of the Joe Gore Gross Distortion - which has 2 x 12 combination wheels of different diodes - for a total of 156 combinations - so like a very junior version of the FuzzBillion - really just a tiny fraction of what that’s capable of.

The FuzzBillion takes you from Boost to Overdrive, to Distortion and onto various Fuzz Voicings - including Octave Fuzz and Squarewave Phase Locked Loop - it’s an absolutely fantastic device - and I really really want one!

The circuit is built up from left to right - so it’s kind of a truly expansive breadboarding device on rails - but with more combinations than you could ever hope to get.

The topology is relatively straight forward - while there are nuances within each Control Wheel - where one Wheel can target various different parts of the circuit - but via a common set of components typically.

The Blue Sky thinking that has gone into the creation of this device is next level - it deserves to do really well - while it will likely be too much for some. For me though an absolutely perfect device!

Controls - Boost, Gain / OpAmp Gain, Peak Waveform Clipping, Through (Dip) Waveform Clipping, Tilt Tone Control, Fuzz Octave Gain, Fuzz Octave Blend (Mix), PLL Phase Locked Loop Squarewave Fuzz, Bias Controls, Output Clipping, Moving Single Pole Filter High Cut, Volume.

Each of those control Wheels ranges from 0 (Bypass) to 9 - often with ’5’ as a neutral stage.

There is a button / switch near the bottom of the right edge of the pedal - which switches between Guitar and Line Input. It has conventional TS Input and Output jacks - and takes 9V DC [-] current - while there is no manual yet and therefore no technical details / specs. I would love to see the inside of this pedal!

The FuzzBillion is currently available for preorders on the Teaching Machines Website. I’m going to try to snag one of these as quickly as possible - while I already have several commitments for this month, and into early November! I for one love that a pedal like this exists - props to Frank and Grindle for making this a reality!

Actually - note that the price is even higher - as you will need to add VAT to the £435 - which with the £10 UK Delivery Charge - brings you to a somewhat lofty £532.