Xploration • Curation • Recommendation
I picked up my favourite ever Hello Sailor Effects Pedal to-date at the Birmingham Guitar Show - a Pink Sparkle Rebel Leia Fuzz-Ranger
Joe has kind of taken a leaf out of the Sof from Expresso FX playbook with his latest Fuzz-Ranger pedal. His new pedal is a touch inspired by Sof’s typical mid-size offerings, which combine a lot of features within the same enclosure - and typically offer up different Transistor selections.
Here we have an Abbey Road Fuzz (-Face) on the right hand side of the pedal - with Volume, Gain, and 3-way EQ controls. Where the left side of the pedal consists of a 2-way Germanium or Silicon RangeMaster with Range / EQ and Boost controls.
Onboard you have wholly killer components - as you can see in the second visual below! The Fuzz side has Black Glass OC141 + OC140 Germanium Tranistors, and the RangeMaster side allows you to select either a Germanium Mullard Orange Jacket OC45, or Silicon F421 Transistors.
As is Joe’s favourite configuration - the RangeMaster comes after the Fuzz, and boy do both sides sound blisteringly good! Individually and combined!
Controls - FUZZ } Volume, Gain, EQ : Highs / Mids / Lows, Right Footswitch, RANGEMASTER } Boost, EQ / Range : High / Mids / Lows, Transistor : OC45 / F421.
There is so much range on each of those dials - the volume in particular is super loud - just how I like it - the volume pretty much stays in the left hemospthere - which is rare for me. Currently I have Volume @ 10 o’c, Gain @ 2 o’c, EQ @ Up, Boost @ 2 o’c, Range / EQ Down, and OC45 Transistor selected.
It’s so rich and searing! Literally blisteringly brilliant. I have over 100 Fuzz Faces (110-ish?) - and this one is right up at the top with just a handful of other favourites - it truly looks and sounds magnificent!
Joe tells me he is very proud of this pedal - and it's the first of a series of these most likely.
The parts selection is just perfect on this - and what a gorgeous artwork in shimmering sparkle pink!
I feel very lucky to have snagged this one at the show. Joe's wasn't the first stand I got to on the day - and other show exhibitors had had a preview of it ahead of me - as you can see from the Pedal Pawn YouTube coverage of the show.
I spotted it as soon as I stepped onto the HSE stand - it just silently shouted out to me - I grabbed it immediately and had to have it!
Joe has a wonderful knack of surprising me at these shows. I thought I might pick up one of this recent Green Russian Muff takes - but all of those sold out almost instantly online - and there were none to bring to the show. I would have wanted a 4th Mids Control ideally so that's not a big miss for me. And I have heading on for 120 Big Muffs now. Still - I sort of collect Hello Sailor pedals - and one will be added eventually.
While this Pink Rebel Leia Fuzz-Range becomes my 15th Hello Sailor pedal - all have been pretty magnificent, where this one pips all of them to become my favourite ever Hello Sailor pedal - it's just extraordinarily good every which way. And it's so versatile in how you can set up and combine each side. This pedal is pretty much perfection. It's fully loaded too! But if I could add just one feature - I would include an Order Switch to give me even more versatility in how I run the two sides.
I'm a huge Star Wars and Bowie fan - and the Rebel Rebel Leia artwork is one of my absolute favourites. I have it in quite a different way on my Off-white Vox Tone-Bender HSE take - while in this incarnation it pretty much trumps everything. It was priced @ £300 at the show - and is worthy every penny!
A magnificent, amazing one-of-a-kind Fuzz-Ranger!
Note that every Hello Sailor pedal has slightly different components onboard and distinct artworks, knobs etc. While Joe tunes all of those by ear, and selects component values so carefully - that there will be more of these eventually - while each will have slightly different component and will look quite a bit different to mine!
There's always something worth checking out on the Hello Sailor Effects Store! Bookmark it for when there are more of these - mine really does sound staggeringly good.
This is the first time Joe has combined these 2 exact circuits in the one pedal - and I nabbed the only copy before a demo could be made - so he's referenced the separate circuits which make up my Pink Rebel Leia Fuzz-Ranger - as below :
Demos / Sound Samples
Bonus Round! : My Hello Sailor Capsule Collection to date - with category icons!
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