Sunhaus' Colourway Series #1 Ballam Dirt Fuzz is an intriguingly textured, significantly evolved low-gain take on a Silicon MKII Tone Bender

Sunhaus’ Marcus first contacted me in the middle of May to ask for support for his 2 Colourway Series pedal launches. Where I noted that for a strong launch you would really need to have at least one demo for each, and a few more technical details on each of those now established to be - very distinct sounding Fuzz Pedals.

And so here we are, just about a month later on or so - with all the appropriate collateral now prepped and 2 formidable demos delivered by Brett Kingman. To fully unveil the deeper details on each of those distinct fuzz pedals. At the start I wasn’t aware of which circuits those two were derived from or adjacent to, while I’m now in possession of the full pedal profiles.

These are both massively evolved from their original source inspiration circuits - which both originally came with just 2 controls. So Marcus has doubled down on the scope and granularity of his pedals, and taken both circuits in very unique and worthwhile directions - with an emphasis on hugely variable output textures.

The Ballam Dirt Fuzz is described as having a gravel-laden voicing, with a slow and chewy response. The control topology is very straightforward here with Dirt (Fuzz), Volume, Clean Blend, and Weight / EQ controls. It’s a specifically a low-gain Silicon take / evolution of the Tone Bender MKII.

Both the Colourway Series Fuzzes have very distinctive and individual richly-textured outputs, with a tonne of range. Obviously the Clean Blend is essential for Bass Players, and can also further assist in attenuating and tempering the output gain of the pedal. The Clean Blend can also help with EQ’ing the pedal too.

Controls - Dirt (Fuzz Intensity), Volume, Clean Blend, Weight : Heavyweight / Midweight.

Judging from the demos alone, both fuzzes seem to be pretty exceptional - both in voice and feel. I would of course love to see the guts of the pedals too - I guess that’s for later.

I have numerous Tone Bender MKII and Zonk types in my extensive reference collection, yet none which sound quite like the Ballam or Djandek. I certainly very much like what I see and hear, and will look to land both of those in the near future.

Currently the Ballam and Djandek are available (when in stock) from Found Sound and Pedal Empire in Australia - where they go for $305 AUD which roughly equates to $210 USD, which is a fair price.

The names are derived from a mix of Thai and Australian place names, places which have inspired Marcus in one way or another!

I like the Ballam best in the Grey Hammertone colouway - as pictured, that would be the version I will try to get my hands on!

I still need to have a chat with Marcus to see where his worldwide ambitions lie - and if he’s approached any USA or European Dealers yet, I may have a few recommendations in mind for him!