The Other King of Fuzz - Marc Ahlfs of Skreddy Pedals

So the above demo gives you a sort of comparison between the Lunar Module and the Hybrid Fuzz Driver - note that the Lunar Module featured is the larger original - before Marc shrunk the enclosure. You can hopefully hear that the Lunar Module has a slightly more attacking and tighter tone - while the Hybrid Fuzz Driver has that typical Germanium warmth. With the 5 controls on each pedal though you can easily dial in lots of useful tones on both pedals and at all levels of saturation. When I bought this pedal I think it was the last one on sale in the whole of the UK!

A slightly Tweedy sounding Overdrive and Distortion - with a very obvious transistor clipping sound, but tending slightly away form the out-and-out fuzz spectrum. It's 5 sensitive controls give you lots of tonal options and the range of gain is significant. I find that there is quite an identifiable core tonality within this trifecta of pedals - obviously tuned to Marc's tonal preferences although each of these circuits is quite a different direction from a possible once upon a time common starting point. These pedals are fairly unique and distinctive and well deserving of being the Skreddy signature pedals.

This is one of my favourite Fuzz-Face style pedals with a tone of rich and thick harmonic content within the tone. The toggle allows you to flip the EQ profile between HumBucker and Single Coil - with significant tone-sculpting on tap via Bias and Voice dials. This is a really versatile and full-sounding Fuzz-Face style pedal - well worth consideration.

This is really highly in-demand Tape-style Delay pedal which mixes up Digital and Analog really cleverly with the core tone-generating elements and filters and dry-signal being analog with a digital clock chip keeping it all under control. This pedal has numerous accolades for its wonderfully organic warble-capable core tone, while I really need it to be in stereo and to have a tap-tempo footswitch to fit my rig - I would also like for it to come down in size a touch. There's no doubt though that this is still one of the finest tape-style delay pedals on the market - just listen to the amazing demo by Dennis Kayzer above.

It's amusing how different 2 4-Silicon-Transistor pedals can sound - with the BC239 firmly in Ram's Head Muff territory vs the Fuzz Face stylings of the BC109. Marc is very much a Muff specialist - and it will take a lot of research / trial and error for you to decide precisely which one of the Muffs are more to your preference - some are sweeter, open and more singing as such, while others are rougher, darker and more distorted - this one sort of tends towards the latter.

I intimated in the intro that this one is derived from the original Mayonnaise circuit - using slightly more aggressive transistors for a rougher and rawer fuzzstortion tone. As mentioned before, I am in a real quandary as to whether I prefer the sound of this one, the BC239 to the newest derivation - the 1971. The MKIV is the latest iteration of the circuit with no doubt slightly different transistors in position - I've included one of the earlier MKIII demos above.

This particular Muff-style pedal is based very much on the Ram's Head type fuzz tones found throughout Pink Floyd's 1979 album - The Wall. This is essentially a later version / revision of the earlier Skreddy Pig Mine pedal, possibly with slightly different transistors. In any case - if you're a fan of David Gilmour's late 70's era tone - then this is a great option - I of course have one of these.

This is my most recent Skreddy acquisition - there was only one of these left in stock at Joe's Pedals and I had come across a number of great demos of this pedal - it's a really cool crisp and articulate distortion which is achieved by some equally clever circuit tweaking with input from Ed Rembold of Toneczar Effects. Marc had discontinued earlier versions of this pedal as he wasn't quite happy enough with how it sounded, but it seems like persistence has paid off in the end!

I am very happy with my selection of 9 above, similar to my Basic Audio overview - there's a 10th pedal in particular here I really like the look of (no decent demos yet though!) - and that's the most recent addition to the range - the '1971' sort of homage to Marc's first pedal - the Mayonnaise. It obviously uses slightly different components, but is intended still as a very authentic replication of the classic original Big Muff Pi sound. I also have a soft spot for the two optical phasers - the Swirl and Little Miss Sunshine - I have considered both of those on several occasions - with the Swirl sounding particularly lush.

• 1971 Vintage Silicon Triangle-Muff-style Fuzz - $289
• Dual Loop A/B Switcher -$99
• Dynamic Mids Enhancer EQ/Boost - $169
• Hybrid Germanium/Silicon Overdrive (Essentially Screw Driver Jr) - $169
• Little Miss Sunshine Uni-Vibe-style Analog OpticalPhaser - $249
• Major Overdrive Variac-style Overdrive/Distortion - $169
• Rover Silicon Tone Bender-style Fuzz - $169
• Rust Rod Silicon Ram's Head Muff-style Fuzz - $169
• Supa Tone Silicon 1974 Colorsound Muff-style Fuzz - $214
• Swirl Phase-90-style Analog Optical Phaser - $249

The difficulty with creating rare-sounding fuzzes is that you have access to a very limited supply of vintage transistors which are capable of creating specific textures and tonalities. Even when you have decent supply of transistors - matching them up in pairs, triplets or quads is a tricky process - particularly so with Germanium which sas a high degree of infallibility / failure and wastage. When you run out of certain transistors you can on occasion get near-ish matches, or otherwise tweak and tune the circuit/s to accommodate for the variations. Most of these great pedals though fall out of production once no more suitable transistors are available.

• Bloody Knuckle Germanium Maestro-style Fuzz
• Cephalopod Germanium Octave-up Fuzz
• Cognitive Dissonance MKIII 4-Silicon-Transistor Creamy Fuzzstortion (>MKIV)
• Ernie 1973-era 4-Silicon-Transistor Muff-style Fuzzstortion
• Kusanagi 1966-style 3-Germanium-Transistor Fuzz
• ? Lady 1973-era 4-Silicon-Transistor Fuzzstortion
• Mayo Aggressive/Sweet Silicon Fuzzstortion
• Mayonnaise / III 1971-style 4-Silicon-Transistor Fuzzstortions (note slightly different transistors between versions) (>1971)
• Paradigm Shift OpAmp Classic Watery Phase Shifter
• Perestroika Silicon Civil War / Green Russian Muff-style Fuzzstortion
• Pig Mine Tight Aggressive Muff-style Fuzzstortion (>P19)
• Pink Flesh 4-Silicon-Transistor Triangle-Muff-stule Fuzzstortion
• Zero 4-Silicon-Transistor Cutting and Sustaining Fuzzstortions