I obviously have and love the original - with its external Bias control and super handy LED Bias Screen. The new one is simply an improvement of that already great circuit - with additional controls - and of course retaining that fantastic richly detailed harmonic germanium sound.

Silktone have also graciously maintained the price point - so you’re getting quite a bit more bang for you buck here. As before - I would of course have preferred this in a vertically oriented format, but since it...

Readers of this site will know that I’ve long admired the extraordinary sound-design talents of Cohen Hartman - who’s best known through his SpiralCaster Plays Pedals YouTube Channel. In my opinion he is one of the very finest pedal demo artists there ever was. He has a way of teasing out some truly unique tones and textures from most pedals - and taking them places where others just don’t or can’t seem to venture.

He did a slew of particularly brilliant demos in the lead up to my February ...

This article was actually inspired by the recent Fjord Fuzz SOL Fuzz-Vibe feature - where I got to thinking about extended range Fuzz Face style pedals. To my memory there is only the Carl Martin Purple Moon and Fjord Fuzz SOL in that compact Fuzz-Vibe format. I then recalled the Keeley Electronics Monterey - but realised there weren’t a whole lot of pedals in the extended format category - for Fuzz-Vibes - so I expanded the remit to cover ’Fuzz Face+’ pedals - essentially expanded feature set ...

Silktone’s Fuzz upgraded the Germanium Fuzz Face in several ways - giving it more range / variability and flexibility with its Bias Voltmeter Display, Cleanup control, and Raw voicing alternative. And here it’s doing similar to the old amp-like overdrive pedal - imbuing that also with smart new features.

The most innovative part of the pedal is the Strangle Boost / Voicing which introduces a Wah-like Inductor filter into the mix - which delivers heavily accentuated mids - or that typical ...

So for the end of year Fuzz selection the only pedal of note that came a little too late to be included in this roundup was the very recent Reeves Electro BlackHatSound Deluxe Wedge - of which only 15 units have been made so far. Markus has promised me I can get copper insides when the next batch comes around - so I can complete my set!

Other than that everything of note that I’m aware of is included here in this selection. Again I own most of these - while there are still some down on the ...

Readers may have noted last year - that while I admired the innovation of the Benson Amps Germanium Fuzz - I mentioned it was rather useless for me as I really like to use the Bias control on my Germanium Fuzzes all the time - for different voicings, characters and textures. So when I encountered the Silktone Fuzz it hit me as exactly the kind of Germanium Fuzz that I would love - in fact I pretty much bought it on sight! (actually just checked the one RJ Ronquillo demo very quickly before ...