Marcus’s second pedal is as equally textured as the first, but with a very different emphasis. Massively evolved from a Zonk Machine, it has the same Volume and Clean Blend controls as the Ballam, but then mixes things up further with expansive Disintegration Bias, and Slump Input Gain control.

You can go from thick and full-bodied Fuzz and Drive sounds, to starved and fractured decay.

The Bias is at its Max Clockwise - wind back for Starve!, and the Slump Input Gain it at Max ...

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...

At one stage there was a 50/50 chance as to whether I would make the show - as there were significant disruptions on the Liverpool Street to Norwich line - which meant a bus replacement service between Colchester and Ipswich. Some of the journey times quoted were up to 4 and a 1/2 hours each way! In the end the door-to-door was closer to 3 hours in total! The journey up including the coach was actually more fun that the journey back via Cambridge. Cambridge has obviously sinned grievously as ...

So a long and convoluted target mission of mine has at last come to a delightful conclusion! Readers will recall that back in 2023 I launched a mini campaign to get the Blakemore Effects Deus Ex Machina Fuzz revived and reissued. Blakemore Effects had been officially shuttered in 2018, and Blake Hickey had returned to the financial sector.

Here are the two articles from that somewhat fruitless endeavour :

• Blakemore Deus Ex Machina Revival Campaign
• Ex Machina Campaign Follow-up

It ...

A slightly uneventful month in many ways - just the one event - the excellent sophomore Leeds Pedal Show - where I ended up picking up 3 pedals.

Some killer releases during the month, with a strong final flurry to make up the 10 notable article highlights. I’ve been very busy all month - and plenty of work has gone into this as usual, while there was somehow fewer large-scale rundowns and marquee features - more of that next month for sure.

HIGHLIGHTS for APRIL :

[Click on Images for ...

I am a huge fan of the Crazy Tube Circuits Constellation Series - where I own each of those 3 rare Germanium Editions - OC45, OC41, and CV7003 (Milspec OC44). Those were relatively simple devices with just a variable Volume and Gain Control, and then a 6-way Rotary that took you though the different modes :

The Bolster Dual Fuzz consists of a 3 x 2N5088 Transistor Tone Bender MKII adjacent High Gain Fuzz on one side, and a single knob OpAmp Speaker-destroying Fuzz on the other side. The 5-knob Transistor Fuzz has an enormous gain range from drive and fuzzy-drive through to fairly searing high gain fuzz - and then when you add the More Fuzz in - you kind of blow the doors off - in the best possible sense.

All the finesse is on the first channel, while the More Channel - comes in somewhat high-...

Back in 2003, Dan Coggin’s Dinosaural created a silicon transistor circuit which sort of combined elements of a Tube Sceamer and a Tone Bender - and hence the ’Tube Bender’ moniker. I believe the earliest models were in Silver sort of 1590BB style enclosures, and the later ones were in Black.

From 2003-2007 a total of around 150 were made. And in the intervening years several takes on that circuit emerged - including the Aion FX Wyvern in 2020, and the Drunk Beaver T-Rex a year later - ...

For me - these Dealer special White Light editions - are some of the prettiest varieties Spaceman has released to-date - with the white-out / snow-blind livery and striking cyan / teal LED’s - just gorgeous. I was missing the Atlas IV and Apollo VIIb - and Cream City Music and Axe and You Shall Receive were enormously helpful in getting those shipped to me in short order. I then spotted that my friend Scott at Axe and You Shall Receive also had a White Light Rumblefuzz II remaining - and I just...