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What I’d Buy This Week: It’s a pre-NAMM fuzz overload!
Despite the calm before the NAMM storm, the gear world has blessed us with two extremely cool fuzzes.
Credit: Walrus Audio
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Welcome back to What I’d Buy This Week, your guide to any cool releases or deals you might have missed out there in the guitar world. The behemoth of NAMM may soon be upon us, ready to fire thousands of new products at your eyeballs right from the heart of California, but that doesn’t mean the release schedule has been totally dry. For instance…
Beetronics Abelha Fuzz
Yes, masters of the insect-based pun, commitment to the ‘bee’ bit and weirdo fuzz enthusiasts Beetronics are back, this time with a very strangely-shaped pedal based on an obscure Brazilian unit. Of course. The pedal is a three-mode fuzz, with full-bore amp-slamming, lighter, overdrive-like fuzz and gated, velcro fuzz all on tap. There’s also the tropical mode, which applies a high-pass filter and even more spittiness to your chosen setting for maximum harsh, psychedelic fuzzitude.
Check it out at Beetronics.
Walrus Audio Silt Harmonic Fuzz
Oh, another fuzz pedal. Isn’t that a bit excessive for the hypothetical person who does actually buy all these things every week?
No, it isn’t. Because this one doesn’t have bees on it, and the Abelha doesn’t have a tube in it. So, hypothetical pedal-buyer, you clearly need both. The Silt is new fuzz from Walrus Audio. Aside from, well, having an actual tube driving things, its special trick is the Harmonic mode – Walrus describe this as adding “uniquely harmonic overtones to the signal” – and from the demo, it sounds a little like the glitchy, awesome snarl of a boosted Green Ringer-style analogue octave-up.
Check it out at Walrus Audio.
Gibson Falcon 20
Well, you’re going to need something to run those fuzz pedals into, aren’t you? The new Falcon Amps from Gibson look just perfect for that, particularly the Falcon 20, with it’s higher headroom and all-tube tremolo. Also, hey – some balance has been restored to the universe, in that the two biggest guitar brands on the planet now both offer amps and guitars under their own names. Now we
On the surface, they aren’t cheap. It’s £1,499 for the little guy and £1,799 for the bigger guy. But, they’re made in the USA handwired tube combos, so, really, they could be twice the price and still have a market.
Check them out at Gibson.