fenderbender

The Cheese Ball is a clone of the Lovetone Big Cheese. I’ve never played an original Big Cheese, but I now understand why it garners the respect it does. Thankfully, JHS has brought the discontinued pedal back to life in the form of the Cheese Ball. The Cheese Ball is a bright orange pedal in a standard enclosure (2.6” X 4.8" X 1.6”) that requires a 9V center negative power and uses 9mA. The orange and purple colorway pays tribute to the original Lovetone, which is kind of cool, even if I don’t personally love the color scheme. I’m just happy it’s in a more pedalboard friendly footprint that the original Big Cheese. I wish the input and output were top mounted, but hey, you can’t have it all. I know there is a controversy surrounding Josh Scott in general, and specifically this particular pedal. But since I could never afford a vintage Big Cheese, I’m selfishly glad he brought back the circuit. The controls on the pedal are pretty straightforward and very responsive (Some would say almost overly sensitive). You’ve got a Volume, Gain, Tone, and a four-position rotary knob, which controls the tone and gain voicings of the pedal. The first position (OFF) bypasses the tone stack entirely, so it’s the brightest position. Playing with single coils with the volume down, it cleans up nicely. In fact, I use it on this setting more than I originally thought I would. However, it’s not velcro fuzzy here. In fact, I’d argue you could use this as a overdrive distortion here depending on how your volume knob is set. Position 1 has a scooped midrange. In fact, think a Big Muff type sound. It’s a chugging massive sound, so it covers that sound if that’s what you’re after. Position 2 balances out the midrange frequencies but with the tone controls engaged and brings plenty of gain. I probably use this setting the most, personally. It’s gnarly fuzz with a ton of gain on tap. The JHS website says that this setting cuts through the mix, and they’re not wrong! Position 3 is crazy gain. So much so, it’s easy to gate the pedal! I play with this one as a novelty, since I’m not personally into the whole sputtering amp sound, but it is nice to break out every once in a while, if the mood strikes. I should say that while this isn’t my cup of tea, I can see how if you’re into the gated fuzz vibe, this pedal plays really well in that space and it might be its stand out feature. Overall, this a very cool pedal that can do distortion all the way to all out gated glitchy fuzz. The four-way position switch makes sure it covers a ton of ground and gives you a really versatile pedal. It’s rad!