g211_masonian's Reviews
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Can't Get It Off My Board
I'm a fuzz nut. I particularly love Fuzz Face and Tone Bender circuits. The MKIII is one of those rare "perfect" pedals for me. It does the sparkly clean volume roll-off and a real focused crunch. I generally run it with fuzz 90% but it plays great across the fuzz knob range. When using the guitar's volume knob it retains beefiness across the control spectrum. Both full tilt and with guitar volume rolled back it never feels shrill even running my strat into a voxAC15 top boost. It pairs great with my Strat, Tele, ES-335, Firebird (like, the most amazing sound), but TBH it sounds a touch thin with my Les Paul Custom bridge pup (granted mine is already a bright guitar with a prominent upper-mid honk). Like any other Tone Bender fuzz, there is a raspy quality even with volume rolled back, but unlike some FF/TB circuits it is musical and aggressive rather than static-y (I hope that makes sense). I've consistently used it as my ONLY drive pedal for many gigs--both hard rock gigs and more alternative or laid-back gigs. I leave it on all night and merely roll back the volume for clean, tight rhythm crunch, and fuzz explosion solos. It's my favorite fuzz (and I'm a fuzz snob). If you see one in the wild my advice is to snatch it up.
Beyond Blues Breaker
It starts out in the territory of a Marshall Blues Breaker, but the gain on tap goes all the way to full-blown mayhem. The bass control is great for controlling the woofiness as you crank the drive (and for balancing with different amps). It has a similar feel, OD tone, and EQ profile as my beloved JHS Morning Glory with a different compression/sag characteristic--especially as the drive is cranked. Equally at home with low-gain and everything-on-10 overdriven saturation. Lots and lots of output. I've consistently gigged with it both as my main overdrive, or as a solo boost stacked with other pedals. It is a gem of a pedal.