The Elusive Philly Fuzz

This pedal has become notorious due to the difficulty involved in acquiring it, the pedal can only be bought from either the creator of the pedal (in person) or indeed from the lead singer of the band 'Baroness', John Dyer Baizley (also in person only). So far the pedal has only been sold at Baroness shows and Baizley's art pop up stores that have been dotted around Europe and the UK over the course of 2016. The price of the pedal itself is also largely unspecified with myself personally seeing the pedal range in price from £90 to £140 at various events. Each pedal comes packaged Philly Fuzz branded Box featuring a Philly Fuzz sticker. The insert of the box contains an information card, including the unit number. In terms of the look of the pedal one of the most striking aspects is the huge diversity of colour that the pedal comes in, and for me this is one of the most unique parts of this product. The paint is indeed hand applied and can range from a Black finish with faint blue glitter, to a beautiful tie-dye pattern. My personal unit is as expected completely unique, featuring a plum coloured face, and a black back that has been peppered with blue, purple and red splatters of paint and sprinkled with glitter. In term of the aesthetic of the pedal, it doesn't get much better than this. The pedal casing is a standard box exactly the same as a Big Bass Muff or similar products, and features a purple led (i’m assuming due to the fact that at the time of this review Baroness’ album aptly named ‘Purple’ was just released). Now we must get to the sound of the pedal, again I must reiterate with pedals of this quantity and quality sound may differ from one unit to the next, however I will try to the best of my limited ability to articulate the sound the I get from my unit. As a preface to this, the equipment I used for this review was a Fender American standard Telecaster and a 2x12 Orange combo. Baizley himself describes the pedal as a germanium fuzz, and indeed one can very clearly hear similarities between the Philly Fuzz and pedals such as the EarthQuaker Devices Hoof Fuzz. At a low Attack level the pedal can almost act like a overdrive boosted tone, giving the signal a gritty undertone reminiscent of some early Early Sabbath tones. Then as the Attack increases the tone gets much more clouded and coloured by a deep and powerful fuzz tone however still keeping it foot very much in a vintage era of sound. As Baizley told me when I bought the pedal from him, the best way to hear the pedal is to listen to the albums Baroness have made, as the Fuzz has played a prominent and dominant role within Baroness’ discography over the last 10 years. Some key tones that to me indeed reflect the sounds I got from the pedal are as follows;

Swollen and Halo (specifically the intro riff and descending riff at 00:51) Shock me

In summary, although my words on the sound of the pedal are concise and inarticulate, I believe it important to understand the meaning this pedal has to me. After seeing Baroness one year ago I was adamant on finding one of these pedals, searching high and low I couldn't find a trace of one anywhere, no reviews, no videos, nothing. So when I say the only place you can get one of the pedals is at a Baroness show, I really do mean it. Due to the difficulty and thus rarity of this pedal it can indeed become elusive and unattainable, however if you finally manage to get one you will not be disappointed. This pedal has become the sparkling epicentre of my pedal board, offering anything from a small peppering of low gain fuzz to grating layers bass. So even though this review is short and possibly under informative, I hope it will be preceded by many more attaining this little gem and many more writing better reviews than this. However in the meantime, allow me to plant the Philly Fuzz flag in the barren expanse of the internet in the form of this review, serving to inform people who are as curious and desperate I once was.