The second pedal I've own. It's a Dunlop Jimi Hendrix JH-1 model.

I was fooling around in a music store when a guy I knew came to me and asked if I was interested buying this wah. I told him no, I wanted a Vox and this one was in rough shape. He looked at me and said: ok, I don't know what to do with this unit, take it and do whatever you want.: he gave it to me!!!

So I never bought the Vox. I use this one now sometimes, although I found the range to be a little limited. But it's sure a good pedal.

Something bad, though: it eats treble when plugged in. You have to adjust it on your amp.

Ok, here is another Fuzz. It is the more common Vox Tonebender, early model.

Here is the mystery I was talking about : the two Fuzzes share exactly the same components, same germanium transistors (SFT 337 and SFT 363), same resistors: everything is the same...but the sound is not!

This one has a good amount of distortion available but is far more trebly than the JEN (or JEM?) and the tone is overall less sensitive.

What else could I say? This is the "big fuzz mystery". If someone knows something, please email me.

The Holy Grail. Here is an original Ibanez TS-808 Tubescreamer I bought for 40$ (maybe 35$, can't remember) to a guy who didn't know what he was doing (lucky me!).

I've nothing to say: I use it all the time. It compresses your sound a little while adding great harmonics and sweet, warm punch and distortion: perfect!

It deserves its reputation.

 

The Effects page.

Here are my effects. I've grown with sixties music in my head, especially punkrock and heavy psychedelia; so the effects I own do depend on this: I dig Fuzz, Tremolo, Echo, and a bit of Flange. Since many of my amps provide Tremolo, I do not have a pedal.

Here is the really first pedal I bought; I was seventeen. It's the DOD FX52 Classic Fuzz. I wanted a Fuzz and wasn't able to locate an old one, and didn't know anything about them anyway.

I was lucky with this one: I bought it new, and liked it immediately. It was definitely NOT the kind of Fuzz I wanted in those days; it really sounds '70's-ish, with a fat, huge and round distortion shape, but you can get some relly good tones. Later on, I met a guy who had an original Electro-Harmonix BigMuff, the one with many switches, big as a plane, and I found the FX52 could clone, yes clone it! I still use it sometimes when I need "the big sound".

Pretty good at it...

Here is a pedal I bought with the Vox MKVI. To be direct, this is the best Fuzz pedal I've ever heard. There is a big mystery about it, more on that later.

It is a copy of the Vox Tonebender. Two crude switches: Attack, to adjust the level of distortion, and Level, for the volume of the effect.

The sound is...how to say? Crude, crude, crude but with class! tight! It's super cheesy, and I would like to say it "stinks". No too trebly either; all range is boosted.

I've never seen another one. But if you find one, go get it!!

The Roland RE-201 Space Echo; another classic. It wasn't cheap when I bought it, but I believe it's a right price: this effect is just excellent (to my ears and tastes).

You get 11 combinations of Echoes, all variable with switches; it provides a Reverb too.

The sound is...hard to describe. This is a tape-based unit, so precision is not the word to say, warmth is. When you select the reverb, you just get a supermystic tone, the sound is so far and distorted (the reverb ads a lot of gain) you can't recognize it, but that's just perfect for psychedelic tunes.

I found the combination Space Echo+ Tubescreamer to be a winner.

Excellent to record vocals too!

Another classic I found cheap (30$).

Like the Space Echo, this is not the best pedal for clinic, perfect flange but I just love it's colored tone.

This pedal is provided with a back selector to choose between Flange or Filter Matrix, which enables filters to add superstrange tones to your sound.

Two big defaults, though: it eats two 9-volt batteries faster than for me to say its name, and when you put it on, the overall level of volume just falls (a little). Unwelcome...

These are my effects! Quite cool, don't you think?

New! I found the BeeBaa! Click on it, Now!

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