One of the craziest concepts I have seen in a fuzz pedal, en it Rocks!
I bought this to replace my Joe Bonamassa Fuzzface. I was looking for something that gave me a good fuzz with humbuckers, but with a smaller footprint. However, this fuzz/octave pedal offers you much more diversity and is much more oriented towards a more contemporary player with an experimental attitude.
The pedal can be slightly confusing at first, so bear with me as I go over the controls to explain how they work, what they do, and when they are enabled or disabled.
Volume: This controls the volume of the pedal and the dry signal.
Tone and Fuzz: These two controls ONLY work when the ''Sub into Fuzz'' switch is enabled. They only affect the fuzz signal! ''Tone'' controls the EQ of the fuzz and ''Fuzz'' controls the gain and amount of fuzz. These are basically the same controls you'd find on a regular fuzzface.
Sub Octave/Up Octave: These control the volume of the octave signals.
Left footswitch: This activates pedal and the Sub Octave. It also activates the Fuzz when the ''Sub into Fuzz'' switch is enabled.
Right footswitch: This activates the Up Octave. It can only be activated as an extra when the pedal is already turned on by using the left footswitch!
Overall, you can use this pedal in multiple ways:
You can use the pedal purely as an octave down pedal by not using the ''Sub into Fuzz'' switch, and being able to add a up octave on top of that.
You can also use the pedal as a pure fuzz pedal by simply turning the octave volumes off and enabling the ''Sub into Fuzz'' switch. Since there is no octave volume, it will only give you fuzz when the pedal is activated!
You can also use it as a fuzz pedal with octaves slapped on top. This is a crazy sound that I absolutely love. I personally use it like this all the time. The Sub Octave being fed into the gnarly fuzz makes it sound like a fuzz on steroids. Very nasty! And if you really want to go crazy, you can add the Up Octave as well. I personally find this a great option for solos!
Overall, this pedal is very unique without it being a novelty. It is extremely usable and fun to work with! I'd pick this over any standard plain old fuzz any day.
The only downside to this pedal is that you can't use the Up Octave without having the Sub Octave switched on. You're only able to achieve an ''Octave Up only'' setting by putting the Sub Octave volume to zero; Which is a shame! MXR should've made this a foot switchable option!
