4 Fantastic Germanium and Silicon Switching Fuzz Pedals

As I've mentioned previously - I'm not entirely sure what this circuit is based on at its core - in fact it might be very much Paul's own thing - as in any case the circuit is mostly gooped and I can only discern the two Transistors referenced in the above title - there's a lot more to this circuit though. And if it does indeed just have one transistor of each type then there is some serious magic going on with the circuit to make it as rich sounding as it is. The real forte of the Bone Machine though is just how versatile it is, and how many different voicings it harnesses with those 4 dials and 4 switches - from sparkly spangly cleans, smooth overdrive and on to various Fuzz tones, horn sounds, ring modulation, upper and lower octaves and a feedback-locked secret synth mode. I can get all manner of tones out of this including several kinds of Fuzz Face and Tone Bender varieties. The 4 knobs are Volume | Gain | Bore (Thickness) | Mood (Bias). The Mood knob takes you from overdrive to distortion, onto fuzz and greasy spit, then octaves on wound strings and trumpet, french horn and trombone splat - while the Bore dial ranges from Fat to Skinny and controls the fatness / richness of the whole circuit. For the 'Bone' sounds, low octaves and ring mode effects - the Bore needs to be cranked to 5 o'c. There are 4 toggle-switches, a 3-way Presence - Normal/Bright/Dark switch, then Ge/Si Transistor selector switch, T Input Cap switch for stock or 'Thin' input Cap which significantly alters the core tonality. Then you have the Hi/Lo Mood Range (Bias) switch - where for Horn, Octave and 'Bone' sounds you need to set Transistor to Silicon, Mode Range to Lo, Bore to Max and Mood to 12 o'c. As I keep saying - just an all-round fantastic Tone Bone Machine!

Readers of this blog will know that I've been chasing a reasonably priced Gemini III in Europe for years now. The ones that were appearing on Reverb.com were all based in the USA and at around £1,000 just did not make practical sense - especially not when you factor in delivery and customs charges to the UK. So I was delighted and relieved when Zak Martin released a new and improved version of the circuit a couple or so weeks ago - mine arrived with me last week. The circuit has been enhanced with independent dials per Transistor Type for Gain and Filter, as well as a new cool Phase toggle-switch. From what I know of the original, the Transistors are roughly the same - not exactly, but close enough, while owners of both pedals say that the Gemini III sounds both slightly warmer and more gritty, while generally there is a lot more range of tones - gain etc. in the newer GIV version. I've not had it quite long enough to sing its praises fully sufficiently, but so far so good - it seems to be definitely living up to expectations. This circuit is obviously unique in allowing you to blend the two different transistor types in parallel - not sure why more makers haven't done similar - I feel that's the wave of the future in any case - blending together two complementary circuits in parallel - expect to see a lot more overdrives, fuzzes and distortions of that nature in the near future. I'm quite intrigued by the selection of Transistors used in this case, and the 4 that have been gooped to preserve their identity. If a maker goops his product I have no inkling to share those secrets - that is their own choice of modus operandi and they should be entitled to protect their intellectual property to a certain degree.

The De La Riva is one of the most impressive fuzz confections of recent years, and even though billed as 'a true muff lover's dream' - circuit-wise it also owes quite a lot to the Fuzz Face, as we have two pairs of Transistors here rather than the banks of 4 more commonly associated with Big Muffs. The pedal has just 3 knobs - Volume | Tone | Distortion, with further toggle-switches for Tone Bypass and 2 x Transistor Selector switches with Left being Germanium and Right being Silicon - so you can have both the same or one of each. The really clever thing though is that the circuit is split into 20 sections controlled by 20-handy surface-mounted dip-switches which allow you to switch in or out each section independently - obviously with a number of those being highly interactive. There are in effect 4 cascading gain stages here with various options to activate different gain and tone components throughout the circuit - with the only confusing thing for me really being the 5 Tone Switches on the far left. The Circuit actually starts on the far right - with 'Input Gain' being the first component, and the 5 Tone Switches which must equate to individual caps are at the other end of the circuit - which seem to boost/cut different frequencies, but it's unfortunately not as straight forward as Lows, Low Mids, Mids, High Mids, Highs - rather it's the kind of pedal that you just need to at persevere at/with flicking switches up and down and then making notes where you get your desired sweet spots. This is the kind of pedal that is screaming out for a digital control layer with presets - I also feel that this particular control topology might not be the most practically usable. Far better to have one or two rotary dials which have sweet spots largely dialled-in already which you can then fine-tune with a couple of tone-shaping controls. This pedal is a great achievement though and it teaches you a lot about how fuzz circuits work - but you can easily get lost for half a day or a day at a time just playing around with switches and trying to find some more sweet spots - so it's a genius idea but not the most user-friendly execution necessarily - I still really like it though and I have had a lot of fun with it of late making is sound like a creamy rich Fuzz Face which is something it does with some aplomb!