Earthbound Audio's SuperCollider Doom Fuzz is finally in the Reference Collection

I’ve touched on the SuperCollider on this site before, while the nature of its somewhat irregular small-batch manufacture meant that it remained rather elusive and out of reach for me for quite some years. In fact I just happened to come across a second-hand one on Ebay very recently - and managed to snap that one up at last. Just as well really, as I’m in the process of putting together a favourite Doom Fuzz rundown - what will be out in a week or two no doubt!

The combination of controls onboard - delivers exactly what you would expect - plenty of gain and saturation, underpinned by hefty earth-shattering low-end Mass!

You can see from its 4 transistor circuit makeup that this is very much a Big Muff derivative - albeit I’m not sure exactly what variety. What I can say is that this is a most magnificent low-end saturation beast, while not quite at a level of my two standing favourites - the Blackhawk Balrog, and latest incarnation of Lichtlaerm Altar.

Controls - Tone, Mids, Mass, Level, Gain Structure : More Gain Up / Less Gain Down, Gain.

The toggle-switch gives you 2 gain settings - where the lower one does clarify the signal a touch. Of course if you’re a Doom Merchant - you will want near enough everything maxed out. In fact for me it’s everything bar the Mids and Gain control - which are both at around 3 o’c for the optimal Doom Sludge Tones. Loading up more Mids and Gain kind of piles on too much compression for me - and you loose some of that texture. I’ve tried various settings - and started with everything at noon several times - while I always gravitate to the same settings - so there must be something in that.

This is pretty much a perfect pedal as such - albeit it could do with just a tiny bit more output volume, but that’s such a tiny niggle it hardly bears mentioning!

Looks like my SuperCollider was made some time in 2023 - it arrived with a lot of tiny chips in the paintwork - which I needed to fill in with black in. Just one tiny section needs further retouching - while the pedal is now more Excellent quality than very good.

All my 1,300+ pedals still look pretty pristine - as they’re very well cared for - I do wonder sometimes how some people manage despoil the condition of their pedals so rapidly - possibly they are prone to wearing hob-nail boots!

In any case the SuperCollider is one of the great Doom Fuzzes out there - and runs my two favourites relatively close - they both obviously have a little more granularity and volume to their output. These are $179 from new - I paid about £140 for mine. Earthbound Audio’s Mark has alas parked that brand for now, the last 22 SuperColliders were made February / March this year - it’s somewhat unlikely there will ever be more - so I suggest if you have one hang on to it!