Frost Giant Electronics Ramps Up the Raw Visceral Output for its Monster V2 Soma Hybrid Fuzz Device

Frost Giant’s Soma is essentially an extended range / deluxe / tuned version of its one-knob Massif Doom Fuzz - based on that irresistible D*A*M Meathead style template. 

The earlier Soma Fuzzes were 4-knob medium BB-size enclosure editions first in Black and then Purple enclosure. While this latest incarnation combines both essentially, and shrinks down to a compact edition in fetching deep purple sparkle - which also adds a 5th Bias control.

Controls - Volume, Tone, Fuzz, Bias, Mids.

The Mids were labelled ’Body’ in some of the earlier editions - but do the same thing in terms of adjusting the lower mids frequencies.

This was already a crazy livewire of a pedal, and the extra Bias control makes it even more so. Eric hasn’t held back on the range on any of those dials and the Bias goes so extreme as to wholly obliterate the signal into a black hole - meaning that I don’t really go much to the left of noon on that dial - which is already incredibly spitty and chopped up in the middle. I tend to mostly have that dial between 3 o’c and Max really - that’s probably its optimal operational range.

Both tone dials are pretty extreme too - where you can quite happily dial those all the way back - which is probably where I suggest you start with those dials. The Volume and Fuzz controls are also pretty expansive.

This pedal is totally a wild ride - and you need to think of the exercise of dialling the pedal in - somewhat akin to trying to tame a wild stallion. Of course patience and due diligence does pay off - while it’s all to easy to get yourself into really strange edgy territory.

This is an incredibly powerful weapons-grade fuzz - and one that I really recommend for seasoned fuzz users as it can be incredibly lively and in fact unruly at times. So there is a very slight curve to figuring it out - but once you’ve got its measure - you can take it in so many different directions - from relatively mild overdrive and fuzzy-drive to full brain-melting sonic obliteration!

It reminds me a little of deploying the Wampler Euphoria - where it’s a really bad idea to start off from all the knobs  at noon. Here I would say each of those dials has an optimal starting position - Volume at around Noon, Tone dialled right back, Fuzz at 9 o’c, Bias at 3 o’c, and mids dialled all the way back!

As mentioned - you get the most utility with the Bias at Max, and then adjusting Gain and Tone Controls, and finally tweaking the output Volume.

I have lots of favourite tones for this pedal, where the dials are currently sitting at Volume on Max, Tone at 9 o’c, Fuzz at 12 o’c, Bias at Max, and Mids at 9 o’c.

I feel that a lot of fuzz fanatics like myself are going to have a lot of fun with this, while for the masses - the one-knob Massif is probably the better proposition as it’s much much easier to tame!

I acquired my V2 Soma from Pedalboarders (sole UK dealer) for £199, where of course you can also go direct via the Frost Giant Webstore - where the equivalent dollar price is just $175 - so something of a markup for us UK consumers - where the typical model tends to be £ to $ equivalency - meaning I would have expected the Soma to be priced at around £175!

I really like the Soma, while I feel I paid a little over the odds for it!

Any Frost Giant fans among you?