Hungry Robot's New Collective Fuzz Combines the Conventional and Unusual in a Singularly Smart Format with Three Combinable Fuzz Circuits
Eric Junge of Hungry Robot Pedals has a wonderfully creative way of arranging his pedals’ controls - with strange geometric shapes of different sized knobs - like an arrow-head on this latest edition. He is best associated with his Wardenclyffe Lo-Fi Ambient Modulator which came out in two iterative versions in December of last year - a smaller V2 Compact Edition, and a larger Deluxe Edition. I had been hoping to snag a Wardenclyffe V2 Mini from Joe’s Pedals this year - but with juggling various priorities I never quite got to it - I will look to snatch that up early next year.
In any case - because of ongoing parts supply issues for key Wardenclyffe components - in effect putting a halt to the production of that Pedal - Eric decided to make use of that time by finding a purpose for some more readily available parts he had at his disposal.
So the mission was to make an incredibly creative fuzz - wholly different to anything that has come before. The end resuls is an intriguing confection of Traditional Fuzz (Silicon I presume), Synthy CMOS-style Fuzz, and a separate footswitchable CMOS Sub Octave Fuzz. So at its core the Collective allows you to mix up those 3 core Fuzz circuits in combination.
Added to that we have a Clean Blend control, and a Footswitchable Feedback control - which when maxed leads to oscillation. The Feedback and Sub Footswitches both have a Momentary / Latched toggle switch - which you flip up for Latching. And finally you have Low and High tone controls - active State-Variable Filters, which are similar to the ones found on The Lumen.
Eric describes the Control Topology as follows :
"Starting at the top of the pedal, the 'Conventional' knob is a traditional sounding fuzz. This is meant to balance out the more chaotic fuzz tones and provides a bread-and-butter sound when you need it."
"The 'Low Spectrum' and 'High Spectrum' knobs are part of an active State-Variable Filter. Similar to the one found on The Lumen."
"The 'Synthetic' knob is a logic based CMOS fuzz that can be described using the words, velcro-ey, synth-ey, gate-ey, and glitch-ey."
"The 'Pristine' knob allows you to blend in your clean signal when you need a bit of pureness to balance out the crazier sounds."
"On the left is the 'Overload' knob. This controls the amount of sound let back through an internal feedback loop. The output of the fuzz is fed back into the input causing self-oscillation and some gnarly textures. Underneath the knob is a dedicated momentary footswitch to activate the feedback loop or you can latch the feedback loop on by flipping the toggle switch up."
"On the right is the 'Submerge' knob. This is a monophonic sub-octave fuzz. Similar to the 'Synthetic' fuzz, this is also CMOS-based. The 'Submerge' also has a dedicated momentary footswitch to add in the sub-octave with its own toggle switch that can latch the sub-octave."
To my mind this comes across as the rather more unconventional cousin to the Thermion Stone Age Fuzz I very recently featured. The only thing they really share in common is the clean blend - and the fact that they have 3 footswitches and come in large enclosures. I see The Collective as being the Stranger Things Upside Down equivalent to the Stone Age!
The first batch of these went very quickly - priced at around $220 each - even with no demo or sound samples present. Obviously we have the descriptive details, but no gutshot or component overview - while we are told there are several internal trim-pots available too for further tone-shaping.
This is not quite so mysterious as KHDK's mystery pedals - something I cannot really get my head around - that is just a weird gamble really - while with the Collective it's surely more of a calculated gamble.
I for certain sure like the look of it, and am already down to acquire the Stone Age, so will probably be in line for one of these too - where the next batch is due in February - you will really need to be signed up to the Hungry Robot Mailing List to be in the loop on that - and it's likely dealers won't get it for a while - meaning you really need to buy it from the Hungry Robot Webstore.
I'm really looking forward to seeing some demos - and hopefully early next year I can snag both a Collective and a V2 Wardenclyffe. Did any of you dear readers manage to snag one of these from the first batch? In which case we would love to hear some insights!
