MXR's new Custom Shop Hybrid Fuzz smartly combines Germanium Warmth and Silicon Aggression in a single beautifully balanced circuit

MXR’s new Hybrid Fuzz is its prettiest pedal to date - utilising Moorish / Arabian architecture as part of that pedal’s aesthetic.

Inside you have a Hybrid Fuzz Face circuit - where one of the Gain stages is a Germanium Transistor and the Second Transistor is Silicon. So as you raise the ’Fuzz’ dial you go from the smooth, shaggy warmth of the Germanium Transistor, to the snarling, high-gain aggression of a Silicon Transistor.

You only have two controls at your disposal here - Volume and Fuzz, and of course as a Fuzz Face circuit it has superb guitar volume cain cleanup too - so you can largely control the she shape of your output with your guitar controls.

There’s a real elegance about this fuzz - and I wonder if the transistors are the same as in my Mini MXR Fuzz face - which are really cool variants - metal can BC108B and NTE158. Also there is no mention of an internal bias trimmer in the manual - where I would assume there would be one - will be interesting to pop it open and check the insides when I finally get mine.

According to Andertons these are not expected in the UK until August! I have complained about this before - but Dunlop’s worldwide distribution is atrocious - as we typically don’t get those pedals on this side of the pond until at least a month or two after the Americans!

I will definitely be looking to get one of these - even if it is Fuzz Face #80-something in the reference collection!