Spaceman Effects revives and improves its very first pedal - a rumbling wall of sound fuzz, now in limited white and blue Rumblefuzz II Editions

This is the one Spaceman Effects pedal that had eluded me for so long - the very first Spaceman release from 2009 - a good 15 years ago now. I always wanted one of those, but by the time I joined the hunt - they were trading at ridiculous prices - including one sold on Reverb.com relatively recently for $2,700! I believe my good friend Henry Kaiser owns the very first Rumblefuzz - serial number #001. I had kind of consoled myself that the Rumblefuzz would always be out of reach for me - so I’m beyond delighted to see it return in an improved version - with more volume (+10dB) and range, and one additional *|= option setting.

Controls - Fuzz (Output Volume), Rumble (Bass : Tight > Fat), Bite (Gain), 3 x *|= switch : 3-way variable Bias + Compression + Presence options.

I initially assumed this would be a standard release, but in reading the fine print quickly became aware that in this first issue batch - there were just 160 pedals in total - 100 in the Blue variant, and just 60 in the White - as of writing this on Tuesday evening, I’m kind of surprised they haven’t all sold out by now!

In any case I’ve so long wanted a Rumblefuzz that I very rapidly ordered one of the white ones - I will for sure change the knobs on that, but the white variant fits better into my Spaceman Effects Capsule Collection - this is my 8th Spaceman Fuzz, and 17th overall pedal from that brand. The only Fuzz I’m still kind of missing for my preferences is the Wow Signal, while I understand that there were some flaws with that format, and I’ve been waiting on a reissue / revival for that one too. I’ve had several opportunities to get one of the older ones - which means that moment has probably passed now.

I really love all my Spaceman fuzzes - including the SpaceRocket, Sputnik Germanium Fuzz (Red Cyrillic Edition), Titan II, Nebula, Gemini IV, Sputnik III, and Charon. Spaceman’s Fuzz Game is most definitely strong!

This Rumblefuzz II is kind of adjacent to some of those classic twin transistor doom fuzzes, while this has a 3rd gain stage - all silicon BC108 - with very unique controls - particularly the Rumble / Bass one, and the oddly labelled *|= one - which Spaceman Zak is very cryptic about - saying that you just need to wiggle that toggle back and forth to discover which of the 3 combinations of Bias, Compression and Presence you prefer at that time.

This is a step back to the Limited Edition Days of Spaceman - in terms of the pedal build - which is an all Through-Whole Components construction on this occasion - which is always nice to see.

I’ve had a very expensive month this July!, but there was no way I was going to miss out on the Rumblefuzz - which has been a target for me for so many years!

I’ve not clocked when these are being made and shipped - while I’m already excepting it to be an August arrival at the earliest!

I’m genuinely surprised that these did not all sell out almost immediately - possibly a reflection of the tough times the industry is still experiencing. I’m genuinely excited to get my hands on mine! I’ve already picked out the knobs I will be swapping in!

I’m so delighted to have managed to snagged one - these are price at $349, with delivery to the UK a further $44.50, both editions are seemingly still available on the Spaceman Effects Webstore, while I can’t conceive of that being the case for long!