Tom Cram's Spiral Electric FX Delivers its first Compact Fuzz - The Extremely Versatile and Wide-Ranging Silicon Transistor Demhe
I’ve followed Tom Cram’s progress since he was the main force at DigiTech/DOD, and I was excited to see him venture out on his own - with his mostly Fuzz-based Spiral Electric FX brand. Readers will know that I have a thing about enclosure format size - and Tom’s typical chosen vehicle of horizontal BB-enclosure is quite far removed from my ideal footprint. Even so I was still sort of intending to get his excellent Allora and Brute fuzzes at that size - while they weren’t necessarily going to be at the top of my priority list.
Apart from the enclosure size I love everything else about Tom’s core fuzzes - how they look and sound, their extended-range control topologies, and those cool custom ceramic knobs that can be found on at least a couple of the editions.
I always hoped that Tom would turn his attentions eventually to more pedalboard friendly formats - and my wishes indeed came true when back on June 9th Tom teased a blurry image of the Demhe - clearly a Compact Edition pedal. The Compact Demhe certainly follows the styling of its larger siblings - but with the benefit of a much smaller footprint - particularly on the key width dimension. My understanding is that Spiral are calling this the ’Smol’ series - with an appropriately ’Smol’ pricetag of around $100 less than the core BB-size editions.
So as I write this up on the evening of the August 10th - the exclusive launch day via the Spiral FX Reverb.com Store - that will become yesterday for when this article is published. Note that there is a blanket overseas shipping price default applied on checkout - and if ordering from overseas / outside of Continental / Mainland USA / North America, you will need to contact Spiral via Reverb.com Messages - and they can sort you out - like indeed they did for me!
Demhe Compact Silicon Transistor Fuzz - $149
The Demhe has 4 intuitive controls - besides the fact the Spiral FX calls the Clipping Switch the Blower Switch - presumable because of the Mode 2 open / no clipping option. Position 1 applies Silicon Diodes for more nuanced texture - and which voicing is more conducive to overdrive and fuzzy-drive sounds. While position 2 is the full-blown Fuzz unleashed = blower / blow-out!.
The Gain, Output and Bias knobs should be fairly self-explanatory for anyone who has ever used a fuzz, while the Detail control is a sort of Character / pseudo EQ control which adjusts the gain character and frequency accent - meaning that the Bias and Detail are the key tone-shaping elements for this Fuzz and deliver a wide variety of textures and tones - accentuating low and high frequency content. There is also plenty of Volume and Gain on-tap and this can range really fairly high gain. It has a real bark to it too as a core characteristic.
I would have got one of these solely on Tom's reputation and what I have already heard of his other fuzzes - while Andy Martin's demo (below) is of course and excellent persuader too - I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on this in a couple or weeks or so - however long it takes to ship.
The Demhe is priced at $149 plus Shipping and Taxes - and if overseas as I mentioned - make sure you Message Spiral Electric FX first for a proper price as the default values are somewhat overblown!
Andy Martin Demo
Final Thoughts
I'm delighted to finally own a Spiral Electric FX pedal - and hope Tom will deign to make more at this form-factor - as that really is the perfect size for a fuzz pedal! You only need those larger vintage style enclosures when you are using those NOS capacitors that are the size of oxygen tanks. Most Fuzz Face and Tone Bender circuits and the like are rather very tidy indeed and in no way need those over-sized enclosures of old.
I hope Tom can do some custom compact editions here too - with those cool glass and ceramic knobs he sometimes utilises. I genuinely hope this is the first of many such derivations! Note that the Demhe is identically styled to the core Spiral Black Fuzz (formerly Black Rose) - with black enclosure and knobs - besides a bright red Bias variety as is he case on the Demhe. The larger format edition has a 3rd Germanium clipping option, otherwise those two pedals would seem to be very much derived from the same circuit. If indeed Tom has started down a path of compact derivations of his key circuits, then I would like to put in a petition for the Allora and Brute Fuzzes to be next!
My good friend Joe Light of Joe's Pedals is one of the main UK stockists for Spiral Electric FX, while I'm not sure dealers will be getting their hands on the Compact Demhe, at least not initially - I guess we'll have to wait and see! And good friend Scott Hager of Axe and You Shall Receive - has you covered for Canada and North America!
How about you readers - are you cool with the larger horizontal enclosures - or are you also looking for more pedalboard-friendly varieties of Spiral Electric FX fuzzes like me! And more importantly - will you be getting a Demhe too?
