Zander Circuitry Completes its Range Revamp with Two More Gems - The Cafetiere DistortoFuzz and Terra Firma Power Amp Distortion
You should know by now that I’m a huge fan of Alex Millar’s Zander Circuitry Compact edition pedals which I often call the 8-Clipper Series as nearly all of those have a central Dial with 8 different Diode Clipping Options.
Over a number of years I encountered Alex at the various UK Guitar Shows - and we always had a fairly lively dialogue about pedal enclosure design, format, graphics and knobs in particular - and I was delighted when Alex shrank his formerly a little bit Wampler-looking mid-size BB enclosure units down to compact dimensions - while improving, enhancing and adding to those circuits. His excellent combination of raw compact enclosures with single colour line art graphics and matching milled aluminium knobs which are obviously inspired by CBA. They make for a very classic and distinct look and feel, and I feel the Zander Circuitry brand has moved on enormously over this period and has finally started to reap the rewards of that evolved inherent promise.
The first of these - the Siclone Silicon Chaos Initiator Fuzz was released back in 2020 - Alex’s innovative evolution of a feature-enhanced Silicon version of Fuzz Factory - when the original was still wholly Germanium-based. The Siclone is the only pedal not to have an 8-way clipper - actually, so is the Sono Bass Fuzz & Preamp also released in 2020. In not being a bass player - the Sono is the only one I don’t own! So including the Sono there are 9 compact Zanders, and of those - 7 are properly 8-Clipper Series.
Following the Siclone and Sono we next saw the Cranium Murine Distortion (Rat), and Surplus Elemental Overdriver (Dual Drive), then the formidable trio of American Geek High Gain Fuzz Machine (Transistor Muff), Foxxton Woods Upper Octave Fuzz Generator (Foxx Tone Machine), and Siva Op-amp Fuzz (Opamp Muff). You may recall that the Foxxton and Siva featured in my best of the year roundup for 2021 as the Siclone was also featured in the 2020 equivalent roundup.
So the final pieces of the puzzle are the Cafetiere DistortoFuzz (Harmonic Percolator), and Terra Firma Power Amp Distortion (Sunn Model T) - which are of course both 8-Clipper varieties and share a somewhat not dissimilar visceral and raspy rawness of character.
The 8-Clipper Options :
- Germanium Diodes
- Silicon Diodes
- Red LEDs
- Asymmetric Germanium
- Asymmetric Silicon
- Asymmetric LEDs
- Transistor + Mosfet
- Diode Lift
7 of the 9 compacts, or 7 out of the 8 I own - all share those same clipping options - where I typically prefer the higher output Diode Lifted and Transistor + Mosfet Modes.
Here follow the individual details for each of those pedals :
Cafetiere DistortoFuzz (Harmonic Percolator) - £149
Controls - Gain, Tone, Starve, Input (More Gain + Low End), Blast Level (Max Gain Level), 8-way Clipping, Level, Engage Fuzz Footswitch, Blast Footswitch (Max Gain).
The Cafetiere is the third of my own Harmonic Percolators - all of which are smart extended range types. Where the EAE Dude Incredible is a BB-enclosure size Percolator plus Intersound Instrument Voice PreAmp, and my other similar compact enclosure variant is the equally formidable Drunk Beaver Secret Sauce.
The Secret Sauce has Germanium and Silicon clipping options on each of its gain stages, compared to the 8 options of the Cafetiere. They are for sure about equally awesome sounding - while the Cafetiere can go a touch more extreme and visceral. Overall the Cafetiere is the individually most granular of Harmonic Percolators I own - and for sure in several ways the most impressive. While all 3 of these are about as great as you can find within this genre - with a lot more range and capabilities than most.
You can for sure hone and ameliorate the output of these pedals - and particularly so with the Zander Cafetiere, while I always prefer these kinds of circuits at their most raw and raucous - which for my preferences means Diode Lifted or Transistor + Mosfet Clipping Modes, and Gain at circa 1 o'c, Tone at 1 o'c, Starve at 1 o'c, Input at c 4 o'c, Blast at Max (Blast Level), and Level at 3 o'c. Those settings produce the perfect tone - and give you enough variety between Core and Blast playback modes. You need to be a touch careful with the Input and Level dials as if you have those set too high they add a lot of compression - which removes some of that raw edge I so like!
With the Cafetiere, my Harmonic Percolator capsule collection is night complete - I still aim to add an Electrofoods Ultd. Pigpile Hamonic Porkolating Fuzz at some stage - after which I will probably call it a day. Each of my existing Percolator Trifecta and including this Cafetiere are about as excitingly visceral as you would want. Alex has compiled the perfect arrangement of controls here to give you the maximum output potential for this circuit!
Available right now on the Zander Circuitry Webstore and at leading Zander dealers - I feel a lot of you will really enjoy getting your hands on one of these! Those magenta knobs are really pretty too!
Terra Firma Power Amp Distortion (Sunn Model T) - £149
Controls - Gain, Tone (High + Low Pass), Shift (Low Pass Cut Off), Body (High Pass Cut Off), Blast Level (Max Gain Level), 8-way Clipping), Level, Engage Distortion Footswitch, Blast Footswitch (Max Gain).
The Sunn Model T is one of my favourite models of distortion - with those raw, grungy and doom-laded sludgy overtones - which many believe reaches its ultimate heights in the mid-size EAE Model feT and Kuro Exegol preamp pedals.
I included the just then recently announced mid-size Terra Firma in my original Model T overview back in 2019 - where my two own varieties at that time were the compact Coda Effects Black Hole and Sizzorfite Extended Controls Acapulco Gold Clone.
The EQD Acupulco Gold is probably the most famous of those varieties - particularly of the compact options - while I always tend to gravitate toward the more extended-features / range style pedals first. So I'm still to acquire the Acapulco Gold - which was likely my first target candidate here back in the day.
The Terra Firma doesn't get quite as viscerally amp-like as does the Kuro Exegol - but boy does it get you really close, and in a significantly more compact enclosure.
Compared to the powerful 3-Band EQ of the Exegol, the Terra Firm has Alex's very typical refined take on Tone Stacks - where you typically have a central Big Muff Style 2-way EQ - meaning High and Low Cut Filters at either end. But where you have an extra couple of dials here - Body and Shift - where the Shift is the High-Cut threshold, and the Body the Low-Cut threshold. Meaning you set the frequency ranges of the Tone control with those two dials - which can be relatively subtle - while still suitably impactful.
Much like the Cafetiere, my favourite Clipping Modes here are the louder and more raucous Diode Lift and Transistor + Mosfet types. While my perfect Terra Firma tones are achieved with Gain at 1 o'c. Tone at 9 o'c, Shift at 9 o'c, and Body at circa 9:30 o'c, then Blast at Max and Level at 3 o'c. Same as for the Cafetiere - if you overload the main Gain and Level / Volume controls you can get a little too much compression which overly softens my preferred perfect output.
So my Model T capsule collection currently stands at 4 units - with the really impressive Terra Firma, Sizzorfite Acapulco Extended Clone, Coda Black Hole, and Kuro Exegol. I really don't need to add any more - I'm very well covered with several of the best there already - while for sake of completeness I do feel I have to add an EAE Model feT and EQD Acapulco Gold at some stage eventually. The Zander Terra Firm is for sure easily my favourite of the compacts.
I see the Terra Firma and Cafetierre as sort of two sides of the same coin - where both have these powerful raw preamp style sounds - while the Cafetiere leans towards Fuzz and the Terrafirma leans more into conventional distortion - but there are for sure some similarities.
Both Terra Firma and Cafetiere are very appealing priced at £149 - and of course availlable right now courtesy of the Zander Circuitry Webstore and its leading dealers!
Zander Circuitry's dual-footswitch, 8-Clipper series pedals are some of the most formidable compacts available anywhere - and sound just as amazing as they look - with unprecedented levels of granularity and shaping. I will for sure be doing a full roundup fairly soon where I pick out my very favourite Zanders - which is going to be a very tough task indeed. I genuinely love each and everyone of these and they are each unique and distinct. I very occasionally would prefer more conventional EQs - something like a Tilt-EQ with extra mids focus, while I really admire Alex for going his own way here!
Who among you is as big a Zander Circuitry fan as me?
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