Beetronics FX unleashes its first budget Pedal - the 3-Transistor One-Knob Tuna Can Fuzz

Beetronics have called this new budget pedal of theirs the Tuna Fuzz - while I’m being more literal and labelling it for exactly what it is. This is supposedly based on one of Filipe’s very original fuzzes - I can see Alchemy Audio sold one of those earlier versions a while back.

Felipe has evidently made contact with a canning factory - and I would think that the 3 transistors are are fairly mainstream silicon - otherwise there would be notes on their rarity or NOS status - so I would think should have a pretty decent supply for these.

It’s a 3-transistor fuzz - while it sounds fairly Fuzz Face adjacent to me - so probably a combination of relatively low gain transistors - which yield plenty of harmonics but don’t have too much excess noise or compression. They’ve been expertly biased in any case - for a really rich and warm tone.

I ordered one pretty quickly - direct - as none of the European dealers looked to be getting any in stock for at least a week or two - and mine has already been despatched while I write this.

You have just a single Master Volume knobs here which impacts both gain and level - these kinds of fuzzes you normally just crank right up - and then ride the volume knob of your guitar to control the level of gain / output.

There is in part a novelty to this fuzz - but it’s eminently practical too - it might have been cooler with a metal cap while the base of the pedal is rather covered by one of those plastic ones - which will sit well on most surfaces - I might still try to put bumpers on it - we’ll see. Apart from the steel can and plastic lid - you get all the usual high quality Beetronics gubbins - and I must say that I love every aspect of this pedal - including the blister pack it comes in.

There have been a variety of produce tins and cans used over the years as pedal enclosures - while this one seems a little more robust than normal. I’ve kind of avoided most of those tins and cans over the years - but for some reason I’m attracted to this one.

It goes for $99 on the Beetronics Webstore and I paid £120 for mine - which includes taxes and shipping to the UK!