The History
Some of you might remember a thread I did about the Roland Jet Phaser, I've been dying for one for a very long time. There was meant to be a faithful clone being built, but I never heard anything back.
I tried quite a few phaser/distortion combinations but in the end I was getting P*ssed off with having 3 separate board spaces (and power outlets) taken up with pedals to make one sound.
So I thought: 'who can build me a phaser and a fuzz in one pedal, with a stomp switch that'll switch the combined sound on or off?'
Enter [SFX] - I've bought a few things from Max in the past and have also had the oppertunity to test some of his other pedals also. I'm always very impressed with the high standard of work and the engineering concepts that appear in alot of his designs (IE: The Thumpinator, X&M).
The Creation
Max was happy for me to put my specification:
* An [SFX] MicroFuzz, with a flick switch to control the midrange content.
* The MicroFuzz should then Run into a Phaser
* A Wet/Dry Blend to mix the combined fuzz/phaser signal with the cleans - although it should be suitable on bass fully wet, the blend just being an option I could use.
* A stomp switch to turn the pedal on/off
* Preferrably 9v power.
* I'd like it to be called the Burninator.
Max said that he could put in a couple of extra footswitches at
no extra cost so I could turn the fuzz and phaser on/off individually, or use the Master Bypass (marked 'ENGAGE').
So now my Burninator is:
A Fuzz
A Phaser
A Fuzz/Phaser
I also sent Max some sketches for how I thought the layout should be, it was important for me to now have some colour coding between the phaser and fuzz chanels and their corresponding controls as I was going from one switch to 3.
Luckily, I need not have been that concerned - [SFX] pedals (like the X&M) already use color coding to tie up controls to switches/outputs etc. so chances are Max would have done this anyway without my asking.
by the way: top-mounted jacks, a big +1.
Sound
The first thing I must say is that the Inclusion of the Mid Switch on the MicroFuzz is a work of genius - it seems to affect the tone more when the Tone control is above 12 o'clock. I should also mention that it is a 3-position switch!! I was just expecting 'mids on/mids off' - I suspect that 'stock' is with the switch in the middle - I prefer it to the right.
I dont know if these are the same capacitors (?) that max gave me to try with my [SFX] modded Colorsound Bass Fuzz - but the MicroFuzz circuit sounds even better than before - and I loved it the first time around.
Also, the option to use the clean blend opens this pedal up even more.
Heres riff with both the fuzz and phaser engaged and quite a high proportion of cleans blended in -this keeps the bassline tight with some swirly fuzz behind it. Heres a clip testing the footswitches - going between Clean and Fuzz/Phase and then testing the individual switches ie: Fuzz then switching the phaser in out. Heres the phaser on its own - goes from Clean to Low rate, high depth - then both controls at 12 and then both controls maxed. I have not blended the cleans into this setting this is just wet phaser. Last clip: This is showing how the midswitch affects the fuzz - I like the last setting.
This is by no means all the sounds it can do - I havent even begun to show you different Fuzz tones! For the purpose of this demo, i believe the Fuzz controls we set to:
Vol: 3 o'clock
Tone: 3
Fuzz: 12
The signal is
'86 MIJ P-bass with j-bridge (equal blend of pickups)
-> Burninator
-> VTbass (set as flat as possible but with some saturation on the drive control)
-> PC.
