Today was the day, I had been tracking my package all the way from Florida to my house for days on the DHL website and it finally arrived! Much to my surprise, the box was about the size of a small television, I cut the tape, pour out a ton of styrofoam peanuts, and there it is: the most beautiful pine box I'd ever seen.
Adorned with a royal blue ram's head, a Union Jack flag and my favorite word in the world, the English Muff'n was already a success in my book. I open the ceramic seal to find nothing but bubblewrap and a power adapter. Opening the bubble wrap, it finally occurs to me for a final time, this Muff has tubes in it! I couldn't be more excited.
Immediately I took off the protective black aluminum tube-guard to check out the tubes. I was surprised to see a pair of Electro-Harmonix 12AY7's as I expected one to be a 12AX7. At first I was pretty disgruntled, figuring that with a twenty-five year old P-bass with flats, and a pair of low gain preamp tubes that my fuzzy goodness would be weak and pitiful. Though after plugging in, I noticed one light was omnipresent meaning the unit was powered but bypassed.
I plugged my '78 Precision into the input, my output feeding directly to the instrument in on my Gallien-Krueger, set all the levels to flat, and stomped the switch. I was immediately faced with a boosted signal and a hint of sweet, sweet tube overdrive. Surprisingly, I found myself cranking down the EQ section, with the highs and lows right in the middle, and backing the mids off to a little shy of eleven o'clock. I upped the gain and lowered the volume to match my signal when the British beast is disengaged.
The effect could be described as nothing but tubey goodness. It's the perfect cure for the shrill highs and brilliance of a modern amp. A power chord struck high on the neck rings like a Les Paul through a Marshall stack, and an open E performs with the same warmth. Even with flatwounds, the tone really opened up, was anything but dead, and I've certainly found my new weapon of choice.
Folks, this ain't your pappy's fuzz box, this is the sweetest box of goodness you'll ever lay your feet on!