funky and useable tone.
And speaking of the
Tone control, it’s great
throughout the range.
It feels close to neutral
at noon and generates a
full frequency response
that is great for classic
rock riffs. As you increase
the control it cuts some
lows and boosts highs
and mids added the
perfectly amount of pick
attack and grit. It never
gets shrill. And with high
tone control settings, you
can roll off the volume
on your guitar and get
clean(ish) without too
much loss of highs. Rolled
below noon, the tones
get dark and muted. And
it’s here where you can
create some of those
weird intermodulation
distortions that make
Tone Benders so weird
and wonderful. And don’t
worry, the Holy Fuzz has
plenty of output to work
as a lead boost or simply
punish the front end of
your amp.
BENDER GETS BENT
The story of the Gate
control on the Holy Fuzz is
that Craighton and Robert
were circuit bending
(poking around the circuit
on a breadboard and
just experimenting with
component placement)
when they found the
location for the Gate.
No one knows whether
it was genius, luck, or
divine intervention, but
we do know it worked.
Clicking the Gate into the
circuit creates a whole
new pedal. Counter-
clockwise settings of
the Gate control create
ripping Velcro tones,
sputtery note decay,
and cool upper octave
and ring modulator
artifacts—all of which
can be further tweaked
via pickup position, as
well as guitar volume and
tone controls. Moving the
Gate beyond noon creates
crazy sputters and flat out
broken tones. My favorite
setting was the following:
Volume at 2:00, Tone at
11:00, Fuzz at 11:00, and
Gate at 2:00. The sound
reminds me a little of a
Univox Super Fuzz but
with the low-octaves of
an MXR Blue Box, at least
with the volume on my
guitar fully up. As I ease
off the volume, notes
and chords decay into a
pseudo tremolo but with
weird crackles and groans.
Broken tones never
sounded so good.
WHAT WE LIKE
The Holy Fuzz offers
excellent MKIII tones in
a (generally) affordable
package with some great
crazier fuzz tones to boot.
CONCERNS
My only concern is that
once again, Keeley is
building less than 100 of
these bad boys.
ToneReport.com
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