New fuzz day! Magnetic Effects White Atom
Posted: Thu Sep 16, 2021 10:58 pm
In reality I received this last week, but I wanted to spend a little time with it before posting my thoughts.
I had been leaning pretty heavily in the direction of getting some flavor of Tone Bender and specifically an MK1, but this caught my eye and I found a deal on an older 4 knob (single tone control instead of individual treble and bass) and decided to go for it. My reasoning was even it it doesn't scratch the MK1 itch it would be a cool and versatile fuzz.
Well, I was right on both counts. There is a huge range of usable and cool sounds in this pedal. It's very midrange-centric (in a good way) and can do everything from mild overdrive to super gated. It's happy after a buffer and switching is silent. Top jacks and a visible but not eye-searing LED, and once you get the hang of how the controls interact, sounds can be dialed in very quickly. I took it to practice last night and it sat with the rest of the band better than any fuzz I've tried so far while still sounding very much like a fuzz.
What it doesn't do though is scratch the MK1 itch. It just doesn't have that level of razory leading edge to the attack of notes no matter where you set it the gain and texture (bias), and the note decay is just a lot more even and predictable (though not lacking in character).
My favorite use so far has been putting my EQD Bows in front of in in treble booster mode. That introduces a delightful bit of extra chaos, and lopping off the low end before the signal hits the fuzz pushed the sound into a very specific frequency range which I think will work great for stacking behind a cleaner part when recording.
The build quality seems good. My one beef in that department is the knobs. They're set screw which is nice, but they rely on a dinky insert with very little thread engagement and some are a pretty loose fit on the pot shafts, so they work loose pretty easily. I added a single wrap of painter's tape on the pot shafts where the knobs were especially loose, and I guess I can break out the Loctite next, but c'mon. Spend a few more cents and spec decent knobs on your pedal.
If you like the 60's honky midrange thing and are looking for versatility and pedalboard-friendliness in a fuzz this is great. It just lacks that last 5% in the danger/chaos department. That comes with its own set of potential issues though (has to be first, battery-only, no LED, huge enclosure, etc...)
Oh. and as discussed in another thread, there's no cleanup in the "Hendrix clean tone" sense. If you roll back the guitar volume you definitely get less saturation, but the character of the sound doesn't really change (doesn't do that chimey Fuzz Face thing). Not a bad sound at all, but not "cleanup" in the traditional sense.
I had been leaning pretty heavily in the direction of getting some flavor of Tone Bender and specifically an MK1, but this caught my eye and I found a deal on an older 4 knob (single tone control instead of individual treble and bass) and decided to go for it. My reasoning was even it it doesn't scratch the MK1 itch it would be a cool and versatile fuzz.
Well, I was right on both counts. There is a huge range of usable and cool sounds in this pedal. It's very midrange-centric (in a good way) and can do everything from mild overdrive to super gated. It's happy after a buffer and switching is silent. Top jacks and a visible but not eye-searing LED, and once you get the hang of how the controls interact, sounds can be dialed in very quickly. I took it to practice last night and it sat with the rest of the band better than any fuzz I've tried so far while still sounding very much like a fuzz.
What it doesn't do though is scratch the MK1 itch. It just doesn't have that level of razory leading edge to the attack of notes no matter where you set it the gain and texture (bias), and the note decay is just a lot more even and predictable (though not lacking in character).
My favorite use so far has been putting my EQD Bows in front of in in treble booster mode. That introduces a delightful bit of extra chaos, and lopping off the low end before the signal hits the fuzz pushed the sound into a very specific frequency range which I think will work great for stacking behind a cleaner part when recording.
The build quality seems good. My one beef in that department is the knobs. They're set screw which is nice, but they rely on a dinky insert with very little thread engagement and some are a pretty loose fit on the pot shafts, so they work loose pretty easily. I added a single wrap of painter's tape on the pot shafts where the knobs were especially loose, and I guess I can break out the Loctite next, but c'mon. Spend a few more cents and spec decent knobs on your pedal.
If you like the 60's honky midrange thing and are looking for versatility and pedalboard-friendliness in a fuzz this is great. It just lacks that last 5% in the danger/chaos department. That comes with its own set of potential issues though (has to be first, battery-only, no LED, huge enclosure, etc...)
Oh. and as discussed in another thread, there's no cleanup in the "Hendrix clean tone" sense. If you roll back the guitar volume you definitely get less saturation, but the character of the sound doesn't really change (doesn't do that chimey Fuzz Face thing). Not a bad sound at all, but not "cleanup" in the traditional sense.