I’ve just tested the first final production model of my long-promised Cult Germanium Channel. As usual, it sounds even better than my funky hand-built prototypes. These will be available in just a couple of weeks from my distribution partners, Vintage King.
There core circuit is the same as in my Cult overdrive. I’ve added a great-sounding active EQ, tuned to just the right frequencies, plus a new input stage with variable capacitance (translation: a sort of “crisp vs. fat” control). There’s much more info on the Joe Gore Pedals product page.
My apologies that this release has taken so long! I hope some players find it worth the wait.
Happy new year, all. Sorry I’ve been so scarce — mostly, I’ve been practicing guitar! I’m trying out lots of challenging new things (for me, anyway) and I’ll share some of them as videos very soon. I’ve also been finalizing the four new Joe Gore pedals I’m debuting at NAMM 2018. Lookit!
They’ve already gone into the production, and they’ll be available via Vintage King very soon. I have yet to make demo videos and detailed spec sheets, and we still haven’t finalized the prices. (It depends how much the damn germanium transistors in Cult Germanium Channel and Porkolator wind up costing.)
In the meantime, here’s the info sheet I’m distributing at NAMM. Also, Premier Guitar is scheduled to record a demo video at the show and post it on their site. (I’ll share the details when that happens.) I hope I sound less like a squirrel on meth than I did for last year’s show-floor video.
If you’re attending the show in Anaheim, please visit me at booth #15517. (It’s a huge booth run by my distributors, M1. I’ll be crammed behind a tabletop somewhere within.) I’d love to say hi.
Woohoo! In this just posted Rig Rundown from Premier Guitar, Guns N’ Roses guitarist Richard Fortus shows off his fascinating stage rig, which happens to include my Cult pedal. It appears a 55:05. But gear geeks should watch the entire video, even if they’re not GNR fans. It’s full of interesting stuff—and lots of surprises.
Richard is the coolest. I’ve known him since the ’90s, when his then-band, Love Spit Love, played a show with PJ Harvey back when I was in the group. Besides being a great player, he’s the nicest guy ever, and he still has the enthusiasm of a kid discovering guitar for the first time. Plus, I’m jealous of how my PG pal John Bohlinger makes this sort of on-camera, impromptu interview look easy. (Trust me—it’s not.)
This part is especially flattering, and it’s not in the video: Like many primitive germanium effects, Cult doesn’t like buffers, so it should usually be used at or near the front of an effect chain. But of course, Richard performs using a buffered wireless system. He had someone build an “unbuffering” box that makes the pedal “see” pickup-style capacitance. I didn’t even know you could do that till Richard told me about it (though I’ve heard about other similar strategies since then).
Gotta say: It’s a special sort of thrill when something you concocted on a filthy little workbench winds up in the hands of a fine musician. Thanks, Richard and John!
Oh man — my friends at Premier Guitar just posted a video of me demoing four of my new pedal prototypes at NAMM. I didn’t even think I’d have these ready by showtime, but I powered out at the last minute. (Maybe ’cause I needed something to take my mind of the inauguration.)
It’s been a busy month since we filmed this. We’ve settled on names, graphics, and specs, and everything is in development. (Though they’re still a few months away from shipping.) I’ve included the first-draft enclosure graphics as well.
Purr is a minimal one-knob optical vibrato. Yep — one knob, which means no independent rate and depth controls. Sound crazy? I agree. But it just sort of works! (I explain my questionable reasoning in the video.)
It’s not a deep, wobbly pitch-shift effect — more like cross between a really warm, pretty tremolo and a subtle optical vibrato. It’ll have the same large knob as my Duh pedal, so you can make adjustments with your foot, assuming you’re not as clumsy as I am.
It’s my fave modulation circuit, one I’ve used on a number of my YouTube videos. Here it’s on throughout at a very subtle setting.
In this video it’s set more strongly, though I toggle it on and off as I loop additional layers.
Screech, a mutant spinoff of the Octavia and Green Ringer octave fuzzes, is an outgrowth of the experiments I did did a few years ago, when I built models of every major octave fuzz design, and then attempted a variation of my own. (It’s not too far removed from the final pedal in this video, which appears at the 10-minute mark.)
It’s got the most extreme octave effect I’ve ever heard from an analog octave fuzz, and unlike on an Octavia or Green Ringer, the effect works in all neck positions and at all pickup settings. You can also bypass the octave portion of the circuit for a straight distortion sound. (That’s not a new idea—it’s a popular Octavia mod. But that non-octave Octavia sound is dull as dirt, whereas this, I think, has a bit more character and impact.)
Porkolator also springs from a video demo/experiment of a few years back. It’s my oddball spin on the Interfax Harmonic Percolator, which is already pretty odd to begin with. It uses the same weird combination of negative- and positive-ground transistors for that sort of gravelly, decidedly non-tube-like distortion that Steve Albini loves so much. But all the part values differ, and the gain stages work very differently. There’s also an independent boost stage that can generate tons of extra level if desired. Again, it’s not that far removed from the final example in my octave fuzz video. (It appears starting at 5:55.)
Unlike the other three pedals, Cult Germanium Channel is pretty much finished. (We were originally going to include it among the 2016 releases, but decided that three new products were enough.) Its heart is the same primitive germanium overdrive circuit as in my Cult pedal, but with lots of added doodads: a tone-shaping pre-gain control, great-sounding active 2-band tone control, and an output trim. You can read more about Cult Germanium Channel here.
The NAMM video also features a demo of Kitty Boy, my imaginary vision of a germanium fuzz that should have existed in the 1960s. It’s sort of a cross between a Maestro Fuzz Tone and a Tone Bender Mk. I, which can go from lightly overdriven “Satisfaction” tones to hyper-saturated Ziggy Stardust glory. (It’s inspired by a conversation with Lyle Workman, so thanks, Lyle!)
I hope folks dig these. I’ll keep you posted about release dates and final prices.
Thanks, Jason Shadrick and Perry Bean, for doing such a nice job with the video and squeezing me into a brutal production schedule at the last minute.
Jet and Kaiju say: “When Joe plugs in those horrible fuzz pedals, we hide in the closet. But that new Purr pedal with the black cat on it isn’t so bad.”
Here’s an overview video that my pals at Premier Guitar shot at the NAMM show last January.
As always, I’m grateful to the friends who helped make this happen, especially Miko Mader from M1, my distributor, and Tony Lott, who oversaw production at the Cusack Music facility in Michigan. In addition to displaying superhuman patience during the long development period, Miko and Tony made many suggestions that improved my original designs. Thanks also to my pal Tom Menrath, who introduced me to Miko and Tony. (Tom used to work at Vintage King, but now he’s with pro audio champs Cutting Edge Audio and Video.)
I’ve posted demo videos for each pedal here before. But I’m reposting them after the jump in case you need a memory refresher. (I certainly do!) And I couldn’t resist including a couple of brag-worthy quotes from some of my early adopters. Thank you all!
Of the four pedals new I announced at NAMM, Cult is probably closest to my heart— it’s my favorite overdrive circuit. If you’ve watched many of my videos, you’ve heard it. I even built it into a few guitars, including this one, this one, this one, and this one. And now Cult is coming in pedal form.
It’s no secret that 90% of today’s overdrive circuits are derived from the Ibanez Tube Screamer. Screamers are great if you want to compress your signal for consistent and predicable results. But Cult provides the opposite effect, expanding your guitar’s dynamic range rather than compressing it. It’s great for players who vary their touch and guitar-knob settings for maximum tonal variation.
Cult is sort of the mutant grandchild of the single-transistor boosters of the 1960s, including the Dallas Rangemaster. It’s no Rangemaster clone, though — the parts, values, controls, and tones have little to do with that classic treble booster. But Cult has the crackling presence and extreme dynamic response you only get from such minimal germanium-transistor circuits. (Guitar Player magazine went so far as to call it “the most dynamic overdrive we’ve heard.”) The pedal heard in this video is a final factory prototype, and the units now in production look and sound identical.
Have a listen:
As the video demonstrates, Cult lets you veer from crispy-clean to spatter distortion just by adjusting your guitar’s volume control. But my favorite way to use it is to set the gain so that you can go from sparkle to splat just by altering your touch, as heard in this video:
Cult with be available from Vintage King in the next month or two. There’s more info on the Joe Gore Pedals product page.
I just bought 500 germanium transistors. (Yes, as a matter of fact, I am insane. Why do you ask?)
UPDATE: My Dunlop Fuzz Face Mini review is live at Premier Guitar. Audio clips included!
How and when did it get so frickin’ easy to procure great-sounding germanium transistors?
I’ve been building stompboxes for four years or so. I used to consume article after article detailing the sheer horror of dealing with germanium. Sure, those old-school transistors sound great, I’d read, and they’re necessary for vintage distortion circuits. But they’re unstable. They’re expensive. They’re hard to find. You have to sort through dozens to find the few good ones. And once you do, you must spend countless hours matching and biasing them for optimal sound.
I believed everything I read — until I finally admitted to myself that I seldom encountered any of those problems.
(If you don’t know much about germanium transistors and why they’re cool, here’s my manifesto.)
I used to buy germanium transistors from Small Bear and other parts sites, and was always happy with the results, even though I had to pay eight or ten bucks per transistor. (Small Bear even does the matching for you, offering sets of transistors suitable for various vintage fuzz circuits.) However, it was a little tough finding NPN (negative-ground) germanium transistors. In fact, Small Bear once rejected my order of a dozen or so NPNs because they were so scarce. (To his credit, Small Bear’s Steve Daniels explained that he restricted sales so that everyone who wanted to build a couple of great DIY fuzzes would have the opportunity.)
The workaround is to build pesky positive-ground pedals, or jigger with the schematic in order to use PNP (positive-ground) transistors in negative-ground circuits. (This site’s Fiendmaster project is an example of the latter workaround.)
D’oh! I omitted a circuit from the Fuzz Detective video. It’s the germanium version of the Shin-Ei Companion Fuzz FY-2. So here’s a brief Fuzz Detective Appendix.
The silicon version of the FY-2 is a cult item, a nasty little thing best known for its appearance on Jesus and Mary Chain’s Psychocandy album. The germanium version (which I didn’t even know existed until reader Bear pointed it out!) is a very different beast. Most notably, it lacks the silicon version’s signature midrange scoop, delivering a thicker, fatter sound.
As noted in the video, I replaced the stock B50K gain pot with a B5K. (The overall range of tones is pretty much the same, but this way, all the variations aren’t crammed into 10% of the knob’s range.) Construction details and testing procedures are the same as they were for the 12 Fuzz Detective pedals.
WHAT: Twelve germanium fuzz circuits compared and analyzed. These represent the sounds of almost every fuzz pedal introduced between 1962 and 1968.
WHY: A tool to help players identify the circuits most relevant to their musical needs. This isn’t about particular brands of pedals, but the circuits they employ. If you hear something you like, you can either do as I did and build a clone from the schematic, or buy one based on that particular design. (The relative merits of rival clones is another story.) Of course, if you’re rich and you desire an ancient pedal that probably doesn’t sound as good as a new clone, you can always purchase a vintage original. 😉
HOW: I tried to establish a “level playing field” by removing as many sonic variables as possible. I used the same signal chain, the same guitars, the same musical material, etc. (Tech details below.)
WHO:
Maestro FZ-1 Fuzz Tone
Sola Tone Bender Mk 1
Hornby-Skewes Zonk Machine
Sola Tone Bender “Mk 1.5” (similar to Vox Tone Benders)
Dallas-Arbiter Fuzz Face
WEM Pep Box Rush
Sola Tone Bender Mk II (same as Marshall Supafuzz)
Mosrite Fuzzrite (germanium version)
Orpheum Fuzz (germanium version)
Selmer Buzz Tone
Sola Tone Bender Mk III (same as Park Fuzz Sound, Carlsbro Fuzz)
Man, I’m glad I announced my intentions about this project! Thanks to your links and suggestions, the “Fuzz Detective” project has grown vastly more ambitious. I need a few more days to make my test recordings are assemble the results, but I believe this will be the most complete and “scientific” audio comparison of 1960s fuzz circuits yet attempted. I’m posting this update to share my current plans — and solicit last-minute suggestions for improving them. —Joe
Wanker’s dozen: twelve germanium fuzz pedals will finally compete on a level playing field.
I’ve been a busy little solder monkey! Dig my new pedals:
1. Maestro Fuzz Tone FZ-1 clone
2. Sola Tone Bender “Mk I” clone
3. Sola Tone Bender “Mk 1.5” clone (near-twins: Vox Distortion Booster, Italian Vox Tone Benders)
4. Dallas-Arbiter Fuzz Face clone (very similar to Tone Bender Mk 1.5)
5. Hornby-Skewes Zonk Machine clone (near-twin: Tone Bender Mk 1)
6. Sola Tone Bender “Mk II” clone (near-twin: Marshall Supafuzz)
7. Orpheum Fuzz clone
8. WEM Pep Box Rush clone
9. Mosrite Fuzzrite clone (germanium version)
10. Selmer Buzz-Tone clone
11. Sola Tone Bender Mk III (“3-knob”) clone
12. Baldwin-Burns Buzzaround clone
About the Fuzz Detective project:
I’m attempting to create a comprehensive comparative sound library of germanium-transistor fuzz pedal circuits.
There’s no shortage of audio clips and demo videos featuring the great stompboxes of the ’60s and their modern clones. Yet it’s difficult to make qualitative comparisons between circuits because there are so many other variables at play. Who performed the examples? Using what gear? Were the examples recorded in a pro studio or on a mobile phone? Are the pedals ’60s originals or modern clones? What’s the condition of the transistors? And so on.
This isn’t about, say, deciding who makes the best Fuzz Face clone. The focus is the circuits themselves. The Fuzz Detective project aims to “level the playing field” by removing as many variables as possible.
