Spun Loud Effects promises “mild gated drive to screaming octave fuzz” from its newly launched Shuksan Fuzz
Deploying a trio of cascading gain stages, the Shuksan positions itself as a fuzz pedal for all seasons
Spun Loud Effects has unveiled the Shuksan Fuzz, a three-knob silicon fuzz pedal that arrives with a wide range of tones and the promise that it might well be one of those all-action fuzzes that performs well in a variety of situations.
Handmade in Bellingham, WA, it makes full use of three cascading gain stages, taking the Shuksan Fuzz from putting some heat and hair on your electric guitar tone, to full-on face ripping octave fuzz sounds.
Controlling all the fun are three dials for Input, Sustain and Volume. Input controls the input gain, and as such is excellent for fine tuning the fuzz to different electric guitar pickups – ergo different guitars – or indeed as acting as a de facto volume knob on your guitar.
Sustain controls the second gain stage, effectively dialling in as much fuzz as you need, with lower settings working the hinterland between distortion and fuzz, and extreme settings throwing out more extreme sounds. And finally, Volume controls the output level of the pedal. With unity gain to be found around the 11 o’clock mark, there is plenty of juice in this to pump the front-end of your guitar amp hard.
As ever, working these three controls will yield some very different textures and tones. And that’s what Spun Loud is counting on. We all love a simple two-knob fuzz. Heck, one-knob fuzzes rule, too. But sometimes a little more control is just what the doctor ordered.
If so, you’ll find the Shuksan Fuzz retailing for $163. Spun Loud has used high-quality Wima, TDK and Wurth capacitors, Gorva Design 3PDT switches, and Lumberg or Neutrik jacks in the build, and has equipped the Shuksan Fuzz with internal filtering for low-noise operation. Good to know.
For more details, head over to Spun Loud Effects.
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Jonathan Horsley has been writing about guitars and guitar culture since 2005, playing them since 1990, and regularly contributes to MusicRadar, Total Guitar and Guitar World. He uses Jazz III nylon picks, 10s during the week, 9s at the weekend, and shamefully still struggles with rhythm figure one of Van Halen’s Panama.
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