MusicRadar Verdict
Tonal purists beware: the Lava Box stamps its authority all over your sound. Step on it and you might find that a previously timid Strat bridge pickup becomes a fearsome fuzz-rock monster.
Pros
- +
An abundance of heavy fuzz; plenty of level boost.
Cons
- -
Fiddly battery access, gets very bassy, very quickly.
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The latest addition to Seymour Duncan's growing stompbox range is this molten beast of a fuzz. In addition to gain and volume, you get the six-position rumble knob, which adds progressively more low-end.
Build quality is high as we expect from SD - including true bypass switching - although there's no quick way of changing the single 9-volt battery.
Sounds
The best adjectives to describe the Lava Box's sounds are 'thick' and 'smooth'. With the gain control in its upper reaches and one
of the higher rumble settings selected, there's a tidal wave of monstrous, fuzzy distortion on offer. In fact it's ideal for swampy, stoner-rock riffing: Kyuss, Melvins, Soundgarden and the like.
The rumble control spans thin-ish and honky, through to way more bass content than some humbuckers can handle, so beware. Strat-style single coils benefit from the chunk, of course.
The Lava Box is also very dynamic; turn down your guitar's volume and it cleans up almost musically - not normal at all for a fuzz pedal! It's not as aggressive as, say, a Big Muff, but then it's nowhere near as noisy either; background noise levels are perfectly good for a pedal of this nature.
Chris Vinnicombe worked with us here on the MusicRadar team from the site's initial launch way back in 2007, and also contributed to Guitarist magazine as Features Editor until 2014, as well as Total Guitar magazine, amongst others. These days he can be found at Gibson Guitars, where he is editor-in-chief.