We interrupt your regular programming to bring you news of another fuzz pedal fresh off the breadboard at Old Blood Noise Endeavors and it is like no other we have seen this (or any other) year.
It’s called the Pardner Fuzz, and, as the name suggests, it is designed to partner with other guitar effects pedals, with a specially designated effects loop for this purpose. And this effects loop is not just your typical send/return. That would be too easy. Too obvious for Old Blood Noise Endeavors.
No, this is the Lasso section of the pedal, and it can be switched in and out, and has an overdrive circuit that can apply medium-gain dirt to whichever stompbox you want to buddy up with the the Pardner Fuzz.
The Lasso section has mini-dials for Gain and Level, and its own independent footswitch, and you can swap the order of the effects, so that the partner effect is going into the fuzz or vice-versa, or run them in parallel, which is a good place to start, advises OBNE.
The fuzz itself is not your common or garden variety Fuzz Face. It is principally controlled by two dials, Intensity and Filter, with a toggle switch to alternate between Synthy and Fuzzy modes. The former gives you a low-octave quality to it, which is a little like a synthesizer, while the latter is more recognisably fuzz.
Note: If you are looking for something familiar here, then rest assured there are Treble and Bass and Fuzz Volume controls that are fairly self-explanatory.
Filter controls the gain in the fuzz, and also the voice, too. The further you crank it, the more low-end content is in the mix. Intensity is a weird one. Not our words, OBNE’s.
“It increases the sizzly, warbly, yodelly quality of the fuzz,” reads the manual “sometimes subtle and sometimes obvious depending on your other settings and the sounds you are running into it”.
The ace in the hole will be whichever pedal you stick through the Lasso section. Old Blood Noise Endeavors encourages experimentation with this.
All your connections are located on the top of the enclosure. Said enclosure looks very cool, with artwork courtesy of Garrett Young, and the choice of Tan, Purple and Blue paint jobs.
OBNE has kitted this one out with soft-touch bypass footswitches for both modes, and it has a true relay bypass when both sides are disengaged. The Pardner Fuzz is available now, sound fun, is priced $229. For more details see Old Blood Noise Endeavors.
