Warm Audio has unveiled two new effects pedals that, as per the brand’s M.O., look to revive and harness some of the most well-known stompbox tones from electric guitar lore.
But it’s as much an aesthetic recreation as it is a tonal one: a quick glance at the not-so-subtly named Warm Bender and RingerBringer, and you’ll probably guess what the order of business is for these two units.
The Warm Bender is, unsurprisingly, Warm Audio’s take on the legendary Sola Sound Tone Bender fuzz pedal, which was first designed by Gary Hurst in 1965. Essentially a modified Maestro FZ-1, the Tone Bender went through various incarnations, and could be found on the pedalboards of artists such as Jeff Beck.
It’s a savvy move from Warm Audio, then, which has seemingly visually modeled its own Warm Bender on the MkII variant of the pedal.
But tonally, it’s more diverse: the pedal has three selectable circuits that channel “the earliest Tone Bender fuzzes and the Mark II Professional-style fuzz tone”. A third mode, a silicon three-transistor circuit – as well as a SAG switch – looks to bring some more modern flair.
It’s a Tone Bender, so, naturally, there’s nothing crazy going on with controls, with the rotary selector switch sharing the layout with Level and Attack parameters. Just for further distinction from the source material, these two have been swapped around here.
The result is a pedal that Warm Audio is particularly proud of: “Warm Bender is like nothing else on the market in that it delivers three separate Tone Bender fuzz circuits in one stomp box for players to choose from, in a pedalboard-friendly format,” says brand founder and president Bryce Young.
As for the RingerBringer, Warm Audio has turned its attention to the Moog Ring Modulator – and, once again, it’s a cosmetic recreation as much as it is a tonal one.
It certainly looks the part, offering two sides for LFO and Modulator control. These two sides are eerily identical to the source material, with the former offering Amount and Rate controls, as well as a wave selector switch. The latter, by comparison, has Mix and Frequency controls, with a Lo/Hi mode switch.
Again, it’s a choice move by Warm Audio: “With RingerBringer, we’re bringing back the full functionality and all-analog tone of a pedal that real modulation fans will truly appreciate,” Young goes on.
In terms of price, both look to be comfortably more affordable than their original vintage counterparts: the Warm Bender is $199, while the RingerBringer is $219.
To find out more, head over to Warm Audio.
Warm Audio has a track record of delivering the goods when it comes to replicating iconic pedals. Last year, it dropped the ODD Box V1 and Mutation Phasor II – recreations of the Fulltone OCD and Mu-Tron Phasor II, which sound convincingly close to the real things.
