Beetronics Tuna Fuzz – fishy fun for $99
$99/£85/€99, beetronicsfx.com
Beetronics’ pedals are, it has been well established, great. They’re absolutely gorgeous, and for the most part sound very little like anything else on the market. But that greatness doesn’t come cheap – most of its pedals go for above $200. So it’s pretty notable that its latest release, a one-knob fuzz built into a tuna can, is just $99. Could this be the accessible entry-point that indoctrinates you into the hive? Let’s find out.
READ MORE: The best fuzz pedals reviewed, from dreamily fuzzy to evilly scuzzy
We don’t often mention unboxing experiences here, but I feel compelled to with the Tuna Fuzz – it’s packaged basically like a toy, encased in a plastic sandwich and backed with a rather charming card that features both the pedal’s manual and a brilliant retro-styled illustration of a bee-tuna hybrid, because Beetronics.
And yes, the novelty factor here is pretty high – while Beetronics’ stuff is always pretty odd, most of its pedals are still vaguely pedal-shaped. This, however, is in a literal tuna can – albeit one straight from a supplier, rather than one that’s had fish cleaned out of it. Good news for the general smell of your pedalboard, bad news if you wanted your rig to attract stray cats.
The pedal itself is backed with a transparent lid, allowing you to peer into the inner workings – of course, the circuit board isn’t just a boring circle – it too features our bee/tuna friends, as does the sticker encircling the can. The whole effect, bespoke PCB aside, is charmingly DIY – as is the point. When he was starting out building pedals, Beetronics founder Filipe Pampuri would repurpose tuna cans as enclosures to save cash – and the Tuna Fuzz is a tribute to those days.
Image: Press
The sounds
There’s only one control on the Tuna Fuzz – output volume, which goes from zero to very, very loud. Gain is controlled by your guitar’s volume, which works best if there’s no buffer between your pickups and the pedal.
The sound of the circuit itself is scuzzy and blown out – a very fuzz fuzz, with no hints of clear overdrive or smooth distortion thrown in there. It’s spluttery and square-waved, and immediately takes you to early Black Keys territory. The volume knob clean-up isn’t quite full Fuzz Face glassiness, but drop down to 3 and 4 on your guitar and you do get a nice, mildly ragged low-gain sound.
When a pedal is an impedance-sensitive fuzz, pickup choice can go a very long way to determining the sound. So I gave it a go with both humbuckers and single-coils, and pleasingly it was just as happy to see both – humbuckers emphasised its gurgly low-end, while single-coils were bright but not shrill.
Image: Press
Should you buy the Tuna Fuzz?
Honestly, if you’ve got $99 burning a hole in your pocket, a space on your pedalboard and a hankering for fuzz – yes, you should. Beetronics wouldn’t have the standing it does if it was just about the beautiful multi-layered enclosures – the circuits are equally worthy of praise, and that’s still the case here.
Something to perhaps consider before you do pull the trigger is mounting the thing – for most use-cases, the classic velcro approach is likely going to be okay. But the lid that forms the back of the pedal is just a friction-fit – a zip-tie or two might be necessary to make sure the pedal doesn’t go a-wandering if your board takes a few knocks in a gig-bag. It’s also a tin can, and you know exactly how robust one of those is – so don’t expect to be able to stamp on this with endless aggression without mischief. With this accepted, the Tuna Fuzz is a no-brainer if you want a cool addition to your collection. It’s a lot of tone for $99 – the only worry is that it may well be followed up by multiple purchases of full-priced Beetronics units.
Tuna Fuzz alternatives
There are a few other excellent pedals in the $99-ish price bracket that come with similar sounds. First, the ZVEX Fuzzolo is another affordable fuzz-voiced fuzz that’ll provide similar levels of square-wave scuzz. Alternatively, if you want to go fuzz DIY, Third Man Hardware sells the very cool Fuzz-a-Tron DIY kit, an excellent place if you want to get started in soldering your own stuff – while getting a rad pedal at the end of it. And while we won’t list every other great affordable one-knob fuzz that you can grab from a boutique brand, some standouts include the Mythos Hephaestus, the EarthQuaker Erupter and the Frost Giant Massif.
The post Beetronics Tuna Fuzz – fishy fun for $99 appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
