The Fuzz of Doom!
The Sequel 6 from Midnight 30 Music is a faithful recreation of the Lovetone Big Cheese. Lovetone produced many great pedals over the years, and one of the most sought after was the Big Cheese fuzz. From the blistering riff from The Edge on U2’s Discotheque, to the alt. country guitarists looking for that spaghetti western type of tone, this circuit delivered.
What M30 has been able to do with this version, is faithfully recreate that classic pedal, in a much smaller size and incredible build quality.
Controls:
Volume – LOADS of volume on tap. You won’t be hard pressed to find unity gain with this one.
Fuzz – A very wide and usable gain range, taking it from very little fuzz added to full on wall of sludge.
Tone – It’s always nice to see a fuzz pedal with a tone control. This circuit definitely benefits from having one.
Then there’s the Mode knob which lets you select from 4 different fuzz styles:
None – Tone circuit is bypassed, giving a bright, in your face type of sound.
Scoop – Removes the mids, gives it an almost Superfuzz tone, borderline Big Muff territory.
Mids – Bumps up the mids, which in turn smooths things out a little. This is the setting for that Live At Leeds tone.
Glitch – The classic big cheese setting. Drastically increases the gain, giving you a gated fuzz sound. U2’s Discoteque and Wilco’s I’m The Man Who Loves You are great examples of this sound.
All in all, M30 nailed it with this pedal. It’s built incredibly well like the rest of his stuff, and you get the nice bright white LED and true bypass switching. But the real magic is the sound. It’s a fuzz that will cater to pretty much any style of guitarist, and won’t leave you feeling lacking in any department. Want classic fuzz? It’s in there. Want more modern industrial fuzz? You got it. Want glitchy gated velcro fuzz? This will do it. These days I’ve been using the scoop and glitch settings mostly, with quite a bit of fuzz dialed in. I get a lot of questions from guitarists about what a good “first fuzz” is to get, and in my opinion this is the one.
