We were recently fortunate to acquire a tasty little morsel of a guitar from our new friends at Eastwood Guitars, the Classic AC, and knew immediately that it should be paired up with today’s pedal. The Eastwood VALCO BloodBuzz Fuzz Overdrive takes two of our (and probably your) favorite effects, houses them into a monster enclosure, gives you a bunch of bells and whistles and lets the games begin. A tribute to the now legendary Lovetone Cheese Source™, the BloodBuzz harnesses power, tone and grit, bringing vintage sounds right into any rig imaginable.
The BloodBuzz is basically two completely separate FX pedals housed together in one enclosure. Due to the input/output options, it can be configured in any way you want: Fuzz into Drive; Drive into Fuzz; Fuzz out to other pedals, then back into Drive. The possibilities are limitless.
The Fuzz side features an input buffered by a low‐noise JFET op‐amp, with characteristics similar to a vacuum tube amp input, as well as a brilliant 4-way Voice Selector, with four distinct and unique fuzz sounds:
OFF – Tone Bypass – acts as a 2-knob fuzz, using FUZZ and LEVEL controls only
1 – Mid Scoop – introduces a 1Khz EQ dip, giving a ‘Muff’ style fuzz
2 – 3 Knob Mode – a more neutral EQ curve with increased mid focus; great for both rhythm and lead fuzz tones
3 – Gated – using the same EQ circuit as Voice 2, Voice 3 configures the fuzz section to enter deep bias saturation + an extra input drive stage. The more you drive, the more gnarly and gated the sound becomes – the classic Cheese sound
On the other side, the Drive portion has a transistor emitter‐follower at its input, a variable feedback JFET op‐amp that provides up to 40dB of gain with symmetric clipping. It, too, features a 4-way Voice Selector of its own:
OFF – Tone Bypass – DRIVE and LEVEL controls only
1 – Introduces the TONE circuit
2 – Voice 1 with the introduction of a Shelving EQ to roll off bass end
3 – Voice 2 with a higher frequency shift to increase the bass roll off
Both sides work in tandem or separate, again allowing for a multitude of sonic combinations. Their respective Gain (Fuzz/Drive), Tone and Level controls interact with each other as well, and the output depends on which voice you’re currently using. The analog circuitry includes a fully regulated analog ground for maximum immunity form hum, power supply variations and battery aging. All active components are surface mounted, with PCBs and ribbon are cables used throughout, along with lead and cadmium-free construction (RoHS). To see and hear the Eastwood VALCO BloodBuzz Fuzz Overdrive in action, please check out our video below. It’s a bit of a long one, but there are lots of features and sounds to go through. Plus, you know you’ve currently got the time. There’s more info and some excellent guitars over on the Eastwood website, be sure to check them out as well. Have a great weekend, everybody!
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