This superior quality silicon transistor powered fuzz machine is as primitive as they come. One knob, input/output sockets, DC tap and a stomp switch. That's your lot. Designed for players who like it simple, don't want to break the bank and want a fuzz tone that will hit you up the side of your head like a bag of rusty spanners. The Meathead is an angry little fellow with plenty of output volume and a huge helping fuzzy goodness; it's one of the biggest sounding little boxes money can buy!! The tone produced is very raw sounding with a woody organic quality which is more than capable of producing a huge wall of meaty fuzz that will maintain good string definition and clarity even at high saturation. The bass and treble response is perfectly balanced for a thick but dynamic fuzz tone that will clean up wonderfully with the guitar's volume backed off. The Meathead has very low background noise for such a high output device and features correctly biased gain selected silicon transistors so the tone is very fluid and articulate. The Meathead features all the high quality parts and features you find on all out other pedals such as Ero Vishay metallised polyester film capacitors, BC components Electrolytic capacitors, 1% tolerance metal film resistors, audio grade Alpha potentiometer, Genuine Daka-ware Chicken head knob, Switchcraft jack sockets and gain selected audio grade transistors all lovingly enclosed in a heavy duty UK made cast aluminium enclosure finished in a highly durable stove enamelled hammer tone paint job. The Controls Just the one! Even through the Meathead has only one control many different tones can be achieved. As the Dirt control is turned up the signal gets fatter the sustain increases and the signal gets louder! Lowering the guitars volume control makes the tone fizzier and increases treble response. Lowering your guitars volume control will give a variety of different fuzzy flavours. Running your Meathead into the clean channel on your amplifier will give a more "classic" or "retro" fuzz tone where as an overdriven channel will produce a heaver and more modern feeling fuzz, excellent for dropped tunings!!

The Word...

Rather than me rattling on and on about this fuzz box of ours how about something written by the good folk who use them. This gives you fuzz lusting guys n gals out there a broader description of each pedal and not just a basic run down of the functions and controls from ourselves. "When I turned this pedal on I thought my amp was going to blow-up. Literally. Holy Scheisse this is a monster! So gainy, so over the top, so much fun! This is what you expect a 1970's fuzzpedal to sound like. If the late, great Mick Ronson (one of my all-time guitar heroes) was alive today, a Meathead would certainly be sitting there in his rig. You know those kocked-wah tones he would get, with all that sustain and trumpet-like flair (I'm thinking the "Jean Genie" solos right now)? Well this pedal gets that stuff in a jiffy. But it can get ruder and nastier than that too. It's an effect that I personally would use sparingly, since it is aggressive and all-encompassing (and extremely addictive!), but I've gotta' also say that as big as it is, it suprisingly didn't smother my original guitar tone either. Each guitar still retained it's distinctiveness, while having a lot of creamy gain at your disposal. I was just ga-ga over it for the most ripping leads ever! Then again, someone could base their whole guitar tone around this thing as well. While it's not as over the top (or flexible) as a Fuzz Factory, it still wields a big signature... totally 70's riff-city. Oh yeah, the control(s) are but one, aptly labeled 'Dirt.' Turn it up 'n you get more dirt and volume. Lotsa' volume there too, the front end of your tube amp will be screaming rude and increasingly harsh obscentites back at you as you turn it up: hence, the character of the pedal does subtly change (even if by default!) thru the range. And while it doesn't clean-up to a "clean" tone, it does lower the gain enough that you could ride the volume and get some cool interplay out of it. If only I had an LP and a Marshall...." Paul DiBenedetto

The Deluxe Meathead Love the Meathead tone but need more scope? Roll up one an all come see "The Deluxe" Features the same highly tunable tone filter that the Drag'n'fly uses for a truly massive amount of tonal flavours. You can also dial in subtle fuzz tones too!! Say what, subtle from a Meathead....on yer bike!! No no it's true. The Deluxe Meathead is a highly useable fuzz device that will land you in a swamp of a multi-tude of distorted tones.

The Word...

"I have to be honest, when I was waiting on it coming I did sort of think about whether it was possible to improve on the original MH, which is after all the finest fuzz I have ever used. That pedal has gone and ruined fuzz for me because the years (literally!) of trying out new fuzzes is finally over! First impressions were that the pedal was totally up to the usual standard, if anything the knobs felt more robust. I really like the size of it, the layout of the knobs and the way the jack inputs are on the top - I always liked that about Rats. It looks like it's built for abuse!! I got it the practice room and followed your advice by checking out the filter first. I was amazed at the range available, and really impressed by the way that it maintains tone across the sweep (which Rats don't do so well). I ran the pedal into my own amp (overdriven non-master Marsahall) and Chris's (totally driven Matamp) and found that by using the filter I could get very close to the same sound with both amps, but also I could get pretty dramatically different sounds too. I a/b'd it with my stock MH to get that sound first (which it does perfectly) and then started checking out how the filter and fuzz controls interacted - which was a lot more painstaking than I expected. It's really subtle, but I was able to REALLY fine tune the tone. To say I was blown away by how exactly I could dial in the sound I wanted would be a serious understatement!!! Running the volume at max (I like a good boost), the filter at just a pinch over three o'clock and the fuzz slightly higher again I can EXACTLY get the "In search of..." tone. just incredible!!! I can see myself using the full range of tones in recording too, which is where I can really see this pedal being essential. I always find that so many fuzzes lose lowend as you reduce tone/fuzz, but not this baby! I've since run it with Chris's Hiwatt and again with careful tweaking of the filter/fuzz there's some juicy, juicy fuzz to be had. i can see this pedal being perfect for those who find the stock MH too much. with the controls running maxed out it sounds insane (in a GOOD way!!!), and although I love that sound I realise that for most it's a step too far. With the filter far left it's the best sounding Rat i have heard (even reminded my of a less muddy Mongoose!), which I could imagine a lot of people digging. So in short it looks like you've improved on perfection!!! I really, really can't imagine a better fuzz pedal, it's that simple." David - Slomatics The Sounds - "Griefhound" by Slomatics