If you could only have one fuzz 🤔 Expresso FX Fuzz Bender Mojo Edition (MKII & MK1.5) | Jules Leyhe

Two legendary Tone Bender circuits. Three NOS Mullard CV7005 transistors. One toggle switch. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.

The Expresso FX Fuzz Bender Mojo Edition is played by Oakland blues guitarist Jules Leyhe, running into the Grez Guitars Mendocino Junior with a Wolftone Meaner Dog Ear P-90, into a 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A with a Weber CVA-8 pre-broken-in 8" alnico speaker. The Effectrode Tube Vibe joins from 06:21.

Expresso FX builder Sof has built his Fuzz Bender line around one of the most historically rich fuzz lineages in existence — the Sola Sound Tone Bender family. The Mojo Edition houses both the MKII and MKI.V circuits in one enclosure, selectable via toggle switch, with a side-mounted Bias knob for further tweaking. The MKII (explored from 00:42 and 08:41) is the three-transistor circuit that defined late-1960s British rock in the hands of Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, and Eric Clapton — an extra gain stage slamming the circuit harder for more sustain, gain, and midrange density. The MKI.V (explored from 03:46) sits in transitional territory between the raw, maximally-saturated MKI and the more refined MKII — looser, more unpredictable, deeply expressive. Having both voiced with the same trio of transistors makes for an extraordinary A/B experience.

At the heart of the Mojo Edition: three hand-selected NOS Mullard CV7005 germanium transistors — two black glass, one metal can. Military-spec, same family as the celebrated NKT275, delivering a warm, articulate, touch-sensitive voice that responds to every nuance of pick attack and guitar volume. NOS WIMA TFF polyester film capacitors, NOS Philips and ROE electrolytic capacitors, NOS Allen-Bradley carbon comp resistors, premium Cliff UK jacks, 22 AWG solid core silver-plated copper wire with Teflon insulation. Fully hand-wired on genuine Vero stripboard. True bypass. Three-year warranty.

The Grez Guitars Mendocino Junior — reclaimed old growth Redwood body, one-piece Honduran mahogany neck, 24.75" scale, 5.75 lbs, wood harvested from 800-year-old timber — pairs with a Tone Bender-style fuzz in a way that rewards the exercise. The Wolftone Meaner Dog Ear P-90's midrange character feeds the MKII's front end with exactly the right signal, acoustically vibrant enough that the guitar's resonance opens up through the fuzz rather than compressing or flattening.

Jules Leyhe brings slide and fingerstyle blues to both circuits — including a genuinely impressive slide performance on low-action 9-gauge strings from 09:29.

🎛️ Expresso FX: https://expressofx.com
🎸 Grez Guitars: https://www.grezguitars.com

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🎸 Grez Guitars Mendocino Junior | Reclaimed Old Growth Redwood | Wolftone Meaner Dog Ear P-90
🎛️ Expresso FX Fuzz Bender Mojo Edition | NOS Mullard CV7005 Ge (2x Black Glass, 1x Metal Can) | MKII & MKI.V Selectable | Effectrode Tube Vibe
🔊 Vintage 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A | Weber CVA-8 Pre-Broken-In 8" Alnico Speaker
🎵 Guest Artist: Jules Leyhe

Recording Rig: Absolutely no virtual/IR/direct sounds. 4 mics on a real cab. Royer R-121, Lauten Audio LS-208, Ohma Ribbon on front of cab, Royer R10 on back of cab. All mics sent through Universal Audio Apollo x4 with default preamps and no digital preamp emulation plugins, mixed in Ableton Live 12.

Time-O-Lite Fuzz | R2R Electric | Telecaster Tones with a Vintage Fender Princeton Reverb!

A solid brass topped T-style. NOS OC44 black glass germanium. An all-tube univibe. And a vintage blackface Princeton Reverb. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.

In this episode, the R2R Electric x Waterslide Guitars Time-O-Lite Fuzz takes center stage — piloted by my Gronlund Guitars T-Style with solid brass top, loaded with McNelly A5 Tele pickups and Emerson Custom treble bleed, into a vintage 1966 Fender Princeton Reverb. Guest starring the Effectrode Tube Vibe.

The Time-O-Lite is a long-time collaboration between R2R Electric founder Chris Vincent and Waterslide Guitars — over two years in development. The enclosures are genuine Time-O-Lite industrial darkroom timers, converted by hand into fuzz pedals with painstaking care for the original hardware. The concentric potentiometer configuration repurposes original controls: the lower larger pointer for Volume, the upper small red pointer for Fuzz — period-correct CTS units, a 1966 CTS 500k and a 1983 CTS 1k. NOS Allen-Bradley carbon comp resistors, NOS capacitors, a 1979 ITT .01uf chicklet-style cap, and true bypass throughout. Every pedal ages uniquely — each tells its own story before you've played it.

This unit features hand-selected NOS OC44 black glass germanium transistors — a low-noise, high-gain device with warm, musical compression sitting beautifully in a Fuzz Face-style two-transistor circuit. R2R also builds the Time-O-Lite with OC42 and AC107 germanium transistors, each with its own distinct character. The range spans from gated and spitty at low bias to large, open, blooming fuzz at full bias. No buffers upstream — this must sit first in your signal chain.

The Gronlund Guitars T-Style is the work of James Greene, building handcrafted guitars one at a time in Maine, USA. The brass top is the defining feature — a solid brushed brass sheet that fundamentally changes the resonant character of the instrument, adding density, sustain, and a harmonic complexity that a traditional wood-topped guitar simply doesn't produce. The McNelly A5 Tele pickups are Alnico 5, higher output than traditional vintage styles — tight bass, present mids, and a conveniently subdued treble that gives the player full control. Hand-made in Canada, they are exactly what McNelly's own builder says he would have made in 1950 if he were Leo Fender. The Emerson Custom treble bleed keeps top-end detail alive through the volume control — essential in any fuzz rig where cleanup off the guitar knob is part of the performance.

Into a 12-watt blackface Princeton Reverb — single 6V6, AA1164 circuit, tube rectifier — the brass-topped T-style and the OC44 germanium fuzz find a warm, intimate platform that rewards every nuance of pick attack. The Effectrode Tube Vibe adds its all-tube photocell-and-bulb univibe voice — triode tubes running at real amp plate voltages, with Classic swampy throb, Smooth ethereal chorus, and Chorus/Vibrato switching for Hendrix-style vibe or pure pitch-shifting vibrato.

Brass. Germanium. Blackface. Tube vibe. This is the session.

Be sure to join the @r2relectric email list so you know when his ultra limited hand-built NOS fuzzes, boosts and wahs hit Reverb to purchase! They DO NOT hang around long!

https://www.r2relectric.com/how-to-order

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🎸 Gronlund Guitars T-Style | Solid Brass Top | McNelly A5 Tele Pickups | Emerson Custom Treble Bleed

🎛️ R2R Electric x Waterslide Guitars Time-O-Lite Fuzz | NOS OC44 Black Glass Germanium Transistors

🎛️ Effectrode Tube Vibe

🔊 1966 Fender Princeton Reverb

The Most Unique Guitar in my Collection | Mule Resophonic Mulecaster | Feat. Jules Leyhe

The Most Unique Guitar in My Collection... A hollow steel body tuned to B Standard. A four-person shop in Saginaw, Michigan. And Jules Leyhe playing slide and fingerstyle blues through a 5-watt tweed. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.

In this episode, the Mule Resophonic Mulecaster T-Style is the story — running into a 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A with a Weber CVA-8 pre-broken-in 8" alnico speaker, with the Effectrode Tube Vibe along for the ride. Played by Oakland blues guitarist Jules Leyhe.

Matt Eich founded Mule Resophonic in 2012 out of a garage closet in Saginaw, Michigan — a man who had trained at the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery and spent years building instruments for Huss & Dalton in Virginia before a single concert changed everything. Watching Kelly Joe Phelps play slide on a metal resonator and send a crowd into a frenzy, Eich left the venue with one question: could he build a resonator that looked more like the raw material it was made from, and sounded warmer and more acoustic than anything the format had historically produced? He had never cut or welded a piece of metal in his life. He figured it out anyway. Mule is now a four-person shop with a waiting list that keeps growing and a roster of players that speaks for itself — Dan Auerbach, Billy Gibbons, Ben Harper, Ariel Posen, Joey Landreth, Jeffrey Foucault, Jason Momoa, Celisse Henderson, Rebecca Lovell, and Kristian Matsson of The Tallest Man on Earth.

The Mulecaster is Mule's bridge between the resonator and the electric guitar worlds. Single and double-cutaway variations on Strat and Tele-inspired outlines — this one is the T-Style single-cut — with hollow steel bodies, a 25" scale length, and availability in both standard and baritone tuning in a range of powder coat finishes. The Mulecaster featured here is tuned to B Standard baritone — a full step-and-a-half below standard E — and fitted with Mule's own Tom Thumbucker mini-humbuckers, hand-wound in-house. The hollow steel body creates what Mule players consistently describe as a 3D quality to the sound — a resonant, acoustic bloom beneath the electric signal that no solid or semi-hollow wood body can replicate. Eich himself has said these instruments wake up his ear like nothing else, and when he goes back to other guitars he hears them in a new way. That's exactly right. Put one in your hands and your playing changes.

At B Standard baritone pitch, the Mulecaster's deep fundamentals interact with the hollow steel body's natural compression in a way that rewards both slide and fingerstyle playing with an expressive, vocal quality that sits in its own sonic universe. Into a 5-watt, single 6V6, Class A tweed Princeton and the warm alnico character of the pre-broken-in Weber CVA-8 8" speaker, the Mulecaster finds a platform intimate enough to let every nuance of Jules's playing breathe at full volume.

Jules Leyhe is a Berklee-trained Oakland blues guitarist who has shared stages with Buddy Guy, Jimmie Vaughan, Charlie Musselwhite, and Taj Mahal. Premier Guitar called his playing the best blues slide since Derek Trucks — maybe even Duane Allman. The Effectrode Tube Vibe adds its all-tube photocell-and-bulb univibe swirl — triode tubes at real amp plate voltages, Classic and Smooth LFO modes, Chorus/Vibrato switching.

This is the Mulecaster doing what it was built to do.

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🎸 Mule Resophonic Mulecaster T-Style | B Standard Baritone | Mule Tom Thumbucker Mini-Humbuckers

🎛️ Effectrode Tube Vibe

🔊 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A | Weber CVA-8 Pre-Broken-In 8" Alnico Speaker

🎵 Guest Artist: Jules Leyhe

🎙️ Recording Rig: Absolutely no virtual / IR / direct sounds. 4 mics on a real cab. Royer R-121, Lauten Audio LS-208, Ohma Ribbon on front of cab, Royer R10 on back of cab. All mics sent through Universal Audio Apollo x4 with default preamps and no digital preamp emulation plugins, mixed in Ableton Live 12.

The Perfect Single Pickup Junior Guitar | Grez Guitars Mendocino Jr. | Feat. Jules Leyhe

The Perfect Single Pickup Guitar | Grez Guitars Mendocino Jr. | Feat. Jules Leyhe

A tree for a thousand years. A structure for a hundred. Now a guitar. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.

In this episode, the Grez Guitars Mendocino Junior takes center stage — played by Oakland blues guitarist Jules Leyhe, running into a 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A with a Weber CVA-8 pre-broken-in 8" alnico speaker. The Effectrode Tube Vibe is along for the ride.

Barry Grzebik builds guitars in Petaluma, California — just up the coast in Northern California wine country, between Armstrong Woods State Preserve and Muir Woods National Monument — and his defining material is reclaimed old growth Redwood. Not recently harvested timber. Not farmed wood. Old growth Redwood sourced from deconstructed structures: train tunnels, wine barrels, water vessels, vinegar tanks, barns, and factories. Trees that were 800 to 1,000 years old when they were felled, seasoned for decades or centuries inside the structures they built, and now given a third life as a musical instrument.

Barry plants a tree for every guitar he sells, in partnership with the Redwood Forest Foundation. The wood he uses has already lived two extraordinary lives before it reaches his workshop.

The Mendocino Junior is Grez's take on the classic Junior-style solidbody — an homage to the stripped-down 50s electric guitars that prioritized feel, resonance, and tone above everything else. The body is a single piece of reclaimed old growth Redwood, 13.25" wide and just 1.45" deep, weighing in at an astonishing 5.75 lbs. The neck is one-piece Honduran mahogany with an ebony fretboard, 24.75" scale, and 22 nickel silver jumbo frets. The single pickup is a Wolftone Meaner Dog Ear P-90 — a pickup chosen specifically for its ability to translate the natural acoustic voice of the Redwood body into an electric signal without filtering or compressing that character. Electronics are Emerson 500k volume and 250k tone with a .022 PIO capacitor — exactly the right wiring for a P-90 circuit at this weight and resonance. Music City Compensated Wrap Tailpiece. Matte nitro finish. This is a guitar built to disappear in your hands and let the wood do the talking.

"Building with first growth reclaimed wood originally harvested 100 years ago gave us a head start," Barry has said. "This wood is super well-seasoned and has a liveliness that is hard to get from younger recently harvested trees." That liveliness is not a marketing claim — it is immediately and physically apparent the moment you pick one up. The Mendocino Junior is acoustically vibrant in a way that almost no electric guitar is, and that acoustic resonance translates directly into a singing, three-dimensional electric tone that rewards both the player and the microphone.

Into a 5-watt, single 6V6, Class A tweed Princeton and the warm alnico character of the Weber CVA-8, the Mendocino Junior finds a home that feels entirely natural. Jules Leyhe — Berklee-trained, Bay Area-based, Premier Guitar's best blues slide since Derek Trucks — brings his full vocabulary of slide, fingerpicking, and flat-picking to an instrument that meets him note for note.

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🎸 Grez Guitars Mendocino Junior | Reclaimed Old Growth Redwood | Ron Ellis Pickups P90 | Emerson 500k/500k Bumblebee PIO Wiring

🎛️ Effectrode Tube Vibe

🔊 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A | Weber CVA-8 Pre-Broken-In 8" Alnico Speaker 🎵 Guest Artist: Jules Leyhe

🎙️ Recording Rig: Absolutely no virtual / IR / direct sounds. 4 mics on a real cab. Royer R-121, Lauten Audio LS-208, Ohma Ribbon on front of cab, Royer R10 on back of cab. All mics sent through Universal Audio Apollo x4 with default preamps and no digital preamp emulation plugins, mixed in Ableton Live 12.

If You Could Only Have One Fuzz 🤔 | Expresso FX Triple Fuzz feat. Jules Leyhe

If You Could Only Have One Fuzz – Expresso FX Triple Fuzz feat. Jules Leyhe!

Three circuits. A matched pair of NOS Mullard CV7005s. A Tropical Fish capacitor build. And Jules Leyhe behind the Mulecaster again. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.

In this episode, the Expresso FX Custom Ge Fuzz / Ge Boost / Octave Up takes center stage — played by Oakland blues guitarist Jules Leyhe, running into my Mule Resophonic Mulecaster loaded with Mule Tom Thumbucker mini-humbuckers, into a 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A with a Weber CVA-8 pre-broken-in 8" alnico speaker. Guest starring the Effectrode Tube Vibe.

Expresso FX is the work of Sof, a UK-based builder widely regarded as one of the great NOS transistor specialists in the boutique fuzz world. This is a fully custom three-circuit build in a large-format genuine Hammond enclosure finished in Red Sparkle — a Germanium Fuzz, a Germanium Boost, and an Octave Up, each individually voiced and hand-wired with Sof's signature obsession for component quality. The interior is point-to-point turret construction — no PCB anywhere in the build — with hand-routed color-coded wiring and a component density that makes the inside of the pedal as visually remarkable as the outside.

The Fuzz circuit is built around a matched pair of NOS Mullard CV7005 germanium transistors — military-spec devices with a warm, full, touch-sensitive voice closely related to the NKT275 family. Classic Fuzz Face architecture: extraordinarily reactive to guitar volume and pick attack, covering the full spectrum from barely-breathing whisper-clean to full blooming germanium saturation off your guitar's volume knob alone.

The Germanium Boost is built around a NOS Mullard AC107 germanium transistor, fitted with a 7-way rotary switch selecting from treble-focused to mid-focused to bass-focused voicings across seven distinct NOS capacitor-selected tonal positions. Not just a volume boost — a germanium preamp that shapes and enriches your signal before it hits the amp.

The Octave Up is the wildcard — a standalone octave-up circuit using germanium and silicon diodes for the asymmetric clipping interaction that generates the upper-octave harmonic above the fundamental. It can be engaged on its own or stacked with either or both of the other circuits. At B Standard baritone pitch through a semi-hollow steel-bodied Mulecaster, the octave bloom is a genuinely extraordinary sound — deep fundamentals interacting with the octave effect in a way a standard-tuned guitar simply can't replicate.

Component quality throughout: NOS Mullard C280 Tropical Fish polyester capacitors, NOS Philips chicklet film capacitor, NOS Philips electrolytic capacitors, NOS Allen-Bradley carbon comp resistors, premium Cliff UK jacks, Alpha 22 AWG solid core silver-plated copper wire with Teflon insulation, and Kester lead-free silver-based solder. True bypass. Three-year warranty.

Jules Leyhe is a Berklee-trained Oakland blues guitarist who has shared stages with Buddy Guy, Jimmie Vaughan, Charlie Musselwhite, and Taj Mahal. Premier Guitar called his playing the best blues slide since Derek Trucks — maybe even Duane Allman. His command of slide, fingerstyle, and flat-picking blues through a baritone steel-body into a 5-watt tweed is as inspiring a session as you'll find on this channel.

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🎸 Mule Resophonic Mulecaster | B Standard Baritone | Mule Tom Thumbucker Mini-Humbuckers

🎛️ Expresso FX Custom Ge Fuzz / Ge Boost / Octave Up | Matched Pair NOS Mullard CV7005 (Fuzz) | NOS Mullard AC107 (Boost) | Ge & Si Diode Octave Up | Red Sparkle Hammond Enclosure

🎛️ Effectrode Tube Vibe

🔊 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A | Weber CVA-8 Pre-Broken-In 8" Alnico Speaker

🎵 Guest Artist: Jules Leyhe

🎙️ Recording Rig: Absolutely no virtual / IR / direct sounds. 4 mics on a real cab. Royer R-121, Lauten Audio LS-208, Ohma Ribbon on front of cab, Royer R10 on back of cab. All mics sent through Universal Audio Apollo x4 with default preamps and no digital preamp emulation plugins, mixed in Ableton Live 12.

Your Klon Search is Over | Klone Overdrive | R2R Electric

Your Klon Search is Over! Six to eight months of obsessive component research. A loaned original Klon Centaur as the reference. One of the most mythologized overdrive circuits in guitar history, brought back to life by hand. Guest starring one of the Bay Area's most gifted blues players. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.

In this episode, the R2R Electric Klone Overdrive takes center stage — played by Oakland blues guitarist Jules Leyhe across slide, fingerstyle, and flat-picking blues, running into my Mule Resophonic Mulecaster loaded w/ Tom Thumbucker mini-humbuckers, into a '57 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A with a Weber CVA-8 pre-broken-in 8" speaker. The Effectrode Tube Vibe is along for the ride.

The Klon Centaur is the most mythologized overdrive pedal ever built. Bill Finnegan spent four years developing it before releasing it in 1994 — his core complaint with the Tube Screamer was specific: too much compression on the transient response, a midrange character he didn't like, and bass rolloff that subtracted from the natural signal. What he built instead was a genuinely original circuit — transparent, harmonically rich, voltage-doubling to 18V internally, with germanium clipping diodes at the heart of the sound. He hand-built every single one of approximately 8,000 units himself between 1994 and 2008, encased the circuit in epoxy, and famously interviewed prospective buyers by phone to assess whether their rig was appropriate. Jeff Beck, John Mayer, Warren Haynes, Joe Perry, Nels Cline, Matt Schofield, and David Grissom have all centered rigs around one.

R2R Electric founder Chris Vincent spent six to eight months working on the Klone — graciously loaned an original silver non-horsie Centaur as a direct reference. The component selection is where Chris's obsessive artisan approach defines the result: 1960s CTS pots, 1960s Iskra, Allen-Bradley, and Piher resistors, primarily WIMA capacitors alongside vintage oddities, and half a day auditioning IC chips. The diodes: 1980s Radio Shack 1N34a germanium and an unknown-brand 1N34a set. The silver hammered finish is as faithful to the original Centaur aesthetic as the circuit inside. This is a small intro run — Chris will build as many as he can for as long as the tone is exactly right. When it isn't, production ends.

@julesleyhe Jules Leyhe is one of the most gifted blues players in the country. A Berklee grad and Bay Area mainstay who has shared stages with Buddy Guy, Jimmie Vaughan, Charlie Musselwhite, and Taj Mahal, Premier Guitar called his playing the best blues slide licks since Derek Trucks — maybe even Duane Allman. Watching Jules navigate slide, fingerpicking, and flat-picking blues on a steel-bodied baritone through a Klon-faithful circuit is a master class in feel.

The @MuleResonatorGuitars Mulecaster is Matt Eich's hollow steel-bodied electric from Saginaw, Michigan — a 25" scale guitar tuned here to B Standard baritone, loaded with Mule Tom Thumbucker mini-humbuckers. Dan Auerbach, Billy Gibbons, Ben Harper, Ariel Posen, and Joey Landreth have all made Mule instruments central to their sound. The hollow steel body's natural resonance and compression character is an inspired pairing for a transparent Klon-style overdrive.

The 5F2-A's 5-watt 6V6 circuit and pre-broken-in Weber CVA-8 8" alnico speaker close the loop — an intimate, compressed small-amp platform that the Klon was practically designed for.

Be sure to join @r2relectric 's email list — Klone and other ultra limited NOS fuzz and boost builds go lightning fast.

https://www.r2relectric.com/how-to-order

🎸 Mule Resophonic Mulecaster | B Standard Baritone | Tom Thumbucker Mini-Humbuckers

🎛️ R2R Electric Klone Overdrive | 1960s CTS Pots | Iskra/Allen-Bradley/Piher Resistors | 1N34a Germanium Diodes | Silver Hammered Finish

🎛️ Effectrode Tube Vibe

🔊 '57 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A | Weber CVA-8 Pre-Broken-In 8" Alnico Speaker

🎵 Guest Artist: Jules Leyhe

Recording rig: Absolutely no virtual / IR / direct sounds. 4 mics on a real cab. Royer R-121, Lauten Audio LS-208, Ohma Ribbon on front of cab, Royer R10 on back of cab. Mics sent through Universal Audio Apollo x4 with default preamps and no digital preamp emulation plugins, mixed in Ableton Live 12.

Best Fuzz Face Ever! Time-O-Lite Fuzz | R2R Electric x Waterslide Guitars | Strat Tones

Best Fuzz Face Ever! Time-O-Lite Fuzz | R2R Electric x Waterslide Guitars | Strat Tones

Shell pink single coils. NOS OC44 black glass germanium. A swirling all-tube univibe. And a vintage Fender Deluxe Reverb doing what it was born to do. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.

In this episode, the R2R Electric x Waterslide Guitars Time-O-Lite Fuzz takes center stage — piloted by my Nash S63 in shell pink loaded with Lollar Vintage Blonde pickups (neck and middle) and a Lollar Special Bridge, into a vintage 1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb with vintage Jensen speaker. Guest starring the Effectrode Tube Vibe.

The Time-O-Lite is a long-time collaboration between R2R Electric founder Chris Vincent and Waterslide Guitars — over two years in development. The enclosures are genuine Time-O-Lite industrial darkroom timers, converted by hand into fuzz pedals with painstaking care for the original hardware. The concentric potentiometer configuration repurposes original controls: the lower larger pointer for Volume, the upper small red pointer for Fuzz — period-correct CTS units, a 1966 CTS 500k and a 1983 CTS 1k, working in concert. NOS Allen-Bradley carbon comp resistors, NOS capacitors, a 1979 ITT .01uf chicklet-style cap, and true bypass switching complete the build. Every pedal ages differently — each one tells its own story before you've played it.

This unit features a pair of hand-selected NOS OC44 black glass germanium transistors — a low-noise, high-gain device with warm, musical compression that sits beautifully in a Fuzz Face-style two-transistor circuit. R2R also builds the Time-O-Lite with OC42 and AC107 germanium transistors, each imparting its own distinct character. The range spans from gated and spitty at low bias to large, open, blooming fuzz at full bias. One important note: no buffers upstream. This must sit first in your signal chain.

The Nash S63 brings a fundamentally different voice to this circuit than the semi-hollow ES-335 featured in earlier Time-O-Lite sessions. The Lollar Vintage Blonde is wound to capture the voice of the most sought-after pre-CBS Stratocaster pickups — underwound, Alnico 5, scatter-wound — with an open, airy character, clear bell-like highs, and a softness on the attack that lets the germanium circuit respond with maximum expressiveness. The Special Bridge adds a touch more output and midrange authority without losing the single-coil definition.

Paired with the smooth touch sensitivity of a well-worn germanium circuit, this is a combination that rewards nuance at every turn.

The 1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb's AB763 circuit — 22 watts, a pair of 6V6s, tube-driven spring reverb — provides a clean, bold, American platform with more headroom and authority than a Princeton, while still breaking up beautifully under a fuzz's sustained low frequencies. The vintage Jensen speaker adds the warm, mid-focused character that defines the classic American clean tone. Into all of this, the Effectrode Tube Vibe brings its all-tube photocell-and-bulb univibe voice — triode tubes running at real amp plate voltages, dual LFOs offering Classic swampy throb and Smooth ethereal chorus voicings, with a Chorus/Vibrato switch for Hendrix-style vibe or pure pitch-shifting vibrato.

Shell pink. OC44 germanium. Vintage Jensen. Tube vibe. This is the session.

Be sure to join @r2relectric's email list so you know when his ultra limited hand-built NOS fuzzes, boosts and wahs hit Reverb to purchase! They DO NOT hang around long!

https://www.r2relectric.com/how-to-order

Subscribe for more boutique tone explorations.

🎸 Nash S63 | Shell Pink | Lollar Vintage Blonde (Neck & Middle) | Lollar Special Bridge

🎛️ R2R Electric x Waterslide Guitars Time-O-Lite Fuzz | NOS OC44 Black Glass Germanium Transistors

🎛️ Effectrode Tube Vibe

🔊 1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb | Vintage Jensen Speaker

The Attitude of the Tone Bender MKI – and beyond! | Reeves Electro Black Hat Sound Professional

The Attitude of the Tone Bender MKI – and beyond! | Reeves Electro Black Hat Sound Professional

NOS silicon transistors from 1970s Northamptonshire. A pressed steel big box. Point-to-point wiring so precise it looks like sculpture. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.

In this episode, the Reeves Electro Black Hat Sound Professional takes center stage — running into my Shock the Fox Dee-Cee TGF loaded with a Righteous Sound King Street P90 and Emerson Custom wiring, into a Benson Redland 35 Head and Benson 2x12" cabinet loaded with Scumback H75-PVC speakers.

Reeves Electro is the work of Markus Reeves — building small-batch, handcrafted point-to-point fuzz and drive pedals from a garden workshop in Northamptonshire, UK. No PCB. No circuit traces. Every component wired directly, point to point, with a precision that makes the inside of the pedal as visually remarkable as the outside. Markus builds 10 to 20 pedals per batch, releases them on a mailing list drop, and they disappear immediately.

The Black Hat Sound Professional is the full-featured, big-box evolution of Markus's flagship fuzz. The base circuit is a variation of his 183Sound — a Colorsound-inspired fuzz — extended with an external bias control and voiced to achieve the aggressive, grainy, on-edge snarl of the MK1 Tonebender. To be clear in Markus's own words: this is NOT a MK1 circuit — it just has the snarl and attitude of one. The Professional edition adds Tone and Mids controls to the standard Volume and Bias configuration, giving the circuit a fully granular tonal palette that the standard BHS can't match. The transistors in the Professional are voiced slightly brighter than the standard version to compensate for the Tone stack's effect on presence.

At the heart of it all: a matched pair of super rare vintage NOS ME4003 TO106 cased Blackhat silicon transistors from the 1970s. These aren't available anymore — Markus has confirmed he has run out of the original stock — making each Black Hat Sound a genuinely finite piece of fuzz history. The bias control sweeps from flowing, musical Gilmour-style sustain at one end, through voltage-sag territory and gated Neil Young tweed-collapse tones in the middle, all the way to nasal FZ1-style Fuzztone at the far end. A bass boost switch adds thunderous low-end weight on demand.

The Shock the Fox Dee-Cee TGF — built by Mathew Tye Tyler from a single board of Pecky Cypress — brings its bolt-on neck, dual carbon fiber reinforcement, Halon 1/2 Tele bridge aged in Greece, and Righteous Sound King Street P90 to the session. The King Street is an early-P90-inspired low-wind Alnico 2 design — broad midrange, growly lows, top-end chime. Emerson Custom Premier Pro wiring throughout.

The Benson Redland 35 Head delivers 35 watts of 6L6-driven American tone with Chris Benson's uniquely interactive Redland EQ and Benson's patented tube-driven power scaling. The Benson 2x12" is loaded with Scumback H75-PVC speakers — faithful recreations of the pre-1971 G12H 25W Kraft paper voice coil Greenback Pulsonic cone. Woodier and more upper-mid-forward than the standard H75, with thunderous low-end headroom and an open cabinet response that a point-to-point silicon fuzz loves.

This is a pedal that exists in finite quantity. It sounds like nothing else. Markus built it right.

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🎸 Shock the Fox Dee-Cee TGF | Pecky Cypress | Righteous Sound King Street P90 | Emerson Custom Wiring

🎛️ Reeves Electro Black Hat Sound Professional | NOS ME4003 Blackhat Silicon Transistors

🔊 Benson Redland 35 Head & Tall Bird Plus | Benson 2x12" Cabinet | Scumback H75-PVC Speakers

One of my Top Fuzz Faces Ever! | Mythos Pedals Joey Landreth High Road Fuzz

Mythos Pedals Joey Landreth High Road Fuzz

One knob. Silicon soul. And a philosophy that puts the fuzz back where it belongs — in your hands. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.

In this episode, the Mythos Pedals Joey Landreth High Road Fuzz takes center stage — running into my Kauer Guitars Electroliner loaded with Lollar Sixty-Four Stratocaster pickups, into my 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A with a 12" speaker.

The High Road is Zach Broyles' second collaboration with Joey Landreth — designed to accompany the release of Joey's single "Forgiveness" and born from a very specific tonal request. Joey wanted the focused, immediate, slightly high-biased spitty character of the best vintage silicon fuzzes — but with the reliability and consistency of a modern build. Zach delivered. The High Road is a modification of Mythos' own Golden Fleece Fuzz circuit — itself already a deeply considered silicon fuzz design — tuned specifically for Joey to deliver a more focused sound with a more immediate and brighter attack, as opposed to the wooly, compressed feel of the standard Fleece. The result is a fuzz that sits at an addictive intersection: vintage silicon clarity and spank on one end, glorious full-on fuzz destruction on the other, with everything in between controlled entirely by your guitar's volume and tone knobs.

That's the philosophy at the center of the High Road, and it's one of the most honest things a fuzz pedal designer can do: trust the player. The single Output control sets your overall volume, and from there your guitar's volume knob does all the work. Backed off to around 7 or 8, the High Road breathes — sparkling cleans with just a touch of snarl, intimate and touch-sensitive. Dimed, it opens into full-on spitty, high-biased, gloriously raw silicon fuzz with focus and midrange character that cuts without tearing. As Zach himself puts it: "the fuzz lives in your guitar." He's right.

One honest caveat worth knowing: the High Road is a clone of an incredibly simple vintage fuzz circuit, and like those originals it is sensitive to your rig and power situation — and yes, it can pick up radio, just like the classics. If you want absolute clarity and isolation, this is not your pedal. If you want something alive, reactive, and deeply connected to your hands and your guitar, this is exactly your pedal.

Into a 5-watt, single 6V6, Class A tweed Princeton circuit and the pre-CBS Alnico clarity of Lollar Sixty-Four single coils, the High Road finds a natural, musical home. The sensitivity and touch responsiveness that the tweed circuit rewards is exactly what this fuzz demands from a player. The fuzz really does live in the guitar — and in a rig this honest, you hear every nuance of it.

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🎸 Kauer Guitars Electroliner | Lollar Sixty-Four Stratocaster Set

🎛️ Mythos Pedals Joey Landreth High Road Fuzz | Silicon | Limited Edition

🔊 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A | 12" Speaker

The Perfect Fuzz Face! Time-O-Lite Fuzz | R2R Electric x Waterslide Guitars | Gibson Les Paul Tones

The Perfect Fuzz Face! A darkroom timer from another era. Two NOS OC44 black glass germanium transistors. And one of the most singular fuzz enclosures ever to find its way onto a pedalboard. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.

In this episode, the R2R Electric Time-O-Lite Fuzz takes center stage — piloted by my 2002 Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul R8 loaded with Ron Ellis LRP Humbuckers and the Emerson Custom x Edge of Breakup Les Paul Prewired Kit, into a vintage 1966 Fender Princeton Reverb.

The Time-O-Lite is the product of a long-time collaboration between R2R Electric founder Chris Vincent and Waterslide Guitars — over two years in the making. The enclosures are genuine Time-O-Lite industrial darkroom timers, converted by hand into fuzz pedals with painstaking care for the original controls. The concentric potentiometer configuration repurposes the original hardware: lower larger pointer for Volume, upper small red pointer for Fuzz — period-correct CTS units throughout, a 1966 CTS 500k and a 1983 CTS 1k. NOS Allen-Bradley carbon comp resistors, NOS capacitors, a 1979 ITT .01uf chicklet-style cap, and true bypass switching complete the build. Every pedal has aged in varying degrees — each one tells its own story before you've even played it.

This unit features NOS OC44 black glass germanium transistors — a low-noise, high-gain device with warm, musical compression that sits beautifully in a Fuzz Face-style circuit. R2R also builds the Time-O-Lite with OC42 and AC107 germanium transistors, each imparting its own character. The tonal range — from gated and spitty at low bias to large, open, blooming fuzz at full bias — is enormous, and the circuit is extraordinarily reactive to guitar volume and pick attack. Important: no buffers upstream. This must sit first in your signal chain.

The 2002 Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul R8 is a faithful recreation of the 1958 Standard — more density, more sustain, and a midrange thickness that a germanium fuzz translates into a saturated, vocal quality that is unmistakably its own. The Ron Ellis LRP Humbuckers were originally developed for the 2012 Gibson Lee Roy Parnell Signature Les Paul, built to recreate the PAF pickups in Duane Allman's original 1957 Goldtop. Vintage-accurate, clear, articulate, harmonically rich — more open and dynamic than any modern production pickup, with midrange movement and bloom that makes the guitar come alive.

The Emerson Custom x Edge of Breakup Les Paul Prewired Kit is a purpose-built collaboration between Emerson Custom and this channel — premium pots, premium capacitors, and a treble bleed voiced for maximum expressiveness in a fuzz and overdrive context. Rolling back the volume on an LRP into an OC44 fuzz through this kit is one of the great transitions available on a guitar.

Through the warm, intimate voice of a 1966 Fender Princeton Reverb — 12 watts, single 6V6, blackface touch sensitivity — this combination of Les Paul density, PAF-voiced humbuckers, and NOS germanium fuzz achieves something that belongs entirely to its own moment.

Be sure to join @r2relectric's email list so you know when his ultra limited hand-built NOS fuzzes, boosts and wahs hit Reverb to purchase! They DO NOT hang around long!

https://www.r2relectric.com/how-to-order

Subscribe for more boutique tone explorations.

🎸 2002 Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul R8 | Ron Ellis LRP Humbuckers | Emerson Custom x Edge of Breakup Les Paul Prewired Kit

🎛️ R2R Electric Time-O-Lite Fuzz | NOS OC44 Black Glass Germanium Transistors

🔊 1966 Fender Princeton Reverb

The Perfect Tone Bender! | Cunningham Amps MKII Professional Fuzz (OC76 Germanium)

NOS Mullard OC76 germanium transistors. An all-tube British-voiced 35-watt head. A 2x12" loaded with pre-rola Greenback recreations. And a tube-driven univibe along for the ride. All of it from the same builder in Auckland, New Zealand. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.

In this episode, the Cunningham Amps MKII Professional Fuzz takes center stage — this time into my Wide Sky Guitars Tawa loaded with Curtis Novak Humbuckers and an Emerson Custom wiring kit and treble bleeds, running into a Cunningham Amps Custom 35 Head and 2x12" cabinet loaded with Scumback H75-PVC speakers. Guest starring the Effectrode Tube Vibe.

The Cunningham Amps MKII Professional Fuzz is Tim Cunningham's deeply faithful interpretation of the legendary Tone Bender Professional MKII — the circuit that defined the sound of late '60s British rock in the hands of Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, and Jeff Beck. Three NOS Mullard OC76 metal can germanium transistors, hand-built one at a time in a heavy-duty wedge enclosure, individually voiced to their specific trio — no two ever alike. This particular example is the Sherwood Green aged and relic'd edition: Tim's weathered paintwork and hardware treatment giving it the look of a pedal that has lived a full professional life. Level, Attack, and three-way Gain Mode switch (Low, Med, High) cover the full spectrum from clean boost to full germanium saturation.

What makes this episode different from the first MKII video — and why it needed its own dedicated session — is the rig. The Wide Sky Guitars Tawa is a remarkably musical instrument: a semi-hollow build from Wide Sky's Todd Meehan, loaded here with Curtis Novak humbuckers and an Emerson Custom wiring kit and treble bleeds. Curtis Novak's humbuckers are wound with a meticulous attention to vintage specification and voicing that gives them a clarity and definition unusual in a humbucker — they retain note separation and harmonic complexity that pairs beautifully with a three-transistor germanium circuit. The treble bleeds keep the top-end detail alive as you roll back the guitar volume for dynamics, which in a fuzz rig is an essential practical tool.

And then there's the amp — which is the detail that makes this video genuinely special. This is an all-Cunningham chain: Tim's fuzz running into Tim's amp. The Cunningham Custom 35 Head is a hand-wired, all-tube 35-watt powerhouse featuring two independently voiced channels — Channel 1 running a tweed-style voicing from crystalline cleans to full "dimed on 12" overdrive, Channel 2 delivering British Plexi character for crunchy rhythm and singing leads. The channels can be run independently, in parallel, or cascaded — an extraordinary degree of tonal flexibility for a two-channel head. The cathode-biased output stage, fitted with EL34s as standard and swappable to 6L6 or KT66 without re-biasing, adds an organic, singing quality that is central to the amp's character. Tube-driven spring reverb is built in.

The 2x12" cabinet loads two Scumback H75-PVC speakers — Jim Seavall's faithful recreation of the pre-1971 G12H 25W Kraft paper voice coil "Greenback" T1217 003 Pulsonic cone, as heard in Marshall stacks and BluesBreaker combos of the pre-1968 British rock era. Woodier and more upper-mid-forward than the H75, with a good low end and less pronounced mid hump than the M75 — the speaker Scumback describes as the choice for players who want to sound like early Zeppelin. With a Cunningham MKII fuzz into them, it's an extraordinarily natural pairing.

This is Tim Cunningham's complete vision for what boutique guitar tone can be.

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🎸 Wide Sky Guitars Tawa | Curtis Novak Humbuckers | Emerson Custom Wiring Kit & Treble Bleeds

🎛️ Cunningham Amps MKII Professional Fuzz | Sherwood Green Aged Relic | NOS Mullard OC76 Ge Transistors

🎛️ Effectrode Tube Vibe

🔊 Cunningham Amps Custom 35 Head | 2x12" Cabinet | Scumback H75-PVCs

The Perfect Fuzz Face! | Expresso FX Ge Fuzz Mini (NOS Newmarket CV7005, Texas Instruments 2N1307)

The Perfect Fuzz Face! | Expresso FX Ge Fuzz Mini (NOS Newmarket CV7005, Texas Instruments 2N1307)

A pair of NOS germanium transistors from two different eras. One from Newmarket, England. One from Texas Instruments. Together in one compact Hammond enclosure, built by hand in the UK by one of the most obsessive boutique fuzz builders alive. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.

In this episode, the Expresso FX Germanium Fuzz Mini is the story.

Expresso FX is the work of Sof — a UK-based builder who has earned a devoted following among the NOS transistor faithful, described by some as the fourth of the great UK Fuzz Lords alongside Stu Castledine, Steve 'Pigdog' Williams, and David Main of DAM. The Germanium Fuzz Mini is Sof's compact-format take on the classic Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face two-transistor circuit, and the component specification is as serious as it gets. Inside: NOS Philips moulded metallised polyester capacitors — the exact same type found in the original Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face — NOS Allen-Bradley carbon comp resistors, premium Cliff UK jacks, 22 AWG solid core silver-plated copper wire with Teflon insulation, and premium Kester lead-free silver-based solder throughout. The enclosure is a genuine Hammond aluminium unit, powder-coated to the highest standard. True bypass throughout.

The transistor pairing in this unit is the premium option — a Newmarket CV7005 and a Texas Instruments 2N1307. The CV7005 is a military-spec Newmarket germanium device with a warm, full, touch-sensitive voice closely related to the celebrated NKT275 family — one of the most sought-after transistors in the boutique fuzz world. The TI 2N1307 brings a complementary textural character to the first stage. Together they form an asymmetric, dynamically expressive circuit with the hallmark qualities of the very best germanium Fuzz Face-style builds: enormous dynamic range off the guitar volume, a bloom and warmth that silicon cannot replicate, and a responsiveness to pick attack that makes the pedal feel less like a piece of outboard gear and more like an extension of the instrument.

The Mini ships tuned to vintage Fuzz Face specs, and like all great germanium circuits it wants to sit first in your signal chain — ahead of any buffers. From there, it covers the full spectrum: from barely-there whisper clean at rolled-back guitar volume to a massive, singing, full-bloom germanium fuzz with the guitar on ten and the Fuzz control opened up. In between is where the magic lives — that three-quarters-up territory where the germanium is just beginning to saturate, every nuance of pick attack shapes the tone, and the circuit breathes with the player in a way that no pedal schematic can fully account for.

The Shock the Fox TGF — a one-of-a-kind bolt-on DeeCee model built by Tye Tyler from a single board of Pecky Cypress, with a dual carbon fiber and truss rod neck, Halon 1/2 Tele bridge aged in Greece, FoxLock neck pocket, and a Righteous Sound King Street P90 with matching Pecky Cypress insert. The King Street is an early-P90-inspired low-wind Alnico 2 design with broad midrange, growly lows, and top-end chime — an ideal voice for feeding a germanium circuit. Electronics are Emerson Premier Pro pots and cap, a custom Caroline Guitar Co treble bleed, and an Analysis Plus output jack. Into a Benson Redland 35 Head and 2x12" cabinet — 35 watts of 6L6-driven American tone with Chris Benson's uniquely interactive Redland EQ — with the Benson Tall Bird Plus all-tube spring reverb and harmonic optical tremolo running post-preamp in the loop of a Boss Waza Tube Amp Expander. It's a rig worthy of the fuzz in front of it.

This is what happens when NOS component obsession meets a builder who truly understands what the circuit wants to do.

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🎸 Shock the Fox TGF | Pecky Cypress | Righteous Sound King Street P90 | Emerson Premier Pro | Caroline Guitar Co Treble Bleed | Analysis Plus Jack | Halon 1/2 Tele Bridge (aged in Greece)

🎛️ Expresso FX Ge Fuzz Mini | NOS Newmarket CV7005 & Texas Instruments 2N1307

🔊 Benson Redland 35 Head & 2x12" Cab | Benson Tall Bird Plus

Time-O-Lite Fuzz | R2R Electric x Waterslide Guitars | Gibson ES-335 Tones (1967)

A darkroom timer from another era. Two NOS OC44 black glass germanium transistors. And one of the most singular fuzz enclosures ever to find its way onto a pedalboard. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.

In this episode, the R2R Electric Time-O-Lite Fuzz takes center stage — piloted by my 1967 Gibson ES-335 loaded with Ron Ellis 60's Bette Humbuckers and Emerson Custom Treble Bleeds, into a vintage 1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb on the Normal channel.

The Time-O-Lite is the product of a long-time collaboration between founder of R2R Electric's Chris Vincent, and Waterslide Guitars — over two years in the making. The enclosures are genuine Time-O-Lite industrial darkroom timers, converted by hand into fuzz pedals with painstaking care for the original controls. The existing hardware has been repurposed rather than replaced — including the concentric potentiometer configuration, where the lower larger pointer controls Volume and the upper small red pointer controls Fuzz. Those pots are period-correct CTS units: a 1966 CTS 500k and a 1983 CTS 1k, working in concert. The rest of the component list is a collector's dream: NOS Allen-Bradley carbon comp resistors, NOS capacitors throughout, a 1979 ITT .01uf chicklet-style cap, and true bypass switching. Every pedal is unique and has aged in varying degrees — each one tells its own story before you've even played it.

This particular unit features a pair of hand-selected NOS OC44 black glass germanium transistors. R2R also builds the Time-O-Lite with OC42 and AC107 germanium transistors depending on the build — each transistor type imparts its own character, and every unit is individually matched and voiced to its specific pair. The OC44 is a low-noise, high-gain germanium device with a warm, musical compression character that sits beautifully in a Fuzz Face-style two-transistor circuit.

Tonally, the Time-O-Lite is a classic two-transistor germanium Fuzz Face-style circuit, shipped tuned to vintage Fuzz Face specs with an internal Blue trimpot for Q2 bias adjustment. The range — from gated and spitty at low bias to a large, open, blooming fuzz at full bias — is enormous, and the circuit is extraordinarily reactive to guitar volume and pick attack. Like all great germanium fuzzes, it rewards a light touch and punishes nothing. One important note: this is a true-to-vintage circuit that does not play well with buffers upstream — it must sit first in your signal chain with only true bypass pedals before it.

The 1967 Gibson ES-335 is one of the great guitar-and-fuzz pairings in existence — the semi-hollow body's natural woody resonance and acoustic bloom add a dimension to a germanium fuzz that a solid body simply cannot replicate. The Ron Ellis 60's Bette Humbuckers are specifically voiced for this application: based on the patent-era humbuckers used in early-to-late 60s ES Gibson guitars, they are fundamentally honest pickups that let the acoustic character of the instrument speak clearly. Hand-wound in Carlsbad, California and named after Ron's mother, the Bettes have beautiful musical timbre on every note — you can genuinely hear the wood of the guitar through them. The Emerson Custom Treble Bleeds keep high-frequency detail intact as you roll back the guitar's volume control, which in a fuzz-forward rig like this is not a luxury — it's essential.

Through the warm, bold voice of a 1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb, this combination of semi-hollow body, PAF-voiced humbuckers, and NOS germanium fuzz achieves something difficult to describe and impossible to fake.

Be sure to join @r2relectric email list so you know when his ultra limited hand-built NOS fuzzes, boosts and wahs hit Reverb to purchase! They DO NOT hang around long!

https://www.r2relectric.com/how-to-order

Subscribe for more boutique tone explorations.

🎸 1967 Gibson ES-335 | Ron Ellis 60's Bette Humbuckers | Emerson Custom Treble Bleeds

🎛️ R2R Electric Time-O-Lite Fuzz | NOS OC44 Black Glass Germanium Transistors

🔊 1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb

The Fuzz That Does Everything | Jam Pedals Eureka Fuzz

Two worlds of fuzz in one circuit. The singing, dynamic midrange of classic germanium. The gritty, full-bodied weight of a vintage Big Muff. Handmade in Athens, Greece. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.

In this episode, the JAM Pedals Eureka! Fuzz takes center stage — running into my Kauer Guitars Electroliner loaded with Lollar Sixty-Four Stratocaster pickups, into my 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A with a 12" speaker.

JAM set out to solve a problem that's divided fuzz lovers for decades: the classic choice between germanium character and Muff-style weight.

Germanium fuzzes deliver singing, touch-sensitive midrange and enormous dynamic control off the guitar volume — but can lack the full-bodied low-end punch that cuts through a mix. Muff-style circuits deliver that massive, scooped, wall-of-sound character — but can lose the intimate responsiveness that makes a great fuzz feel alive. The Eureka! uses silicon transistors in a proprietary architecture to bring both worlds together in a single circuit, and the result is something genuinely hard to categorize. Some will say it sounds like a beefed-up germanium fuzz. Others will swear it sounds like a mid-range-enriched Muff-style pedal. Both are right.

The control layout is classic and simple — Level, Tone, and Gain — but the three-way toggle switch is where the Eureka! earns its name. It incrementally introduces more low-end as you move through its positions, making it extraordinarily versatile across different guitars and musical situations. In the lowest bass-boost position, sending a hot enough signal into the circuit unlocks a gated-fuzz response — a completely different, sputtering, staccato character that sits at the far end of the tonal range. The overall palette covers everything from nasally 60s Fuzzrite character to girthy 70s Big Muff weight, with searing mid-rich lead lines, super-heavy riffs, and flat-out noise annihilation all available on demand.

Paired with the pre-CBS single-coil clarity of the Lollar Sixty-Four set and the warm, compressed voice of the 5-watt tweed Princeton circuit, the Eureka! reveals exactly why the bass-boost toggle is such a smart inclusion — single coils into a small-watt amp benefit enormously from that extra low-end muscle, and the Eureka! delivers it without sacrificing any of the midrange character that makes the circuit special.

Handmade and hand-painted in Athens, Greece, using the highest quality materials and rare NOS components. This is boutique fuzz done right.

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🎸 Kauer Guitars Electroliner | Lollar Sixty-Four Stratocaster Set

🎛️ JAM Pedals Eureka! Fuzz

🔊 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A | 12" Speaker

Your Klon Search is Over | Mythos Pedals Joey Landreth Mjolnir Overdrive

Mythos Pedals Joey Landreth Mjolnir Overdrive

A Nashville friendship, a Klon-style circuit, NOS germanium diodes, and a sparkle orange finish that makes every other overdrive on your board jealous. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.

In this episode, the Mythos Pedals Joey Landreth Mjolnir Overdrive takes center stage — running into my Kauer Guitars Electroliner loaded with Lollar Sixty-Four Stratocaster pickups, into my 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A with a 12" speaker.

The Mjolnir is Mythos Pedals builder Zach Broyles' deeply considered take on the modern classic Klon Centaur circuit — tweaking the clipping for consistency and a slight boost in clarity, while preserving everything that made the original a landmark piece of overdrive design. Like the Klon, it runs internally at 18V despite accepting standard 9V DC, and uses buffered bypass so your signal receives a boost in clarity even when the pedal is switched off. At low gain settings it functions as a supremely transparent, enormously loud clean boost — at higher gain settings it delivers a rich, dynamic overdrive voice that accents your rig without ever taking anything away from it.

The Joey Landreth edition is something more personal than a standard Mjolnir. The story begins in 2014, when Zach met Joey Landreth — killer guitarist, fantastic vocalist, master of tone — at The Basement in Nashville, Tennessee. They immediately started talking tone and became fast friends. The very first Mjolnir Zach built for Joey featured vintage NOS germanium diodes, and Joey loved it enough that it became his reference point for what a K-Style overdrive should feel like. The Joey Landreth edition is a replica of that pedal — inspired by and faithful to the original unit Joey has been running ever since. Handmatched NOS germanium clipping diodes give it a beautiful compression when the gain is pushed, and a clarity and personality that is measurably more mellow, softer clipping, and smoother than the standard Mjolnir variants. Limited to just 60 pedals worldwide, hand assembled by Zach and Morgan Broyles in Nashville, Tennessee, in a translucent sparkle orange finish with cream Bakelite-style knobs and an orange LED.

Into a 5-watt, single 6V6, Class A tweed Princeton circuit and the pre-CBS Alnico clarity of Lollar Sixty-Four single coils, the Joey Landreth Mjolnir finds a natural home. Its transparency and touch sensitivity reward a light touch and punish nothing — and its buffered bypass means it's quietly improving your signal even when it's off.

This is a pedal built around a friendship and a shared obsession with tone. It sounds exactly like that.

Subscribe for more boutique tone explorations.

🎸 Kauer Guitars Electroliner | Lollar Sixty-Four Stratocaster Set

🎛️ Mythos Pedals Joey Landreth Mjolnir Overdrive | NOS Germanium Diodes | Limited Edition

🔊 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A | 12" Speaker

Three Legendary Muffs In One Box | Jam Pedals Red Muck MK.2

Three legendary Big Muff circuits. One box. Handmade in Athens, Greece. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.

In this episode, the JAM Pedals Red Muck MK.2 takes center stage — running into my Kauer Guitars Electroliner loaded with Lollar Sixty-Four Stratocaster pickups, into my 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A with a 12" speaker.

The Red Muck MK.2 draws its inspiration from three of the most celebrated Electro-Harmonix Big Muff circuits ever made: the 1971 Triangle — the very first Big Muff, and still considered by many to be the finest — and the later Red Army and Civil War Muffs, two of the most revered designs to come out of the St. Petersburg, Russia production line in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Triangle brought lyrical, singing sustain and a scooped midrange that defined a generation of lead tone. The Russian variants brought heavier, smoother, bass-forward weight and a compression character that feels almost amp-like in its bloom. The Red Muck MK.2 sets out to capture the best of all three.

The MK.2 evolution over the original Red Muck adds serious firepower. A dedicated Boost footswitch engages a separately tuned section of the circuit, hitting the front end of the Red Muck to generate even fatter walls of fuzz-distortion — or, with the Gain set lower, it functions as a high-gain stage footswitch, effectively giving you two distinct gain levels in a single pedal. A two-way toggle switch selects between symmetrical clipping — exactly like the MK.1 — and asymmetrical clipping, labeled "+", which opens up a looser, more dynamic, more complex character. From early lyrical Gilmour-style sustain to massive stoner-fuzz-distortion walls of sound, the range is genuinely enormous.

Into a 5-watt, single 6V6, Class A tweed Princeton circuit and the pre-CBS Alnico clarity of Lollar Sixty-Four single coils, the Red Muck MK.2 reveals something important: at minimum gain, it thickens and fattens the signal in a way that feels more like pushing a small tube amp than engaging a conventional fuzz. The pedal cleans up beautifully off the guitar volume throughout the range, and its tone sits naturally in the mix without the battle for space that some Muff-style circuits require. JAM hand-paints every Red Muck, meaning each one varies slightly in appearance — a fitting touch for a pedal with this much personality.

This is the Big Muff lineage, distilled and elevated. Athens built it right.

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🎸 Kauer Guitars Electroliner | Lollar Sixty-Four Stratocaster Set

🎛️ JAM Pedals Red Muck MK.2 / Jam Pedals Retrovibe MK.4

🔊 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A | 12" Speaker

The Jimmy Page Fuzz Secret - On Your Pedalboard! | Cunningham Amps MKII Professional Fuzz (OC76 Ge)

The Jimmy Page Fuzz Secret - On Your Pedalboard!

A trio of NOS Mullard OC76 metal can germanium transistors. Sherwood Green, aged and relic'd. And one of the most important fuzz circuits of the 1960s, hand-built in Auckland, New Zealand. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.

In this episode, the Cunningham Amps MKII Professional Fuzz takes the spotlight — running into my Kauer Guitars Electroliner loaded with Lollar Sixty-Four Stratocaster pickups, into my 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A with a 12" speaker.

The Tone Bender Professional MKII is one of the most consequential fuzz circuits ever created. Sola Sound introduced it in 1966, designed by Gary Hurst on Denmark Street in London's Tin Pan Alley. The MKII evolved from the earlier MK1.5 — adding a crucial third transistor gain stage to the front end that slams the circuit harder, producing more sustain, gain, and midrange density. Think of it as a Fuzz Face with a booster built into the front. Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, and Jeff Beck all used the MKII to define the sound of late 60s British rock. The MKII was also manufactured for Vox and Marshall, making it one of the most widely distributed boutique fuzz circuits of the era.

Tim Cunningham's MKII Professional Fuzz is his deeply faithful hand-crafted take on this legendary circuit, built in a heavy-duty wedge enclosure with premium components throughout. This Sherwood Green aged and relic'd edition features Tim's weathered paintwork and hardware treatment, giving it the look and feel of a pedal that has genuinely lived a full life. The transistor selection is a trio of NOS Mullard OC76 metal can germanium transistors — components with plenty of gain on tap for massive fuzz tones, wide dynamic control, and beautiful cleanup off the guitar volume and with pick attack.

Each Cunningham MKII is built by hand, one at a time, and individually voiced to its specific trio of transistors — no two are ever exactly the same. Level sets the overall output and Attack dials up the intensity, ranging from soft and subtle to full sonic destruction. Raising the Level hits your amp's input harder, unlocking natural preamp breakup and beautiful overtones throughout. The three-way Gain Mode switch is the secret weapon: Low is a bright, firm boost setting, Med adds overdrive character, and High delivers fat, juicy, fully saturated germanium fuzz. Each setting imparts its own distinct character and makes the pedal remarkably versatile across different guitars, amps, and musical situations.

Into a 5-watt, single 6V6, Class A tweed Princeton and the pre-CBS Alnico clarity of Lollar Sixty-Four single coils, the Cunningham MKII finds exactly the environment it was born for. This is the British Invasion in a box — built by hand in the Southern Hemisphere, sounding like Denmark Street in 1966.

Subscribe for more boutique tone explorations.

🎸 Kauer Guitars Electroliner | Lollar Sixty-Four Stratocaster Set

🎛️ Cunningham Amps MKII Professional Fuzz | Sherwood Green Aged Relic | NOS Mullard OC76 Germanium Transistors

🔊 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A | Modded Baffle with 12" Speaker

Your Octave Fuzz Search is Over | Jam Pedals Octaurus LTD

Early-60s NOS silicon transistors, turret-board point-to-point construction, and an octave that blooms across the entire fretboard. All wrapped in olive drab suede. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.

In this episode, the JAM Pedals Octaurus LTD takes the spotlight — running into my Kauer Guitars Electroliner loaded with Lollar Sixty-Four Stratocaster pickups, into my 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A with a re-coned vintage Jensen P12Q.

The Octaurus LTD is the latest entry in JAM Pedals' Custom Shop line of limited edition pedals — an octave fuzz inspired by the octafuzz tones from the golden era of guitar music. But this isn't an attempt to clone the classics. Instead, JAM identified their favorite behavioral traits scattered across many of the legendary octafuzzes of the past, and set out to bring all of those qualities together into a single standalone device. The result builds on that rich lineage rather than simply emulating it.

At the heart of the LTD is a batch of early 60s NOS silicon transistors — made by Transitron or General Instrument, or both — similar to the 2N335 and 2N336. The pedal is built using intricate turret-based point-to-point construction for uncompromised signal integrity. In true Custom Shop fashion, it comes embossed in fine olive drab suede, and even features a see-through bottom plate, also wrapped in suede, with a zip for visual access to the board.

The control layout is refreshingly simple — Volume, Tone, and Gain — but two toggle switches unlock the pedal's full range of sonic dimensions. The left toggle moves between a scooped, metallic snarl and a full-bodied, harmonically rich roar. The scooped voicing is ideal for tight riffing and an even more pronounced octave effect, while the full-range voicing offers a singing fuzz quality that soars in the mix for lead work. The right toggle switches between symmetrical and asymmetrical clipping — symmetrical for tightness and precise definition, asymmetrical for a looser, more dynamic and unpredictable feel.

One of the LTD's signature traits is a clear apparent octave across all pickup positions — it retains your note's body all the way across your guitar's entire register. Roll back your guitar's volume and you get just the right amount of ring-modulator-type effect, and even then you can still play double stops and have the fundamental intervals pop out.

The single-coil clarity of the Lollar Sixty-Fours helps that apparent octave bloom across every pickup position, and into the warm, compressed voice of the 5F2-A's single 6V6 circuit and the mid-focused alnico character of the vintage Jensen P12Q, the Octaurus finds a perfect home. House tip from JAM — don't shy away from the gain and tone knobs at full throttle. That's where the strong octave and rich harmonics of this pedal really shine.

This is what happens when a builder distills decades of octafuzz history into one obsessively crafted device.

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🎸 Kauer Guitars Electroliner | Lollar Sixty-Four Stratocaster Set

🎛️ JAM Pedals Octaurus LTD Octave Fuzz | Early-60s NOS Silicon Transistors

🔊 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A | Re-coned Vintage Jensen P12Q

Cunningham Amps MK 1.6 (Silicon, BC108)

The missing link between two of the greatest fuzz circuits ever made — built by hand in New Zealand. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.

The Cunningham Amps MK 1.6 Fuzz runs into the Kauer Guitars Electroliner — Lollar Sixty-Four Stratocaster pickups — into the vintage 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A with a re-coned vintage Jensen P12Q. The JAM Pedals RetroVibe MK.4 joins from 03:39.

The MK 1.6 is Tim Cunningham's clever bridge between two mid-1960s legends — drawing from both the MK 1.5 Tone Bender and the Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face, sitting right in the fertile middle ground where so much classic British fuzz tone actually lived. This particular unit is built around a first-class pair of NOS BC108 silicon transistors — a brighter, tighter, more aggressive voice than the warmer germanium variants, with excellent note definition and a firm low end that cuts beautifully through a mix.

Explored from Attack cranked with Volume at amp unity (00:35), boosting the amp with fuzz volume above unity from 01:37, pushing further from 02:22, then reducing fuzz volume for less amp compression at 02:44, with extensive volume knob cleanup from 03:14. The JAM Pedals RetroVibe MK.4 joins from 03:39 with guitar volume fuzz cleanup, and Uni-Vibe on the bridge pickup with guitar volume at 10 closes the demo from 05:00.

Like every Cunningham build, the MK 1.6 is made by hand, one at a time, individually voiced to its specific pair of transistors — no two are ever exactly alike. Built on a precision-etched board with the highest quality components. The tonal range spans from sparkling cleans through tube-like overdrive to fully saturated fuzz. Attack dials up fuzz intensity, Level sets output from soft and subtle to sonic destruction — raising Level also slams the amp's input harder for beautiful overtones and natural breakup.

The three-way Gain Mode switch offers Low, Med, and High settings — Low is a bright, firm boost, High is fat, juicy, and fully saturated. Designed to provide significant volume boost — this is a fuzz that will not disappear in the mix.

Into the warm, compressed voice of the 5F2-A's single 6V6 circuit and the mid-focused alnico character of the vintage Jensen P12Q, the silicon-fueled MK 1.6 absolutely sings. The Lollar Sixty-Four single coils — scatter-wound, Alnico 5, degaussed to pre-CBS spec — give the circuit exactly the clarity and midrange it wants to chew on.

Every MK 1.6 ships with a custom carry bag, signed and numbered certificate of authenticity, and instruction card.

This is what happens when a builder understands exactly where two legends meet.

🎛️ Cunningham Amps: https://www.cunninghamamps.co.nz 🎸 Kauer Guitars: https://www.kauerguitars.com 🎛️ JAM Pedals: https://www.jampedals.com

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🎸 Kauer Guitars Electroliner | Lollar Sixty-Four Stratocaster Pickups 🎛️ Cunningham Amps MK 1.6 Fuzz | NOS BC108 Silicon Transistors | JAM Pedals RetroVibe MK.4 🔊 Vintage 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A | Re-coned Vintage Jensen P12Q Alnico 12"

Cunningham Amps Gypsy Eyes Fuzz | The Fuzz Face - Perfected!

Cunningham Amps Gypsy Eyes Fuzz. Two NOS military germanium transistors. A sand-cast enclosure that feels like it was pulled from an attic. And a 5-watt tweed Princeton pushing a vintage Jensen into the room. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.

The Cunningham Amps Gypsy Eyes Fuzz runs into the Kauer Guitars Electroliner — Lollar Sixty-Four Stratocaster pickups — into the vintage 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A with a re-coned vintage Jensen P12Q. The JAM Pedals RetroVibe MK.4 joins from 02:36.

The Gypsy Eyes is Tim Cunningham's deeply faithful take on the Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face — one of the most iconic and influential guitar effects ever created. Designed in London by Ivor Arbiter in 1966, the circuit is strikingly minimal: two transistors, four resistors, three capacitors, two potentiometers, and a bypass switch. Jimi Hendrix found one almost immediately upon arriving in London in late September 1966, using the germanium version throughout Are You Experienced — Foxy Lady, Purple Haze — to define a tone that still hasn't been bettered on its own terms.

The transistors in this Gypsy Eyes are NOS Newmarket CV9068 Red Dots — military designated OC71s. Lower gain devices, deliberately chosen for a fat, crunchy fuzz that never tips into over-saturation or heavy compression — calibrated for pushing an amp on the edge of breakup into gloriously rich fuzz and overdrive tones. Explored from Fuzz Gain and Volume cranked at 00:23, with extensive guitar volume cleanup from 01:21 and neck pickup cleanup from 02:14. Rolling back the guitar volume pulls from full, singing fuzz sustain all the way back to a whisper-clean tone in one smooth motion.

Tim builds each Gypsy Eyes by hand in Auckland, New Zealand, one at a time, in a heavy-duty sand-cast enclosure that nods directly to the original Fuzz Face housing. NOS finish with aged external hardware gives it the patina of a pedal that's lived a full life — without the compromises of actually playing a 60-year-old circuit. Every Gypsy Eyes is individually voiced to its specific pair of transistors, so no two are ever exactly the same. Ships in a hand-made wooden presentation box with a signed and numbered certificate of authenticity.

Into the warm, compressed voice of the 5F2-A's single 6V6 circuit and the mid-focused alnico character of the vintage Jensen P12Q, the Gypsy Eyes finds a natural home. The Lollar Sixty-Four single coils — scatter-wound, Alnico 5, degaussed to pre-CBS spec — are exactly the pickup this circuit was designed to work with. The JAM Pedals RetroVibe MK.4 adds a swirling all-analog Uni-Vibe dimension from 02:36 through the bridge pickup pass at 03:09.

This is the Fuzz Face as it was always meant to sound. Tim Cunningham just happened to get there first.

🎛️ Cunningham Amps: https://www.cunninghamamps.co.nz 🎸 Kauer Guitars: https://www.kauerguitars.com 🎛️ JAM Pedals: https://www.jampedals.com

Subscribe for more boutique tone explorations.

🎸 Kauer Guitars Electroliner | Lollar Sixty-Four Stratocaster Set 🎛️ Cunningham Amps Gypsy Eyes Fuzz | NOS Newmarket CV9068 Red Dot OC71s | JAM Pedals RetroVibe MK.4 🔊 Vintage 1957 Fender Tweed Princeton 5F2-A | Re-coned Vintage Jensen P12Q