Benson Amps Stonk Box Fuzz
You've heard a new fuzz is coming from Benson Amps. The rumors are true — this is the Stonk Box. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.
In this episode the Benson Amps Stonk Box takes center stage — Benson's Automatic Thermal Bias technology applied to the MKI Tone Bender circuit — featuring the Frank Brothers Arcade Thinline with Righteous Sound RAF Humbuckers, into the Benson Earhart Reverb Combo via the Boss Waza Tube Amp Expander, with the JAM Pedals Ripply Fall and Meris LVX later in the demo.
The backstory matters here. The Tone Bender MKI itself is a modified version of the very first fuzz ever — the Maestro FZ-1, the pedal responsible for the Keith Richards Satisfaction riff and Mick Ronson's Spiders from Mars-era Bowie tone. Chris Benson developed the Stonk Box after David Torn lent him a collection of original vintage fuzzes to compare and contrast. The discovery: no two MKI variants sounded exactly alike. Every original is different — component drift, transistor variance, temperature sensitivity. Germanium transistors change character as they warm up and as the room temperature changes. The Stonk Box's Automatic Thermal Bias circuit solves this permanently.
Plug the Stonk Box into power and wait. The LED will change color as the circuit warms up — 2-3 minutes on average. Once stable, the thermal bias circuit automatically adjusts internal voltages in response to ambient temperature, keeping the germanium transistors at their optimal bias point regardless of conditions. What you dial in at soundcheck is what you get at the end of a three-set gig.
Four controls expand the original MKI's minimal feature set. Filter controls Q1 gain and bias — the primary character knob. Trim is a pre-gain control that sets how hard the signal hits the transistors — cranked to maximum replicates the MKI out of the box. Tone is a low-pass filter that shapes the top-end frequency response. Volume is output level. The interaction between Filter and Trim is where the Stonk Box's tonal range lives — from articulate, almost overdriven fuzz to full sputtering MKI chaos.
Buffer and pedal-order friendly. 9VDC only. No pickup simulation.
🎛️ Benson Amps Stonk Box: https://www.bensonamps.com/guitarpedals/stonkbox
🎸 Frank Brothers Guitar Company: https://www.frankbrothersguitars.com
🎸 Righteous Sound Pickups: https://www.righteoussoundpickups.com
🔊 Benson Amps: https://www.bensonamps.com/guitar-amplifiers
Subscribe for more boutique tone explorations.
🎸 Frank Brothers Arcade Thinline | Righteous Sound RAF Humbuckers (A4 Neck / A2 Bridge)
🎛️ Benson Amps Stonk Box | Automatic Thermal Bias | Germanium | MKI Tone Bender | Filter / Trim / Tone / Volume
🎛️ Also: JAM Pedals Ripply Fall | Meris LVX
🔊 Benson Earhart Reverb Combo 1x12 | Boss Waza TAE
Recording: Universal Audio Apollo x4 | Lauten Audio LS-208 | Royer R-121 & R10 | Sennheiser E906 | Ableton Live 11
