Fish Circuits Lunatique Fuzz
Fish Circuits returns to the channel — this time with the Lunatique, one of my NAMM 2024 highlights. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.
In this episode the Fish Circuits Lunatique Fuzz takes center stage — featuring the Wide Sky Guitars Tawa with Curtis Novak Humbuckers and Emerson Custom Pots and Treble Bleeds, into the Benson Amps Monarch via the Boss Waza Tube Amp Expander.
Also on the channel: the Fish Circuits Model One Overdrive.
🎛️ Fish Circuits Lunatique: https://fishcircuits.com/products/lunatique-fuzz
The Lunatique is a gated fuzz with a genuinely unusual architecture: two distinct fuzz circuits with a Chaos knob that blends between them continuously, plus a low-pass filter simultaneously operating on the same control. Noon is the warmest, tamest point. From there the knob does very different things in each direction.
Counterclockwise from noon the Lunatique moves toward a classic gated fuzz character — bright, biting, Tone Bender-like texture with increasing top end presence as you go further left. Less octave content, the fuzz is less likely to gate, and the frequency response opens up into snappy, cutting territory. This is the territory explored from 07:55 onward.
Clockwise from noon the Chaos knob introduces ring modulation and octave-up content that builds progressively as you turn right. As more octave and ring modulation enters the signal, it hits the fuzz circuit with less amplitude — which activates the gate more readily. Simultaneously the low-pass filter cuts high frequencies progressively, mellowing the top end while the octave and ring modulation take over the mid and upper-mid presence. By full clockwise, chords become something else entirely — ring-modulated, octave-saturated, mid-heavy fuzz mayhem. Explored from 03:31 (Chaos at 1pm, octave blending in) through 04:33 (Chaos pushed toward maximum) and back into cranked octave fuzz territory at 12:04.
Four controls: Chaos (the main character control), Level (with substantial output — more than enough to push an amp hard), Body toggle (full bass spectrum vs. rolled-off low-end for tighter mixes), Fuzz toggle (lower gain vs. higher gain — upper position removes the gate entirely and introduces feedback and squealing depending on rig). 9V DC center negative.
🎸 Wide Sky Guitars: https://www.wideskyguitars.com 🎸 Curtis Novak Pickups: https://www.curtisnovak.com 🔊 Benson Amps: https://www.bensonamps.com/guitar-amplifiers
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🎸 Wide Sky Guitars Tawa | Curtis Novak Humbuckers | Emerson Custom Pots + Treble Bleeds 🎛️ Fish Circuits Lunatique | Gated Fuzz | Chaos Knob | Octave + Ring Mod | Body + Fuzz Toggles | 2 Circuits 🔊 Benson Amps Monarch | Boss Waza TAE
Recording: Universal Audio Apollo x4 | Lauten Audio LS-208 | Royer R10 & R121 | Sennheiser E906 | Ableton Live 12
