Fix Your Humbucker Lead Tone! | Cunningham Zonk MKI Fuzz | Feat. Giordano Guitars & Sunbear Pickups

The Cunningham Amps Zonk MKI in a stunning blackout finish — paired with the Giordano Guitars Veloce and a genuine 1966 Fender Princeton Reverb. Welcome back to Edge of Breakup.

The Cunningham Amps Zonk MKI Fuzz (Blackout Finish) pairs with the Giordano Guitars Veloce — Sunbear Pickups SB-62PAT# Archive Humbuckers — into the 1966 Fender Princeton Reverb (black panel). The Effectrode Tube Vibe joins for modulation.

The Zonk MKI is Tim Cunningham's hand-built take on the Hornby Skewes Zonk Machine — a close cousin of the Tone Bender MKI, but with a distinct input capacitor value that rolls off low end before the fuzz stage, producing a more angular, midrange-forward, and characteristically gnarly character compared to the fuller MKI. This particular unit's blackout finish is a genuinely striking departure from Cunningham's usual builds — same hand-wired NOS germanium construction underneath, just dressed differently.

The Sunbear SB-62PAT# Archive Humbuckers in the Giordano Veloce reference the brief transitional era when Gibson swapped from the "Patent Applied For" decal to the Patent Number decal — construction unchanged, short-length Alnico V magnets. Bridge 7.7K / Neck 6.8K. Bright, spanky, and vocal like the best vintage SG pickups, with a chime in the neck position that makes chords ring like a bell.

The 1966 Fender Princeton Reverb's black panel AB763 circuit is one of the cleanest, most neutral platforms in the vintage Fender catalog — no inherent grit baked in, just headroom, chime, and that signature mid-scoop, giving the Zonk MKI's gnarly midrange plenty of room to develop without fighting the amp for space. The Effectrode Tube Vibe rounds things out with rich, three-dimensional Uni-Vibe modulation.

🎛️ Cunningham Amps: https://www.cunninghamamps.co.nz

🎸 Giordano Guitars: https://www.instagram.com/_giordanoguitars_/

🎸 Sunbear Pickups: https://www.sunbearpickups.com

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🎸 Giordano Guitars Veloce | All-Mahogany | Sunbear SB-62PAT# Archive Humbuckers (AV Bridge 7.7K / AV Neck 6.8K)

🎛️ Cunningham Amps Zonk MKI Fuzz (Blackout Finish) | Effectrode Tube Vibe

🔊 1966 Fender Princeton Reverb (Black Panel AB763)

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.

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.

Subscribe for more boutique tone explorations.

🎸 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.