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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
Subscribe for more boutique tone explorations.
🎸 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
Other R2R Electric videos you might like:
https://www.edgeofbreakup.studio/latest-videos/the-best-nos-fuzz-face-r2r-electric-geface-deluxe
https://www.edgeofbreakup.studio/latest-videos/r2r-electric-uniform-fuzz
https://www.edgeofbreakup.studio/latest-videos/electric-machine-fuzz-r2r-electric-zonk-machine
https://www.edgeofbreakup.studio/latest-videos/1959-fender-tweed-deluxe-5e3-vintage-amp-showcase
https://www.edgeofbreakup.studio/latest-videos/r2r-electric-pkiii-fuzz
https://www.edgeofbreakup.studio/latest-videos/r2r-electric-mki-pro-fuzz
https://www.edgeofbreakup.studio/latest-videos/r2r-electric-pre-amp-vintage-wah
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.