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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
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.
Subscribe for more boutique tone explorations.
🎸 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.