sometimes website photos turn out to be cleverly done composites anyways. probably impossible to know without seeing one in person. I doubt they would call it gloss if it were not gloss though.
Totally, the sound reminds me of a classic muscle car from the 1960s. Raw power. It starts at maybe late 1960s Led Zeppelin sounds and goes to face-melting pretty quickly. It wouldnāt be my choice if you want versatility but if you are after a good heavy rock sound that cuts fairly well, itāll do the job. Iāve found a dirty boost after it is nice for tightening it up even more and pushing up the mids. Sounds good with both my UAD Dream and Woodrow, not as good with my Iridium for some reason. I like tape delay with it more than reverb, but it does benefit from a little something, even if just a bit of spring or room reverb.
The good thing about silicon is that it basically sounds just like youāll hear in the YouTube vids, whereas in my experience germanium fuzz pedals really do vary pedal to pedal.
Reminds me of something you could use to score a film like this (I recently saw Vanishing Point in the theater, sounded amazing on big speakers).
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I use my soul bender with gain at zilch. Gives a nice edge to my clean tone.
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I hate to let the secret out on those D&S pedals, but they are amazing. I have a first gen from 1974-76 and a second gen from 1978. They were basically Maxonās Big Muff (Ramās Head? Triangle?) clones in the 70s and sound amazing. So much cheaper than buying a 1970s Big Muff. Now that I have two, I feel safe in sharing it. Haha.
The D&S II is also great but itās more in the Distortion+ vein (OP amp with germanium diodes, with a tone knob). I have a first gen of that as well from the 1970s. It sounds excellent. I had another one from the 1970s that didnāt sound as good, so I think they vary quite a bit.
(I had the wrong Kit Rae link, the Maxon stuff is at the bottom).
http://www.kitrae.net/music/History_of_Big_Muff_Clones.html
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big muff is such a specific range of sound, you can get a clone and if you donāt know the exact parts makeup you may not get the sound youāre looking for. Iām really into the green russian sound but some of the others are not as much my pleasure and my earholes do not bow down as they have been trained to.
maxon pedals are so coveted now itās incredible to see the way they have escalated in value since the rise of their internet fame but for good reason!
this link is cool! the jhs history of the rat page is also good!
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I got those Maxons a couple years back maybe for like $100 a piece. I donāt see them as often anymore though, unfortunately. They were under the radar for a long time.
That Pork & Pickle is a Russian Big Muff clone on the Pickle side and a Neve Preamp clone on the Pork side. Jeorge Tripps used to come to Japan a lot for special pedal releases and I got to talk to him a bit. Super nice guy. Iām a big fan of Way Huge and dig the Russian muff as well.
Jeorge hooked me up with a crap ton of Way Huge swag at one event because they didnāt want to lug it back to the US. Iāll have Way Huge picks for life.
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that picture is most excellent. my guitar is really particular about fuzz for some reason, Iād like to try something new but my synth acquisition syndrome always seems to be one step ahead of meā¦
Iām actually getting motivated to finish working on my project guitar because itās cheap all mahogany and super resonant and pairs much better with fuzz. Iāve just had 30 other projects looming over my head and with the weather being less than ideal lately I havenāt been motivated to get it into a paintable condition. Iām also debating over whether Iām willing to spend the money on the pickup config I have been thinking about for the last couple years because itās a lot of money to spend on a cheap guitar that I am having to do extensive re-styling to be able to look at without squinting.
My current guitar has a really tight grain or something which is odd for a pine bodied guitar so with a tele bridge which is normally pretty āvibeyā itās actually not very acoustically resonant and I think thatās why it pairs so poorly with fuzzā¦ poorly is the wrong word, just doesnāt do what youād expect it to.
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I hear you. Iām not sure what the greatest factors at play are, but Iāve found that pickup output matters a lot for pedals, especially fuzz. My Yamaha SG (humbuckers) and my Telecaster (low output 50s style single coils) are totally different animals. I have a Strat as well, and it sits somewhere in between those too.
Sometimes when a pedal sounds great/crappy, if I switch the guitar, it sounds completely different. Also, amps have a big effect. In this case that JHS Bender sounded great with the UAD amp models, but sounded kind of āmehā with the Strymon Iridium models. So much is rig specific. Itās often a crapshoot.
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Does anybody tried the TC Honey Pot Fuzz ?
tone is always just one bank account withdrawl away 
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As part of an ongoing midlife crisis I just bought my first ārock/metalā type guitar with a sustaniac pickup! Iām normally a Strat/Tele guy, so this is something new for meā¦I have to say its a lot of fun and the guitar is absolutely superb and very capable or ānormalā bluesy tones. Now I am off to paint my fingernails black 
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Love this!
Hereās Primal Screamās 90ās take on the score.
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Just got this lovely short scale Gibson bass of Reverb for a fair price.
Very rootsy / sixties sounding, happy camper. 
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letās see a pic of that once they dry!
in all seriousness my hand positioning is so generically poor (I say that because itās like every guitarist with bad hand positioning the way my hands are everywhere you arenāt supposed to put them) that I am completely incompatible with floyd rose tremolo systems.
The floyd rose exists in all the real estate my picking hand wants to occupy and thus the results are predictably unpredictable. I had a couple floyd rose guitars in the bygone era and never got used to it so I moved back to more stable bridges and tremolos over troubled waters.
They do a hardtail version so you have no excuse You can also increase the spring tension a lot so you need to push really hard to get it to moveā¦they actually included an extra spring to do thisā¦but there are some fun (and colourful) aftermarket springs as well and even devces to stop uneanted āwobbleā like Hipshot Tremsetter - StewMac
The Sustanic is so much fun with the trem however, although I am not sure my dogs agree!
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lol the visual I just got is priceless with you divebombing and the dogs howling as a choral trio (I donāt know why I assume itās 2 dogs but thatās the mental image I get)
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Yup 2 dogs - you are spot on! Dogs! - #369 by SLiC
Throw in a grey haired old bloke and you have the full picture
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thatās a lovely pair