Stop reading reviews and just take the plunge! This pedal is fantastic! Sure maybe it was the awesome metallic sparkle purple paint job of the doiche edition and the adorable phoque that drew me in but the circuit the folks at Gup tech put together in here absolutely nailed what I wanted from a Fuzz Face effect. I could fill this write-up with all the buzz words you generally find in gear reviews but for the sake on not making this look like an article from a guitar magazine I’ll try to keep it brief.
I’ve taken my time to get to know my Phoque Face over the last 2 weeks and I couldn’t be happier with it. At the time of writing this it may actually be my favourite fuzz on my board (and the most cost effective too, I won’t say cheap because that doesn’t do the quality of this pedal justice). The ability to clean up the gain structure on this with small adjustments on the volume knob is fantastic and the cleans you get have that nice touch of extra grit and warmth you would expect. I actually think it does a better job than my buddies Fuzz Phrase (and you could by like 3 Phoque faces for the same money). The internal trim pots give you a lot of control over the overall output structure allowing further gain biasing as well as introducing a little more clean tone of you’re looking for more clarity and definition in your fuzz.
Out of the box the tone was massive and thick, very similar to the Gup tech videos, with some adjustments to the internal trim pots you can really fine tune it to get your ideal fuzz tone (within reason).
I’m using the Phoque face running in to a Tumnus Deluxe (mostly for additional eq and volume control) and can with both engaged I can get great sparkly clean up with the volume rolled back, light break up with a little more volume added at the guitar all the way up to scratching torn Velcro fuzz great for modern/classic rock with the volume brought up. I can even get some great doom-y tones with the right guitar (note that as the fuzz face circuit is a very old design you will notice a pronounced difference from one guitar to the next, personally I really like that).
If I’m looking for something more modern or higher gain I’ll switch over to my Bum Fuzz unit (tone bender variant) running in to a Kiaayo overdrive (by native audio, very low gain drive, adds a nice bit of mids to help cut the mix). That being said I imagine running the two sets in parallel would sound massive in f you have the right gear to make it happen. But I digress, the Phoque Face is killer and my first Gup Tech pedal, but certainly won’t be the last. Great build quality, great people, great products.
