Gear Review: Shift Line Termofuzz Fuzz Pedal

Fuzz often gets treated like the black sheep of the family.

Overdrive comes to Thanksgiving dinner in a flashy sports car with his trophy wife. Distortion strolls in fashionably late with pictures from a recent SCUBA-diving escapade in Hawaii.

But Fuzz ... Fuzz stood next to Jimi at Woodstock, Fuzz let people know the Rolling Stones weren’t satisfied.

Shift Line built the Termofuzz as an encyclopedia of fuzz boxes in one. Each pedal is hand-built in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The Termofuzz is true bypass and can run on a 9-volt battery or external power supply.

While Level and Gain knobs are straight ahead, Dirt, Harm and Mode need a bit more of an explanation. Turning the Dirt knob up offers oscillation mode, randomly generated octaves and even some glitchy 8-bit goodness. Harm is a three-way toggle switch that cuts or boosts high-end harmonics. Mode works with Dirt to add more octave and gate effects, all while thinning or thickening your overall signal.

A huge factor in using the Termofuzz is your guitar’s volume knob. For straight-ahead fuzz tones, cranking your volume works best. When you roll back your volume, the Termofuzz can really pollute the signal with random oscillation and octave effects.

On to the audio clips!

Clip 1 is a Les Paul cranked up to give you an idea of the straight ahead fuzz.
Clip 2 is the same Les Paul with the volume rolled back to 6 and the Dirt knob on the Termofuzz turned up offers an octave effect.
Clip 3 is a Strat starting off with a Hendrix-y fuzz; then, after turning up the Mode and Dirt, the signal gets pretty chaotic!

Web:shift-line.com
Street Price: $165

You can't believe everything you read on the Internet, but Billy Voight is a gear reviewer, bassist and guitarist from Pennsylvania. He has Hartke bass amps and Walden acoustic guitars to thank for supplying some of the finest gear on his musical journey. Need Billy's help in creating noise for your next project? Drop him a line at thisguyonbass@gmail.com.

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