Some of the most exciting guitar tones come from unusual combinations of effects. The Benson Amps Deep Sea Diver Fuzz-Echo brings us the signature fuzz and delay combination of Jessica Dobson, guitarist with cult Seattle indie-rockers Deep Sea Diver.
Conventional wisdom says delay should come after fuzz, but Dobson and Benson know that conventional wisdom is boring. The fuzz-echo lets users choose the order of the effects. By placing delay before fuzz, Dobson creates some unexpected textures.
“When Benson first asked me what I wanted out of a pedal, I asked if he could smash together my favorite fuzz tones and vintage echos,” says Dobson, who has also performed with Beck and The Shins.
“One of my favorite pedal configurations has always been running my echos and delays before my dirt pedals to get unorthodox sounds. So, we started there and it morphed into a pedal that became bigger and wider than what we initially had imagined.”
“To call this simply a ‘gated fuzz pedal with an echo feature’ would be an injustice to its essence!” Dobson claims. “Beyond the splatty gated sounds, I wanted a fuzz that could get wooly and straight forward, or shake hands with my favorite shoegazey My Bloody Valentine textures.
“I wanted it to clean up nice and work as a treble booster for my guitar solos, or sound like a foreign landscape of oscillation and interrupting textures. Simply put, it has become the most interesting and versatile pedal on my board.”
The fuzz is a three-transistor topology which Benson calls “a deranged mashup of mk1.5 and mk2.” With two interactive knobs for the fuzz, Gate and Bias, Benson says you can cover everything from treble boost to thick fuzz and “gated skronky tones.” There's also an overall volume knob, of course.
The echo circuit is based on a tweaked PT2399 circuit, a popular analog chip also seen in boutique delays like the Skreddy Echo and Wampler Faux Tape Echo. The echo has standard Feedback, Delay Time, and level (Echo) controls.
The Deep Sea Diver Fuzz ($249) is available now from Benson Amps.
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