Fulltone Soul-Bender

Three knobs for Volume, Tone, and "Dirt". Very easy to use, but also has an internal trim pot for more advanced tweaking. The pedal comes with a one page instruction sheet, with an understandably brief description of the controls and some sample settings.

The sound of this pedal is simply brilliant. It has a distinctively 60's British tone to it, reminiscent of the first few Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Sabbath albums, and perhaps heavier Jethro Tull ("Benefit"). You can also get a more poppy fuzztone, found on some Kinks or Beatles songs. Add some reverb or delay and you can even get a Dave Gilmourish sound. The tone works best when playing power chords or lead parts, as full chords and arpeggios tend to muddle together. It is definately a lead guitar pedal, and the sound it delivers is seriously searing.

The pedal has a tough steel case, and looks like its built to last. It was about five years old when I bought it second-hand off of eBay, and its worked fine since. The internal work seems to be clean and well-done, although I dont know very much about electrical wiring and soldering. I would definately gig without a backup.

No experience with customer support as been necessary so far, which i guess is a testement to the quality of the product.

My style is mostly blues-based psyche, and this pedal nails the sound I have been looking for. I started out with a overdrive pedal, moved onto a more mianstream fuzz, and finally decided I needed something more serious. I've doubled my pratice time since I bought this pedal, just because its so damn fun to play with. In todays world of 300-effect digital processors, some might think that shelling out over a hundred bucks for a pedal that only does ONE THING is silly. That one thing it does do, however, it does exceptionally well. I normally play with only this fuzzbox, but occasionally add a wah or delay pedal to the chain. The soul-bender really is the foundation to my overall tone and playing style

totally easy to use. volume (duh), fuzz (duh), and a single band eq (actually reverse...clockwise is warmer, counterclockwise is brighter). it has a proprietary power suppy connector, but oh well, its worth it.

i use it with les paul specials (P-90 pups), les paul standards (PAF pups), ES-330 (P-90's), and an SG/les paul (PAFS)...plug it into top hat king royale, vintage ac-30's, vintage marshall plexis, fender pro junior. of course its noisy, its a fuzz pedal....but its got a lower noise floor than most fuzzes. it's the only fuzz i use...mainly for solos and other leads....however, the pedal is incredibly responsive to the guitar's volume knob. turn it down and the fuzz almost begins to sound like natural amp overdrive....then crank the guitar wide open and it gets compressed and sustainy. very rich legato fuzztone....very 60's psychedelic. jimmy page is probably the closest reference point for this tone.

never had a problem. been on my pedalboard for years (professional world touring) and i dont even bring a backup. again, don't lose that proprietary power cord.

never needed it.

i play rock. im in a band on a major label, ive toured everywhere and received great compliments on my tone. i prefer this style of fuzz (based on the colorsound tonebender) to the ole' fuzz face hendrix style that lots of players go for. this fuzz is distinctly ENGLISH sounding. im a californian, but i like to pretend. you have to learn how to work the guitar's volume knob with this pedal. the effect is bombastic so its up to you to tame the beast. i love my soulbender!

Piece of cake to use. 3 knobs.

Beautiful, compressed smooth sounding fuzz. It's like chocolate cake. Sexy. A little noisy when the volume is cranked, but it's fuzz!

Rock solid.

I haven't needed it.

I am fond of 60s, smooth psychedelic fuzz and this is my pedal. It's my one and only fuzz.

I like the fact that this little mutha has just 3 knobs and one internal trimmer for further sound tweaking. Very easy to use!

I only use my Fender Strat that is equipped with the EMG David Gilmour single coils with the Soul Bender. In my opinion, this pedal does not compliment my Les Pauls at all. The Les Pauls sound terrible when routed through this Soul Bender. Go figure on that one. Single coils just sound better with this particular fuzz unit. I run this pedal, along with many others on my pedalboard, through a Line 6 DuoVerb Combo. It sounds really good when I use a split of the Marshall 100watt Plexi model and the Budda Twinmaster model. It is a bit noisy, but I have the tone and the dirt set to max and the volume at about 2o'clock. I can handle the noise as long as the end result is GREAT.

I would gig without a back up. All of the Fulltone pedals that I own are very dependable. They do build a great product.

Can you say Jackarse? These guys are FOS of themselves and they know it. I suppose that sort of attitude comes with the territory when you build a great product. I bet that is why they no longer sale to the public on their site. I would bet money that they could no longer handle things in a professional manner. If they ever did for that matter.

Great products that are signed by a JackArse. Keep up the good work team.

It's probely harder to use than it looks. To match the inside port with the tone control takes some time cause tou have to open it every time.. Its still hard to dial in the perfect tone when you done with that. Don't get me wrong to tone is there but the tone control is really sensitive.

Smooth creamy sounds. The first time I heard it, it soundet just like Prince(before the symbol) sound on the purple rain album. It's great.

My switch broke after a cople of months. It's temp. fixed and still working.
But I guess that I just got unlucky.

Don't know.

Pretty good. not so versitil pedal.

Relativamente sencillo. Tres potenciometros (volumen, tono y dist.) y un trimmer interno para controlar el nivel de fuzz.

Mi setup es American Deluxe Stratocaster> george custom lead 50 (sonido jtm45)> wah VOX847 (redfasel)> soul-bender> ts9 (TS808MOD) > distortion+(Thundertomate). TCelectronics G-major(en bucle de efectos ampli)
El pedal es asombrosamente silencioso. Aun a pesar del nivel de ganancia se oye muy poco ruido de fondo. Es mi primer fuzz pero sinceramente puedo conseguir con exactitud el sonido de Eric Johnson. Espectacular!! Lo uso con un george custom lead 50 que me hizo jorge bueno www.amptek-es.com con sonido tipo Marshall JTM45 y suena de miedo. El ampli a medio de ganancia +o-. Con el nivel de ganancia a tope para solear es increible, mucho cuerpo y definicion a lo EJ. Si bajas la ganancia perfecto para ritmos a lo Hendrix. Es un pedal muy versatil. Es calidad fulltone, true bypass, suena de miedo y me encanta su aspecto. Que mas se puede pedir

Very easy to use, clone of the sola sound tonebender.

I'm using this mostly with a Jimmy Page Les Paul and into a vintage Fender tube amp. If you're looking to get Jimmy Pages sound from the late 60's, early 70's, this is the closest I've personally been. I own an original tube screamer (totally different sound), several modern distortion pedals, a Fuzz Face, etc. I have not played the original sola sound grey box tonebender so I can't offer a direct comparison between this pedal and that one. This unit has the distinctive germanium transistor fuzz face type of sound. If you don't like the fuzz face you probably won't like this pedal. That said, if you like Jimmy Pages sound, this will get you very close...so close that your playing ability is the only thing that will separate you from his sound to the vast majority of people's ears. I turn the internal trim pot to about 2 oclock and tend to prefer fullers recommendation of fuzz on full and tone rolled off completely. This is the best fuzz face type of pedal I have used.

It's sturdily built. Steel enclosure. Large gauge internal wiring. Full bypass, the right way with a 3pdt switch. I don't expect problems. It's built to a much higher standard of quality than a "mainstream" pedal. I agree with other reviews that it's close to mil spec. That said, the enclosure does have seams so I wouldn't recommend pouring beer or sand on it. I'd give it a 10 if the circuit board was mounted with screws (it's hot glued) and if the enclosure was beer/sand proof. I'm being picky though. Under ordinary use it should last decades even with road use or until the pots wear out...which is always the first thing to go (along with the jacks) on a pedal.

No idea.

If you'd like to sound like Jimmy Page, early Jeff Beck or most any other late 60's early 70's British rockers, get this pedal....then practice a lot. FYI Sola is still in business and they still manufacture the pedal this was cloned from...but it's expensive and you have to order it from the UK. Plus to my knowledge it doesn't have the internal trim pot which is an excellent feature of this pedal to tweak the sound.

It's three exteranl knobs and an internal trim pot. I I had to play around with the trim pot for a while to get it just where I wanted it, but once I got it there it became impossible not to get a good sound out of it. Excellent, usable controls -- these things actually do something, unlike a lot of other pedals out there.

Read the instructions! The polarity of the power supply is different than 99% of the other pedals made by any maker. It won't work with a Boss/Ibanez power supply -- in fact, if you hook it up to one you'll fry the thing. The instructions are very clear about this. The instructions also point out that the pedal can't go before one in your effects chain that's not true bypass -- the sound gets killed by the buffer in pedals that aren't true bypass. This is 100% true -- so much so that it was suprising when I tried it.

Righ now, I'm playing an American Strat. Usual effects chain is the Strat > Budda Bud-Wah+> Emma Transmorgrifier > Menatone (4 Knob) Red Snapper > Pharaoh Class A Boost > SIB Mr. Vibromatic (or a Boss PH2) > Guyatone MD3 digital Delay > Songworks Spring Reverb into a Laney PTM30MV Sereis II (all tube) head with a Carvin Legacy 2 x 12 cab.

The instructions point ot that putting this pedal before a non-true bypass pedal will suck all the sound out of the Soul-Bender. Most of my effects are true bypass, with the exception of the delay and phaser, but if I put it in my signal path, it would go before these two pedals so I can't use it on my pedalboard right now. Now, I'm just running the Soul-Bender straight into the amp witout the other effects -- which is fine with me. My amp does have an effects loop, so I just need to strart experimenting with running my pedalboard through there. Or I could just get a true bypass delay and phaser. Hmmmmm ... DLS Echo Tap and Red Witch phaser. Back to the business at hand.

Anyway, this pedal is a qualified amazing. It totally depends on what type of quitar you're playing. I went through a bit of a time that filled with second guessing -- is the pedal broken? Could it be a hunk of garbage? Did I get screwed by the seller on eBay? Here's what I found: Late 80s American Tele -- sucked. Jackson SL3 -- worse than I could ever imagine (this thing had Seymour Duncans). Early 70s SG -- could my pickups be broken? American Strat -- NIRVANA! With the Strat, it's the most utterly incredible, best sounding, most versitile fuzz/distortion pedal I own. The instructions recommend tone and "dirt" (FUZZ) all the way up and volume on 1/2. I play my amp with the preamp on 10 and the volume relatively low, making the amp dark, so backing the tone up to about 3/4 works best for me. It's not just a fuzz sound, it's like a distortion, too. Very hard to describe, except that it's loud and aggressive in the best way imaginable.

I love Zeppelin, James Gang and early Sabbath and this pedal nails that sound.

One little secret about this pedal, and my jaw dropped when I tried this -- you can use it like a booster that can just slam the heck out of the front end of the amp. Set your amp to a place where you can push it pretty easily into overdrive, and have the Soul-Bender set with the volume on 10, tone on a little more than 1/2, and Dirt around 1/4 and suddenly you're into a completely different tonal realm than just fuzz. I got a Brian May type sound. While this is a nice, happy-accident,buy this pedal for the fuzz/distortion -- it's incredible.

This thing's a tank. Everything about it just oozes qualiy. The knobs rotate smooth and evenly. Best made pedal I own. I'm sure my grandkids will enjoy it.

Got mine off eBay, so I can't really comment on Fulltone's customer service.

The thing I love most about this pedal is the sound. For the last 20 years, I've been trying to get that classic early '70s "sound." You know it when you hear it. This pedal is that sound. This pedal doesn't even compare with any other fuzz/distortion pedals I've owned or heard. It's just such an aggressive and polished sound -- absolutely incredible.

I'm glad I own a Strat. From what I observed, the Strat was the only guitar it worked well with -- just something to keep in mind if you're thinking about getting one. I've been playing for close to 20 years now and have owned tons of gear -- guitars, pedals, amps, etc -- everything from run-of-the-mill to boutique. This pedal just blew me away (once I ran the Strat into it) and is by far the best made piece of equipment I've ever owned. I would definitly get another one if it was lost or stolen.

Don't buy this pedal off eBay unless you have a Strat. If you get it at your local music store, definitly try it out with the guitar you play.

I gave this pedal a 9. The pedal does take a little bit of tweaking to find the sound that will work for you. You may need to use the internal trimer to help fine tune you're sound. So there is a little
work that will have to be done.

The Manual is great and the samples are a great place to start. You may find, sticking with Mike's suggestion Volume at noon, Tone & Fuzz ide open will do the trick.

This pedal is awesome. I run mine with the preferred sample setting
Volume at noon,Tone and Fuzz wide open. I prefer to use my guitars volume pot to alter the sound of the pedal. This pedal is very reactive to you're volume & tone controls. Take the time and discover all the useful sound's this pedal will offer.

I prefer to use the Soul Bender for more of a "Over the Top" type of fuzz sound. I play in a cover band and need to cover a ton of ground. I can go from old skool fuzz to modern day Fuzz sounds. Once again this is where you volume control play's a huge part. I do run a large pedalboard but 75% of my sounds are still generated from just the guitar and amp. This pedal is transparent and retain's the sound of youre guitar and amp, while not adding any cheese to you're sound.

Note: This pedal is senseitive to where it is placed in youre effects Chain. I run mine 4th in my signal chain. Everything is true bypass but I still found the SB was a little picky before or after certain pedals. You will want to try a few differnt setup's to see what sounds better for you.

Setup... PRS Custom 22 & Fender Custom Shop 1960 Relic strat. Bogner
XTC 101B & 2x12 Bogner closed back cabinet. Pedalboard...
Clyde Wah- CCII Octavia - CCII FuzzFoot NKT275 - SoulBender - BIComp - FDII - CCII Provibe - FR Paradox Flanger - Supertrem - Clone Chorus -
DL4 - Bogner

I make full use of all three channels in the Bogner and the Soul Bender work's well with all three, including the Boost functions. I have come to use the Soul Bender more than any other OD/Fuzz effect in my setup. This pedal reacts very well to both guitars, single coils and low output humbuckers.

You can depend on Fulltone effects. I have been using Fulltone effects for years. I manage 2 gigs a week a 1 rehearsal. That makes for a ton
of use in a year. Not to mention be bounced around in a roadcase to and from gigs.

I would gig without a backup.

Fulltone takes care of there customers if there product fails. Be straight and to the point with Mike Fuller and his support department. You will get the results you desire and a product that will bring you years of enjoyment and use.

This pedal can cross most musicaly boundrys, take the time and get to know and use the Soul Bender, you'll love it! I have tried a ton of pedals, some more than I would care to mention. This pedal work's great
in my setup and my playing style.I had to spend allot of cash twice to get to were I am today, so hopefully this will help you save a little cash and long nights awake.

Easy to use. 3 knobber. Tubescreamer style setup, I gave it a 9 because of the complexity inherhent in having an internal trimpot, which if you're anything like me you have to break into and fiddle with and of course can never remember where you started it at. Even at that, it's just finding the right combo for you.

My rig consists primarily of a Fender telecaster (Rio Grande Muy grande @ bridge and a Duncan '59 humbucker @ the neck running through a Tophat Club Royale. I'm definitely an effect pedal junkie, so usually an array of 7 or 8 pedals running as well. As most of you probably know this pedal is true bypass. This fuzz is a little different than a fuzz that you may be used to hearing. Lots of people are used to the Hendrix fuzz face style pedal, but this is based off of the old 'tonebender' pedals. Not as smooth as a fuzzface. A little nastier and more in your face. When I first got it I hooked it up to my Fender hot rod deville and played Jeff Beck's 'Shapes of Things' for hours trying to replicate that tone. It never worked, but at the same time I wasn't playing through the same rig as he was. It tends to be very rig dependent which is why it may take a while to set up what's good for you. When you roll the tone knob clockwise the lows increase and the highs dissapear. Quite obviously the best sound on the pedal is tone and fuzz both cranked all the way up. In practical band situations though, sometimes this is more difficult because you won't necessarily be cutting through. You can roll the tone down and think "who would want that piercing high end?" but if you're using a bassy pickup (like the Duncan '59) it can come in handy. Also sounds great in conjunctions with boost pedals (Keeley Time Machine, Fireman FX Baron Boost are what I've used). It is my opinion that this pedal really shines when going through an amplifier that is mildly breaking up or at least close to it. And a proper dosing of volume doesn't hurt!!

So being a fan of Page and Beck that was definitely a motivator for getting this pedal. I've come close enough, but still haven't nailed their tones. But some tones I have been able to get very close to were Mick Ronson (Spiders from Mars!!), Marc Bolan of T-Rex (Everyone points out that he never used one but I promise if you play 20th Century Boy on this you'll fall in love), Kinks, Black Sabbath and Sweet. You can also get a lot of cool modern stoner rock band sounds out of it, although a lot of times they tend to be more "big muff-esque"

I would say this pedal is very dependable. Put together very well, I've never had a problem with it. In fact, I'm still using the same battery as when I bought it! It should be mentioned that if you do want to use a power supply, that these pedals are reverse tipped so you'll have to act accordingly. But with batteries lasting the way they do I see no reason to plug it in.

My wife bought this for me as a gift for college graduation so I did not deal with Fulltone. She called Mike Fuller to order and he informed her of where the best place locally to her she could get one and was very cordial. This goes against what a lot of people say about Mike but I have to judge according to my experience.

I play an extremely wide variety of styles, but mainly powerpop in the vein of Big Star, Matthew Sweet, David Bowie, Butch Walker and Jellyfish. Although I'd still love to have a Fuzzface type pedal, this pedal fits very well into what I do. I also play some alt.country where I can use it for some fuzzed out Wilco and Jayhawks type tones. And if I'm in classic rock mode and playing Zeppelin, Allman Bros. and Black Crowes it works as well.