Lovetone Big Cheese Fuzz

Despite the subjectivity of "ease of use," I got great tones immediately.

I get some nice warrrrm, round, fuzzy feelings when I turn this on.

This is THE go-to guitar, bass, and (sometimes) synth fuzzzz box.

I generally prefer the mid-boost setting as it cuts through like butter.

It covers all sorts of sounds: Fuzz Face, Tonebender, Big Muff, Fuzzrite (Psychotic Reaction, anyone?), and more.

The tone control has a nice, EVEN sweep.

Works great with 6L6's, EL84's, even those mondo 7550 (?) Ampeg tubes.

However, the gain control can be picky with humbuckers as you can't get it to sound overdrive-esque with the gain on min. vs a single coil/p-90 guitar with which you can get overdrive sounds on min. gain setting.

REGARDLESS, roll back yr 'bucker (or single coil) and listen to that GRADUAL, even clean-up.

Jimi eat your heart out!

9 for versatility and consistency.

Stomped on a doppelganger for 4 years, I'll trust vlad.

But I won't trust this itty-bitty switchy.

Vlad is nothing but supportive, friendly, and helpful.

AOK!

THE BIG CHEESE IS NOT A FUZZ FACTORY
THE FUZZ FACTORY IS NOT A BIG CHEESE.

Significant difference in tones.

The Big Cheese is much more OPEN, OD-esque, but can be very FUZZY .
The Fuzz Factory is more COMPRESSED and TIGHT, much WOOLIER.

People are quick to group both because they can do the VELCRO sound, which, I feel the Fuzz factory does better.

Both are VERY versatile (I've got both and love them),

If you want a predictable consistent fuzz, go Big Cheese.

I love the one setting I have on the fuzz factory, it took me YEARS to find it, but I wanted a fuzz that can be interchangable quickly (Das Cheese).

10 for abundancy of tones -2 for size and switch =8 overall

I RECOMMEND THE OLC CHUNKY CHEESE, BEST CLONE ON THE MARKET.

Ich mein ein Big Cheese!

The Big Cheese is EASY. If you can't figure out the knobs, you aren't very bright. "Curds" is basically the level of fuzz. "Whey" is volume. "Tone" lets you select 4 different tones which the manual explains. "Hog/Bee" is basically the thickness of the fuzz..."Hog" being fat and "Bee" being not so fat. This pedal is EASY to get a good sound out of. There are so many cool settings and so much tweekability, it is so versatile compared to most fuzzes. (I own DAM Ramhead, DAM 1966, DAM Dragonfly, Analogman Sun Face, and Fulltone Ultimate Octave...which actually has a great fuzz, I never use the octave feature).

I run all my stuff through a Victoria 35210 (a 50's tweed Fender Super basically....clean and amazing). I primarily play a Bill Nash strat. Granted, I have one of the cleanest, most tone loving combos in the history of electric music...The Big Cheese is at home. It really makes the Victoria come alive with fuzz, thick and juicy. I can tweek the knobs in some many ways and get so many different, yet very useful sounds. It sounds nothing like my other fuzzes, which is nice. Another HUGE difference is that The Big Cheese is great for leads. For me most fuzzes really suck for leads, but the Big Cheese is awesome. The notes retain defintion, yet sound completely gnarly at the same time.

It looks solid, although not as solid as I would have thought just looking at the picture. It's nowhere near as tough as some other pedals such as Klon, Analogman, or even Fulltone. That's not to say it's going to fall apart, it's just not a tank.

I've never dealt with Vlad regarding the Big Cheese, although he did respond promptly to questions about ordering a Meatball.

I play all sorts of stuff and was looking for a fuzz that would offer some new flavors and the Big Cheese definitely delivers. I think it will be in the mix for some time to come.

The controls are very interactive and the confusing labels just are not funny. The upside is that when you've worked out what the controls do, you have a fuzz pedal with a comprehensive tone control system. Please see previous reviews for descriptions, I cannot be bothered.

A previous reviewer stated that the Big Cheese sounds overloaded with humbuckers and I agree. It seemed to prefer a driven amp. The tone control is very good and you can shape your own fuzz but the variation in gain is not that much. The voltage starved fuzzes are wuite weak.

I got his in a trade, I wanted to sell an amp and the buyer wanted to trade this pedal as well as cash. The offer was fair and I thought I could shift it later without losing money.

That's exactly what I did after 6 months. My biggest problem is that I own a fuzz factory which i a better pedal in every aspect.

Once you decipher the Big Cheese's terminology, it's as easy to use as most other fuzz pedals. There are four handsome black chicken knobs on the front of the Cheese's flat orange metal panel. The labeled tone knob has a range from "Bee"(Treble) to "Hog"(Bass). The "Curds" knob corresponds to gain, while the "Whey" knob controls the volume. The last knob is used to select between one of the four modes; "Off", which bypasses the tone circuitry, "1", offers a 80's/90's scooped sound, "2" delivers classic 60's/70's fuzz tones and "Cheese Wedge" produces delightful "Crackling electricity in Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory" noises! My Cheese came with a simple, well written, one page manual.

I cut my Cheese with a 91 Charvel Surfcaster, 65 Fender Jazzmaster, 98 Danelectro U2, 94 Chandler Austin six string Bass and a 99 Danelectro Longhorn Bass. These instruments are amplified thru a 65 reissue Fender Twin Reverb. My fuzz tastes run from 60's garage Nuggets, early 70's Sabbath to Modern Japanese Noise Terrorism and all things Psychedelic. First off, the Cheese is pretty damn quite! The tone bypass setting is the fuzziest and also the most straight forward, which works great for straight on hard rock and early 90's grunge. Mode "1" sounds great with trebly fizzy/fuzzy riffing. By keeping the Tone dial pointing towards "Hog" the Big Cheese's mode "2" can conjure up all things Iommi. Cheese Wedge works great for cheesy 60's type paisley trips, as well as special effects noises. For me, the best thing about the Big Cheese is the sounds that can be generated by dialing your guitar's volume knob. I have never used another fuzz, which offers the tasty palette of fuzz tones, that can be achieved through this simple method. I rarely have the "Curds" setting at anything, but full on. This gives me the Fuzziest sound (Hell, that's what I'm using this thing for!). With a slight pinky roll, I can go from Acid Mothers Temple to the Electric Prunes. To compensate for the loss of high end when rolling the volume down, I'll add more "Bee". A really fun thing to do with the "Wedge" setting, is to dial in the Curds to just where the break-up is noticeable. This gives a whole new Austin Powers type of Shaggadelic tone. Oh, and playing single note bass lines with this bit of mouse bait will scare the whole block. Yeah it's that good! Sometimes I'll put a Dunlop Wah-Wah in line with the Big Cheese....works great. My culinary skills sometimes inspire me to put the Big Cheese into the effects loop of Lovetone's "Meatball". As anyone who's ever done this sort of food poisoning before knows, it's a recipe for absolute sickness! Most of all I just like to hear the Big Cheese with a guitar through my Twin. Beautiful and smelly!

I've never had any problems with it.

Vlad from Lovetone has always given me great support via e-mails and phone calls.

I also own a Prescription Electronics Experience pedal (see my review). Between that and the Big Cheese, I'm set with fuzz pedals. The only thing I could have seen Lovetone add to this pedal would have been an Octave function, but they incorporated that into their Ring Singer pedal. For you fuzz connoisseurs, it's a great pedal and like Lovetone's other pedals, it's got loads of character. Also, like Lovetone's other pedals it's pricey! But hey, I'm sold. As a (much)cheaper alternative I recommend DOD's Classic Fuzz pedal.

Easy to use, the curds (drive) setting is a little difficult to figure out because it doesn't operate the same way in all three modes. Manual is a single page and is useless in the way of telling you what to actually do with the pedal, but it does a good job of specifying the type of AC adapter to use with it. Pay attention to the adapter information, this is a fuzz.

Awesome. A lot of pedals (especially the fulltones, but I'm not knocking them by any means) sound like the distortion is reverberating against a metal plate before going into your sound yielding a harsher treble sound, IMO, that is not suitable before a digital effects box. The lovetone, on the other hand, is the dryest fuzz I've ever heard, which is a good thing because I don't want my distortions to wetten the sound before I go into reverb and delay or add artifacts I would rather get from other, specialized pedals. The fuzz itself runs the range from smooth to excessively raunchy. I use it in a pretty extreme setting with a Mesa-Boogie amp. This particular pedal-amp combination can get muddy in if the amp is oversaturated so hit the strings really hard.

Single notes sound good with the setup I have which includes a lot of compressors, delays, and reverbs after the pedal. I look for one thing in a pedal: response time. Every note or chord I play translates perfectly, and even if I'm playing sloppy the response time somehow helps me get right back into the sweet spot, something my more sterile Boss and Ibanez distortion pedals don't quite help me as much with. Not that it can really be compared to a mainstream pedal in terms of sound quality...

When I play, I keep all my effects in a bradshaw rig so I know everything is true bypass and don't have to spend any time thinking about this. Whatever the true bypass status is, I don't find the pedal creates an unpleasant sound when disengaged.

No hum with battery, but your mileage may vary depending on the adapter you use if powered so.

If you want to hear a sample of this pedal, it's used in its most extreme setting in U2's Discoteque during the Edge's solo (2m:23s-2m:38s). Nice wide-spectum fuzz with that Vox AC30.

The electronics build quality is top-notch. Externally, very detailed painting and nice chickenhead dials over smooth, noiseless pots. The on/off footswitch has a smooth, fairly deep, and noiseless travel range and provides a satisfying click when engaged and disengaged.

In order to get to the battery compartment, you lift up the top of the pedal at the bottom edge and there's a hinge at the top. Once inside, the wiring and board construction are visibly excellent and explain the pedal's pristine sound and noisefree operation.

The input and output jacks use a black, plastic bolt. While suggesting flimsiness, I've found that this kind of construction contributes to a more noisefree operation.

I don't know why, but the metal construction is thinner than what I expected from looking at the lovetone website. It's not flimsy by any measure, but I don't expect the Big Cheese to survive a fall from a cliff. The hinge mechanism durability is questionable, I'm pretty sure I could break it apart with my hands if I tried.

Again, this is a boutique pedal and is quite a work of art, if you're into judging pedals as toys and not just functional objects (which is the reason I shell out so much money for these types of things anyway, but I digress).

For operational reliability I give it a 10, for external build construction durability probably a 4 compared to most other pedals ('80s or newer BOSS or fulltone pedals), but it's still enough to withstand normal footstomping abuse.

Vlad's a nice guy. No problems with the fuzz, but if I had any problems with it I'm sure we could work out an arrangement.

I play space rock, running a three-channel setup with various footpedals and rack gear (mostly for delay, reverb, and eq settings) switched through a bradshaw rsb18, I think.

Pedal value is in uniqueness and build quality. It's a future classic and a worthwhile investment. If it were lost, I'd replace it ASAP because I depend on this fuzz sound.

Not a complicated pedal to use. Most fuzz/distortion boxes aren't. They put cute little names for fuzz and volume (curds and whey), just read the manual (which is well written) and you'll be fine. It's not hard to get useful sounds out of it. It does require some tweekeing to get a specific sound out of it because it's a versitile pedal. The tone control is very effective and there are four separate fuzz settings. One where the tone is bypassed, one with a scooped mids voicing, one with a boosted mids voicing, one that is just crazy with the fuzz. I did like the constuction of it as far as opening it goes. All you gotta do it flip the top open. No screws. Very good design in this respect. I give it a 7 for ease of use because of it's versatility the pedal may need a little more tweeking than other fuzz boxes. But if you are into versatility you're gonna like it.

I use 2 Fender Blues Jr. tube amps (I run it in stereo), I have a Fulltone 69, Fulltone Fulldrive 2, Fulltone Choralflange (stereo), Budda Wah, Maxon Phaser, and Line 6 DL-4 digital delay. For Guitars I got a Gibson Smartwood Exotic Les Paul and a Fender MIM Stratocaster. I usually ran the Lovetone alone. I didn't mix it with any other effets. All in all I didn't like it too much. At first I was impressed I must admit but the more I messed with it the more I found it wasn't my thing. Like I said above it is a very versitile fuzz. I was origianlly attracted to the scooped mids setting. You can get some good thrash here or even some Smashing Pumpkins grind going on. I didn't use the tone bypass setting really that much but it is good if you want to keep your guitar tone intact. I didn't like the boosted mids setting that much. It was too exagerated sounding (in fact I thought it all was too exagerated sounding for me...more in this later). The most extreme setting (on the unit it is labeled with a big wedge of cheese) I must admit I really did like. You get some really nasty sounds here. It sounds like you amp is blowing out and can barely manage it last cry of pain before it dies. If you adjust it right along with the volume on your guitar you get some nice square wave synth-like tones. You could really turn some heads with this tone but its not at all some thing you could use alot. It won't carry a tune. In general the fuzz was pretty nasty and all in all I found the sound in all setting to be exagerated. That was what eventually turned me off to the tone. Since there is so much fuzz on hand its easy for things to get out of hand. You really gotta watch the volume setting on your guitar. Things get really farty sounding very easily. If that what you are going after then this is the pedal for you. There were 2 things that I hated about this pedal and eventaully made me sell it. 1) With my Les Paul when I was using the scooped mids setting if I turned up the volume on the guitar and hit some two note intevals (4ths or 3rd) or especially a power chord it sounded like the Lovetone couldn't handle it. The volume would decrease very shortly after the initial attack somewhat then as the strings stared to fade the volume came back again. Weird and not musically usefull and very annoying. When I want to kick out the jam I like to just reach down ond crank the volume up on the guitar but with this thing I had to be all carefull about it. 2) My other complaint (the one that drove me nuts) was that the Big Cheese needed true bypass in a major way. What a tone sucker when the unit is off! I tried turning up the highs on my amp to compensate but it was no use. This thing took alot of the shimmer out of my guitar. So in the end it had to go. So all in all if you like versatility and extreme unique tones you'll get them here. But there is a price to pay when the unit is off and I think the Lovetone is a bit finiky. You gotta be carefull with the setting on the unit and your guitar too much. I got the Fulltone 69 and am very pleased now. The 69 is so much more warm sounding and can do the nasty very well through a slightly overdriven amp. I'll give the Big Cheese a middle of the road rating bacause I feel that the tones were a bit to o exagerated and when off it killed my clean tone, but still I liked that "Big Cheese" setting. Some got fun racket can be made with it but it wasn't enough for me to want to keep the thing.

I didn't have it too long...about 2 months. So I can't give an informative rating here.

Never dealt with the Lovetone people.

I play blues/rock. I've had a guitar for since I was 6 but only been really serious with it for the past 5 years. Artists that move me are Led Zeppelin, The Black Crowes, Soundgarden, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Alice in Chains among others. If I this thing was lost or stolen I'd be pissed that I didn't get a chance to put it on eBay and sell it (which is exactly what I did) but I will never consider getting another. There may be a place for this pedal though just not in my setup. I mean to say that you can make some music with it. It's not terribe sounding (but it is when its off!!!....Lovetone guys...I got two words for you..."true bypass"!) I think that all in all its a modern sounding pedal. For you vintage tone buffs look elsewhere. The best asset of the Big Cheese is its versatilty and very well voiced tone control but to my ear you pay a price in tone. I urge you to try out other pedal if you are considering this product. My overall rating is just the average of my other ratings. (I'm not counting reliabily or customer service as zero since I skipped it altogether) Thats really the way it should be. I mean I have seen ratings here where there are less than perfect ratings in other categories and then a 10 for overall. How the hell does that work?!?

This is a fantastic pedal, one of the best fuzz or distortion boxes I've ever used. It is fairly easy to use, but it does take some tinkering to figure out how the four controls work, since they really are quite interactive with one another--turning the tone knob just a little bit, for instance, produces great changes in the pedal's sound and affects gain and output levels as well. I know, I know, it's a fuzzbox, it's easy to use, but I just want to point out (like few have on this page) that it does take some time to get used to what each knob can do. The manual (a single sheet) isn't terribly helpful, but it really doesn't need to be. This is sort of one of those pedals that puts the ball in your court. I did, however, e-mail Vlad to see if he could recall the BC settings for the sound samples on the Lovetone website, and he couldn't remember.

The sound of this pedal is absolutely fantastic. I still haven't figured out everything that it can do. First of all, it's not noisy at all--especially for a fuzz box. I run my guitar(s) through a Boss CS-3, sometimes a Danelectro Chili Dog Octave (a great pedal itself), Big Cheese, TS-9, Crybaby Wah, and a Line 6 DL4 Delay into a Marshall JTM-60 combo. When I'm not playing anything, the pedal is pretty much silent--you can't even tell that it's on. And when it's off, I can't detect any signal degradation at all (ah, true bypass). As for the sounds the pedal _does_ make, well, they're great. There's a four-position switch that lets you choose your sounds. When the switch is in off/zero mode (but when the pedal is on) you get a nice, warm overdrive sound and signal boost. In position one, you can get that scooped metal sound that everyone on this page has mentioned, but you can also get plenty of very sweet-sounding tube-like blues sounds if you tinker with the tone and output ("whey") controls. The mid-rangey sound in position two gives a variety of great solo sounds (from raw to very smooth and compressed), and the "cheese" setting in position three produces sounds that you can normally only get with a broken amp--from a loose tube sound to a broken speaker sound to a bizarre analog synth-like sound. Very cool. There's a list on the Lovetone webpage of people who use this pedal, but really the great thing about it is that the sound that comes out of it is unmistakably yours. It also works very well with other effects or with a distorted amp. I give it a 9 only because, well, I don't own any soundboxes that are perfect.

Can't really comment on this but to say that it's very solidly built.

Vlad answers emails personally and promptly--I've had a few exchanges with him already, and he's great with suggestions.

I play lots of stuff--everything from Prince to power pop to blues to harder stuff--which is why I think this pedal is so great and useful. The sounds are pretty easy to control, very musical and sonically useful. I've been playing for 12 years, and this is the best fuzzbox I can remember using--much more versatile than a Big Muff and more musical than a Z.Vex Fuzz Factory, which I found too hard to tame. Remember, this is a fuzz--not an overdrive or a distortion, so (if possible) try it out someplace before you buy one to see if it's your kind of tone. If you want nasty ProCo Rat-like punk sounds or Metal Zone-ish sounds, this isn't the place to look. This pedal is very raw and natural sounding, and will let the sound of your fingers and your guitar come through; it won't cover up or homogenize your natural sound. Something else--since these are pretty much only available directly from Lovetone (UK), they're sort of hard to come by. But because they're so rare, they're pretty easy to sell if you don't the sound--I've seen the Big Cheese go for quite a bit on eBay!

pretty straight forward as many have described here. mine's no different.

Well, it's a toss up.

For all out chords this thing sounds MONSTER. Total Blur's "Song 2", you know, the "WOOOO HOOOO" song. anyways, you can't go wrong with it on the metal setting. the scooped mids really do the fuzzed out thing righteously. Sonically, it sounds alot like a Prescription Electronics Experience pedal. It does, however, suck up any tone in whatever guitar you're using. Everything sounds the same, but who wouldn't love sounding like a FUZZ GOD. But, all is not fair in Denmark, cause the lead lines i try to put out with this thing sucks. Really. like i said, your tone just gets sucked up and no trace of it is left. lines become mushy and inarticulate with no string attack, unlike the prescription pedal which has that definition. for fusion jazzy doods, this might be ok, since they love just reeling out lines and whatnot. But for guys like me, who want that K-k-killer attack on the notes, it just dont cut it (no pun intended).

Clean clean interior. very nicely done, with little gooby gobby crap. nice solders too. the box itself looks like something outta "saving private ryan". pretty much military grade to me.

I have yet to take it in, but when i was first interested in getting one, i email the "blokes" and they promptly replied. really nice guys, with alot of knowhow.

I do love it. when i'm the rhythm player doing the riffs, it rocks like diamonds. So much fuzz, you could sit on a cloud of it. running thru a 2x12 tophat cab, i scare little children out in Hoboken. Tho, i'm a little concerned about the single note aspect of the pedal, i'm thinking of bringing it to Matt Brewster at 30th street guitars here in NYC. he builds his own fuzzes, so i'm thinking he could help me out. but other than that, it's fun to be a Fuzz god.

It's got four knobs - two tone controls, output and fuzz. The two tone controls, one is a conventional tone knob - bass/treble dial, and the other is a four stage rotary knob with stages "Off", "1", "2" and "Cheese". "Off" bypasses the other tone control giving you only fuzz and output to play with. "1" gives you a scooped mids sound with the tone control activated to fine tune the tone. "2" introduces a more middly sound again with the other tone knob included and "Cheese" retains the control of the other tone knob till but whilst introducing a crazier fuzz, which will degrade to nothing, a really dirty sound on the verge of disappearing, it sounds like it's really struggling. But in a totally good way.

The fuzz control, in the first three tone settings gives more fuzz and more sustain as it turns clockwise, with the exception that in "Cheese" mode it increases fuzz but decreased sustain, as the sound can deteriorate to nothing.

It's all covered in the leaflet supplied with the pedal and doesn't take very long to get a good sound out of it, as long as you can get a good sound out of your amp and guitar.

No on/off indicator but it features true bypass.

I'm using this with a Washburn N-1 [2 humbuckers, one volume] and a Fender Mustang [two single coils, master volume and tone] into a 1979 Marshall 2103 Super Lead 100W 2x12 combo, via : BOSS TU-2 Tuner-> Crybaby Wah-> Visual Sound Route 66 Compression/Overdrive-> BIG CHEESE-> BOSS BF-2 Flanger.
The pedal is pretty quiet on all settings except if I am using compression but I think this is just down to the noise from the compressor being amplified by the Big Cheese.

If using high output pickups, like the humbuckers on my washburn, if you don't roll back the guitar volume a little or watch your pick attack the fuzz kinda 'peaks' and compresses into almost a farty sound in places, this may be good for those Neil Young moments, but not when you're after smooth distortion. It's not a problem, you just have to be careful with your playing if that's not what you want.

it just plain sounds good all round though.

I have gigged with it once, without a backup and although the casing may seem a little thin it is holding up fine. It has one of those nice easy-to-press stomp switches just like all the other Lovetone pedals.

I rang up the company on a !Sunday! and Vlad was in doing some parcelling or something, and he took my order right then, he sent it on the Monday, emailed me the monday to notify me that he had posted it and I received it on the Tuesday, I think that's pretty good service. I haven't dealt with them since but i would not hesitate to do so. I won't give it a 10, because of this lack of further experience.

I play Hendrix and other 60s/70s rock and Metal in my bedroom but the band I'm in, covers indie/alternative/at the drive-in/trail of dead/radiohead/mogwai/god speed... type stuff : a really wide range, and it fits in anywhere, you just have to tailor the guitar and effects controls to suit the music. I have been playing 2 and a half years and this is the most expensive pedal I've bought to date, but after my experience with this one, i'm not buying any more cheap crap!
What I like about it is it gives me my sound....that's it.
What i dislike is lack of a status LED, if I'm going from distorted to clean or vice versa I wanna know that the pedal is definitely on and if I don't think I've pressed the switch right, I just have to pray. I wish I could avoid the guesswork.

If it were stolen, I don't know what I'd do, it's really pricey and I need some kind of distortion pedal for live work so I'd probably buy something passable for the function and get saving for another Big Cheese, I'm only 16 afterall.

If you've got the cash, get one, I highly reccommend it, and if you don't like it Vlad will let you return it. [conditions on website] You can't lose in my opinion.

Even though the controls have funny names (curds, whey), the Big Cheese is very easy to operate. You don't even really need the manual. In 2 minutes you're up and running.

I usually play the Big Cheese with a Telecaster or 335 into a Matchless DC-30. It ssems to work very well with all of the other effects that I use. I have a few other fuzzes (Fender Blender, Z Vex Fuzz Factory, MJM London Fuzz, Voodoo Labs Bosstone, Sho-Bud Bosstone) and the Big Cheese is right up there with all of them. It has a setting much like the "velcro fuzz" setting on the Fuzz Factory, but the other 2 settings are more tame. I was surprised at how quiet this fuzz is as compared to other fuzzes. Even at full tilt it doesn't emit much hiss at all. It has a very full and thick sound without ever being "farty" on the bass. I would describe it as having just the right amount of hair and balls...no pun intended.

Seems reliable, though the case is a little thin compared to the build quality and the sound. I like the way you get to the battery...the whole top is hinged and just flips up, no screws.

Seems very good here. I emailed Lovetone with a question and had a very detailed response the next day.

I play rock and this pedal is a perfect match. If it were stolen, I would most definitely replace it immediately. It has already found a comfotable spot on my pedalboard. I would recommend this pedal to any fuzz fiend.