Mad Professor Fire Red Fuzz

For the most part it's a no brainer. Three knobs, pretty much an industry standard. The knobs are pretty sensitive, so a little tweak definitely goes a very long way. It's a breeze with single coils, thick, fat, singing sustain with an insane amount of gain and tonal flexibility is yours for the asking. All in all, nothing the average Joe or Jane couldn't figure out within a couple of minutes.

Like I said, this thing is really, really awesome with single coils. Both my Eric Johnson Strat and G.E. Smith Tele really sing with this puppy on. The EJ Strat combined with the FRF and my Mad Prof Deep Blue Delay is a dead ringer for the coveted "Cliffs Of Dover" tone, and does a better job than the Jetter Gain Stage Blue (a pedal SPECIFICALLY designed to cop said legendary sound).

I typically set the gain pretty low (all knobs at about 9 o'clock) and am extremely happy with the tone. Higher gain and tone knob settings yield Kinks style "slit speaker" sounds. The tone knob is the real secret to this pedal's versatility and excellence, while I have a definite sweet spot that I gravitate to, all settings are toneful and useful, ranging from sweet and midrangey to the classic Stoner fuzz scoop to raspy garage trash tones. Humbuckers seem to just generate one sound, varying degrees of Big Muff flavored grunge, but I've only tried it with my '61 reissue SG (equipped with a Rio Grande BBQ 'Bucker in the bridge, a decidedly dark sounding pickup).

To the best of my knowledge this pedal is all analog, and isn't particularly noisy at reasonable gain settings.

Mad Prof's stuff is pretty indestructible. I would certainly gig without a back up. These pedals are made out of high end components and encased in nuclear fallout grade enclosures, finished in tough candy colored baked enamel finishes. I haven't had this particular pedal long, but my Deep Blue Delay has been problem free for two years, the only exception being the adapter jack needing to be tightened. No problems otherwise.

I really haven't had to deal with them, although I DO sometimes get drunk and send them love letters, and they always respond with friendly and polite e-mails. I would imagine that any issues would be dealt with directly and appropriately in a timely fashion.

I play Eric Johnson flavored fusion and assorted weird hybrid styles, and I think that the Fire Red Fuzz is a really great Strat tone. I'm not as happy with it for my SG, but it definitely sounds good with that guitar as well. These pedals are incredibly expensive but really, really worth it. There is NO other company in the world that makes effects as well as Mad Professor. I recently sold my entire remaining pedal collection (including my Landgraff LDO and Mo'D, Jetter Gain Stage Red and Blue, a Catalinbread booster and a pretty cool Six Of Swords pedal) to fund the purchase of more Mad Professor pedals. I'm completely SOLD on this company!