Roland AF-10 BeeGee Distortion

two knobs, one switch. the only knob that even matters is the tone. turned up, it ranges between a DS-1 kind of tone to a thin, piercing squeal. Guitar Player magazine reviewed and hated it, which is terrific, because that'll keep the trendies from grabbing them all up for $300 when they get tired of their tube screamers, and they will get tired of them. what GP didn't realize is that with the tone knob on zero, this pedal seems to invert, giving this pigsquealer a warm, pickless tone, reminisent of fripp's e-bow tone and any holdsworth riff you can think of. i'll give it 7 of 10, because it did take a coupla hours to figure out the tone knob.

it does hum a bit. its noise falls somehwere between the big muff (which is brighter and noisier) and the foxxtone (which almost sounds gated). the hum is easier to control if the tone's down, but all fuzzes are like that.

never had a problem in 9 years, and it was severely used when i bought it. it has a dark green cast aluminum body, similar to a smaller version of the revered CE-1 chorus ensemble. this box weighs less than a pound, but it's all balls. i've used it without a backup, but it's best to use a fuzz with an overdrive anyway. and unlike a lot of older fuzzes, it sounds great with a rechargeable 9v cell.

you want customer support for a fuzztone dating back to the time of Christ? it's boss. of course there's customer support, although their techs were probably in utero when this box came out in 1973-74.

i'd buy any pre-boss roland fuzz. i have this and the double beat (a 3-band fuzz with a wah), and they're both terrific, unusual fuzzes, although i prefer the BeeGee as a stand-alone fuzz. with an ebow, or before a slow gear or similar attack delay, this thing rules, and at $15 out the door, it's more than a deal, it's a godsend. $15 including tax (thanks to workshop music, tucson)