Spencer Amps Subzombie

I am on giving it a 8 because it takes a little knob twiddling to get used to this one. It is a different approach to drive/fuzz tones. You are mixing three distortions with one being out of phase. The variety available is larger than any other pedal I have use (out about dozen drive pedals I have gone through).

Controls are:
Mix - this is the blend of the three distortions. This is the main control over the style of drive, screaming metal, fuzz, sputtering gating, to many to list, just keep tinkering. You can watch which distortion is kicking via leds on the unit.

Hi Cut - This reduces the treble of one distortion to the right and another to left. It is effect depends on the Mix knob. So it is a more complicated tone control.

Gain - Lots of range here. You can go from mild tubey drive to full on screaming metal. Nice textures of muff like fuzz if you set the mix right.

Volume - Nice range here and needs to be adjusted depending Mix/Gain as some setting cause cancellation that reduces Volume.

The manual covers all of this in these functions in good solid, technical detail.

Damn good. It can go from subtle to way over the top. It is only noisy if you want to be. It really is flexible beyond a short description. You can cover, boost, overdrive, fuzz (muff type mostly), sputtering gated fuzz, screaming metal lead tones and more ....

My favorite part is the textures you can get on decay, power and full chords get all sort of touch sensitive disintegration. It reacts to your pick attack, volume and tone controls.

I have used a Zoom Ultra Fuzz as my swiss army drive/fuzz/noise maker. The Subzombie has sent the Zoom packing. This is not meaningless, since it had the longest life on my pedalboard, 4 years, I think.

It is very solidly and cleanly built. No reason to think it will run into any problems. Plus Bill is a solid fellow, who I am sure would help you out if you need it.

Bill Spencer is good guy, who communicated clearly and thoroughly with me. He sold me a demo unit at a discount, and it was an honest solid deal.

I have had this while so this is no honeymoon review. I run a Les Paul mahogany plank into couple different tube amps, and the Subzombie is working great for me. I am clearly a big fan of this unit. If you want easy, quick setup, this is not the pedal for you. If you like pedal that opens new doors as you twiddle the knobs, this is a beast for you. I have upped the variety of tones by putting it in my Barge Concepts feedback loop. My tones are now undead!