FUZZ- CHICAGO STOMPWORKS Fat Bald Guy Fuzz ...maybe YES!!! ...maybe not :-(

CHICAGO STOMPWORKS FAT BALD GUY FUZZ

$90.00 USD

After listening to an original Marshall Bluesbreaker pedal I was convinced that it was my answer for a low gain OD. I had bought many even a super pricey MIJ jobbie.

Originals are headed into Klon territory prices so in the end I settled on the JHS Morning Glory. It is the biggest selling pedal JHS offers. 

It gets glowing reviews lots of blah, blah, blah. It did the job but has really annoying overtones. Nothing substantial but overtime I hated it. I stumbled onto the the Chicago Stompwork Blooze Maker a $75.00 USD clone of the B.B. It like most of their pedals has very few video's and the ones they have are made by amateurs often using nothing more than the mic built into their laptop.The company sold primarily by word of mouth in the Northern States to guys that play the local clubs that are not willing to spend squat on gear. After years of happy customers it always had a good stream of sales. As usual I digress. My point is I had to take a leap of faith and jump in. It arrived, 

I plugged it in, I played it for hours. I finally stopped long enough to 

put my JHS Morning Glory on Reverb. lol

THE FAT FAX

I am a really big fan of Billy Corgans dirt sound which is a vintage Big Muff OpAmp Fuzz. I have the reissue and find it quite excellent. Big BUT it does not get the crazy overkill lows I here on the old Smashing Pumpkins recordings.

AND?

It is a leap of faith again. There are no videos bad or good just a rant about how this is 'that sound.' It has been months and months since the pedal has been available ....when it was early last year it was gone after a couple of weeks.

CONCLUSION

Conclusion? There isn't one. 

I ordered one just before writing this Post. Come back in a couple of weeks and see how it all turns out.

HANDS ON

Well it arrived at my door 11 days later.

I did the obvious I compared it with my E-H Big Muff Op-Amp

The Baldie definitely has the massive lows I wanted. BUT it does not have that important bit of aggressive rasp. In fact from the upper mids up it is very OD like.

It does NOT replace my Muff.

 

BIG BUT!

The big 'Oh Wow!' finally came when I stacked my Rat II on it. The sound from the Rat added all the snarl you could want and the Rat has reasonable tight but fat lower mids. With the the Baldie added to the sound the combination is totally massive but surprisingly controllable. The Baldie does NOT splat out!

SO ...

Great pedal but it needs more nasty. Stack it with an aggressive Fuzz or OD and

you will have a monster on your board!!!

Think of it as a Bass booster.

Damn now I have 73 pedals that are keepers!!!