Hi, Si and Mike here from MusicRadar and we are
in the presence of the two most
talked-about fuzz boxes in the market
today. I'd say so. We've got the DOD Carcosa and the
KHDK Scuzz Box.
So we're running a Fender American Pro Stratocaster HSS
through a Vox AC15, sounds a little
something like this.
set to the humbucker. Nice and Clean. Yep, clean, clean, clean.
So let's hear the Carcosa.
Lovely. Scuzz Box.
Yeah quite a bit of sustain from these two. Yeah.
which I enjoyed there because i was messing up
the riffs that I was playing. So carcosa
was a US exclusive originally just come
over here to the UK. So where did they have it
first of all? Pro Guitar Shop had it
Course they did, and then yeah
it's landed here thanks to Sound Technology
KHDK Scuzz Box is from Kirk Hammett and David Karon
who are making some very nice things at the
moment. They are indeed.
so this is a bit out of the normal territory for
the guy from Metallica. Yep
I mean taking you through the sounds a bit.
Carcosa. What's great about the Carcosa is
that you've got this bias controls which is
called "after", so you sort of start
left more traditional so you got your...
Accidentally played Smoke on the Water a bit there
Yeah, points deducted for that. Yeah, absolutely.
Slowly opening it up a little.
Little bit, little bit, little bit.
bit splattier...
Splattier still...
Mega splat. Mega splat.
Still got loads of sustain on it though.
Before it kicks in. I know I could, I guess I could
demonstrated the sustain. I don't wanna
bore people. No but. But it is kinda cool.
Yeah that's nice and it's quite abrupt.
Which is what you want when it's dialled right up of course.
Yeah exactly, and then you've also got the
old high cut, so...
Useful for switching it to different amps and things
little toggle switch here so up which what
we're using cause we're running into the clean
channel of the Vox, I should say top boost set
fairly clean
You've got the bass on there, a little bit of a
bass boost
or standard bass if you will.
Cause then when you switch it down...
So that's if you're layering it on top of a distortion
exactly if you're running it straight into
an already overdriven amp
So you've got that lovely flexibility there
and the before controls handles the sort of
the general gain, the usual.
Nice, noisy. Very noisy, I like that. And then full noise...
With the bias...
Yes. Lots of noise.
Quite like that. Quite like that a lot.
Switching over to the Scuzz Box,
it's germanium-voiced, not actually germanium
I think but, it sounds awesome.
Again you've got the sort of... Switch to the neck pickup here, single-coil.
Quite nice low-gain sounds. Crank it up again...
Switch over to the humbucker in the bridge...
Deep.
I just wanted to say "deep" really loudly.
That's what it is. That's what it says, it's deep.
Deep gets you more bass. Cranked up...
Quite ballsy that. Yeah, it's really sort of throaty response almost.
Less, but more sort of vintagey sounds when you when
lower the deep control. Tone, just does your highs
Lovely. Good, usable range across the board.
nice mid response from this.
both pedals actually, both will cut through in a
band mix which is I think one of the
best things about this particular pairing
but we've been leaving you in suspense
because we haven't mentioned the
"Scuzz" control which is the thing
Which is the thang. On this one.
Yep. Kick that in. All the noise is gone
Amp's dead silent right now because we have
gated this mother
nice, proper 8-bit territory now. yeah, absolutely. Proper vintage video game
soundtracks.
Yeah, breaks up nicely. Yeah I don't know
any, don't know how to play any so you'll just have to
just imagine it.
So you've got, like you say, both of these pedals is, they can be quite
restrained. Yep. Sort of bog-standard sort of
nice amount of rounded fuzz, driving up to sort of
quite, more aggressive tone and they can
also be quite wild so the
Carcosa's quite splatty and broken up and
this one is more, sort of like 8-bitty
more bit-crushed
I mean you get...
Nice. It will always cut out like that
Whereas I think if you want your
your end of set
Noise fest. Crank these...
Roll the dials...
That's it. Yeah, that's what you want.
So they're very similar pedals.
but probably the Carcosa's more
sort of looser, bit more for the heavier guys
yeah, yeah, absolutely and the guys who've got a slighty
smaller budgets obviously Carcosa is more
around £90. Sure, yeah. £170
ish for the Scuzz Box. Quite a departure between the two?
yeah, yeah, yeah. But, I mean, quality pedals.
Both quality pedals, that's what we like to see. Yep.
So that's it, hopefully we've given you
a little bit of flavor of what these two
pedals are all about. I'm sure you'll agree with us
bags of tone in these two. Plenty of tone. Yeah
we do love both of those. Possibly
I'm leaning more towards the Carcosa but it's uh
I'm leaning more towards the Scuzz Box so Jury's out.
Well that's it, we don't have to fight over them so
that's alright.
So yeah, join us next time we'll be talking more guitar gear.
We'll probably look at some tech stuff as well
and so yeah. See you soon, cheers. Cheers.