Scott McKeon

SM Fuzz

In 1998, Scott McKeon was the winner of Guitarist’s Young Guitarist Of The Year competition. In 2021, he’s back in our pages as the signatory for the SM Fuzz, although he could just as easily be here for his session work (studio and live) or his solo career. Not exactly a new pedal, the SM Fuzz first saw the light of day in 2011 and has been used by the likes of Doyle Bramhall II, Gary Clark Jr, Robbie McIntosh and James Bay, but it’s been out of production for some time. However, it’s now back and available in a new batch.

The pedal sets out to deliver the sort of vintage fuzz tone found in pedals from the 1960s, and key to that aim is the use of germanium transistors – selected and hand-biased AC128s. Now, germanium transistors are notoriously susceptible to changes in temperature, but you shouldn’t get any audible surprises on a hot day because the designers have apparently come up with temperaturetolerant circuitry.

Looking at the design, the side-mounted knobs won’t add extra width to the pedal once it’s in use with jack plugs inserted into the adjacent sockets. Meanwhile, the Volume knob doubles as an on/off switch to save your battery power; we liked to run the pedal at max volume, and it’s easy to turn it on and up in one movement.

The pedal is said to feature custom designed circuitry, not available in any other pedal, but to our ears it has a similar vibe to a well-sorted Fuzz Face. At the lowest setting of the Fuzz knob there’s useful gritty drive tone, but towards the end of its travel there’s rich fuzz, full-bodied yet with a clarity across the frequency range that delivers great string articulation. Particularly notable is the pedal’s finely nuanced response to guitar volume, with smooth gradual clean-up

– if you run the Fuzz knob flat out or somewhere near, you can roll back your volume from a full-on lead sound through shades of drive to clean as needed.

VERDICT

An excellent fuzz pedal. Considering that used examples come up for sale in excess of £600, this new iteration looks like a bargain. Grab one while you can...

PROS Rare pedal available again; authentic vintage fuzz sound; excellent reaction to guitar volume

CONS Those side-mounted knobs and on/ off switching won’t be to everyone’s taste