Keeley Fuzz Bender

This is a cool fuzz as you got so many sounds in one box. The knobs are very sensitive and even a small turn makes a lot of difference. The eq section is phenomenal and with this you really add bass or treble... We all know what the Level and Fuzz knobs are for.....and then the Bias that's where the great things happen, you can starve or feed the caps and the results are quite stunning, from quite buzzy to full blown. Mr. Keeley knows a thing or 2 about making pedals. The overall construction is good as you would expect from a pedal like this. Inside everything is done properly and professionally. If i really have to find something about this pedal that i don't like, but i haven't had it for long, is it seems to lack a bit of character, there's a lot of sounds but maybe they're all a bit flat, none really stands out, like you wanna set it there and leave it alone. But maybe i just haven't found it yet. All things considered for the money there aren't many other options out there with the same features...

A very versatile fuzz that sounds good. But if you are looking for a very particular type of fuzz, a dedicated pedal probably sounds better.

The ‘bias’ knob switches the fuzz’s from germanium to silicon-like sounds. This works well and really changes the characteristics of the fuzz from subtle to "too crazy for my liking". And unlike some other pedals with a toggle switch, this bias dial allows you to blend to taste. The EQ further help shape the tone. Since I hadn’t used fuzz that much previously, I found this to be a great way to experiment with different sounds with just one pedal.

The sound quality is good, at least to my ears. However, if you are looking for a very specific type of fuzz, there are dedicated pedals that have a bit more 'oomph' to their tones than this Swiss Army fuzz.

Build quality is pretty solid, but, the fuzz dial does seem to have a bit of a “dead” spot between about 7 and 8 o'clock (lowest) where it gets really glitchy: the sound randomly dies as if there is a lack of input signal.

I bought this fuzz in addition to EHX Triangle Big Muff and it compliments the big muff well. It is a quite different sounding fuzz pedal that offers a lot of options for tweaking and looking for a particular sound.

Fuzz tone is very subjective and I prefer to Big Muff for soloing (buckets of sustain), but I prefer Keeley Fuzz Bender for rythm playing and in my opinion, it works nicer with overdrives, boosts and distortions. Big muffs seem to get very noisy, but Fuzz Bender seems to behave nicely.

This pedal has 5 knobs on it, which means that you can do a lot of tweaking and get different fuzz tones out of it. It took a bit of time to get used to it and to fine what i like, so i would recommend it to people who enjoy tweaking and looking for sounds. If you want plug and play with minor adjustments, then this pedal can be a bit overwhelming.

An interesting thing i discovered is that when i run this pedal into a big muff (guitar - fuzz bender - muff), then i can get the big muff to behave a little bit better volume and sensitivty wise. I guess this is not unique to only this pedal, but interesting nevertheless.

I'm definitely happy that i got this pedal and i find it useful when i want to replicate different fuzz tones with one pedal.