SolidGoldFX releases the Imperial MkII, a gated muff-style fuzz

Solid Gold FX has launched the Imperial MkII, a new fuzz pedal inspired by the vintage JEN Jumbo.

JEN Elettronica was an Italian manufacturer who made pedals for Vox, Dallas Arbiter and Sound City (among others), in addition to making equipment under their own brand. The Jumbo Fuzz was their spin on the EHX Big Muff, which used sliders and voiced for a little more midrange a la the Ram’s Head Muff.

The pedal isn’t a direct clone of the Jumbo, using a silicon transistor rather than a germanium one, and adding a more modern noise gate to keep the high noise-floor in check. The original had a gate, but according to Solid Gold FX time and component drift have rendered them slightly unstable.

Solid Gold FX also notes the pedal’s use of its high impedance JFET preamp, which means that it will happily sit anywhere in your signal chain, and perform consistently on bass, guitar, synth and more.

The pedal offers sliders to control volume, tone, contour and fuzz, as well as separate LEDs to indicate the bypass state and noise gate operation.

You can hear it in action with the demo video below

The pedal lists for $199. You can find out more at solidgoldfx.com.

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