Electro-Harmonix has served up a hot take on a stone-cold classic with the Bender Royale presenting us with a souped-up modernised version of a vintage Tone Bender fuzz pedal.
This is a second (or third?) generation Tone Bender-style fuzz with heaps of features on a compact enclosure. For a start, there are Treble and Bass knobs for fine-tuning the EQ, always helpful with a fuzz, especially when there is so much range on that passive Bass control. The Treble control is an active shelving filter that can take out some of that top-end sizzle to taste.
Secondly, there’s EQ quick-fix by way of a Fat switch, which adds serious heft in the low-end and low-mid frequency – a boost that EHX describes as “the perfect thickening agent tonal stew”. Just the thing your single-coil electric needs? Could be.
“If you’re into big, fat saturated tones, the Bender Royale will get you there!” promises EHX supremo, Mike Matthews.
There are also two switchable clipping options, with the choice between germanium and LED clipping allowing players to go from that smooth vintage warmth to something more gnarly and aggressive.
Speaking of gnarly, feral sounds, the Bender Royal has a Bias control allowing you to run it wide open, or to choke the voltage for that gated Velcro splutter.
This might not be the fuzz that does it all, but it might be close. It sure does a lot, and promises to be a hard-working addition to any pedalboard.
We haven’t even gotten to the Blend dial, which is arguably the least exciting but most practical control on the entire pedal, allowing you to preserve your electric guitar’s (or bass guitar's) dry signal and keep some attack definition in there when you need it – especially if the Bender Royale is not the only dirt pedal in action.
Finally, Volume controls the output from the pedal, while Fuzz controls input gain, and just when you were thinking there wasn’t any more to be getting on with here, the good people at the NYC-based guitar effects pedal company has given us a soft-touch footswitch can be set up to run with a momentary or latching action (hold it down to toggle between settings).
Run it from a battery or 9V DC from a pedalboard power supply. The Bender Royale will draw 12mA, it’s true bypass, and is available now priced $149. And that’s that. Phew! Find out more at Electro-Harmonix.
