Spaceman Effects launches the new Sputnik III Germanium Fuzz
Portland, Oregon based Spaceman Effects make some insanely good boutique effects pedals and have a real cult following amongst guitar pedal aficionados, lovers of good tone and pedal freaks. The new Sputnik III Germanium Fuzz is the company’s latest offering and looks to be out of this world!
Sputnik III
Described by the company as an “homage to the golden era of electronics” and “brimming with vintage soul”, Spaceman Effects‘ new Sputnik III Germanium Fuzz pedal should have all you pedal hoarders and fuzz fanatics chomping at the bit to acquire one. The fuzz circuit uses NOS Soviet germanium diodes and transistors, which is where the Sputnik moniker comes from.
In orbit
This third iteration of the fuzz merges the best bits from the previous two versions and follows from there. The four controls labelled Scan, Calibrate, Range and Signal do all the dirty work and allow players to dial in their favourite vintage flavoured fuzz tones. The Drift mode adds more sonic corruption to the pedals’ output. The mode’s momentary functionality has also been upgraded from the Sputnik II version, which means that you can now corrupt the signal further with the Scan control, and then momentarily assault your ears at will, when required!
Spaceman Effects Sputnik III in fancy red finish for $399? · Source: Spaceman Effects
Play nice
The Sputnik III is hand-wired and uses soft touch true-bypass switching. It has the same transformer based pickup simulation as the Sputnik II, which should ensure that the pedal behaves nicely anywhere in your signal chain. This is good news, as typically, germanium based fuzz pedals tend to be more temperamental than a teething two year old kid!
For a hand-wired boutique US made fuzz pedal, the price is about what you would expect. Or for a little bit extra, you can order it in limited fancy colour variations, if you so wish.
RRP – USD 269 – USD 399
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