Cracked the Code (NKT Bee)
Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2011 11:02 pm
Well I recently recieved one of the NKT blue and orange bees in the mail. After giving it a go I've decided I liked it but wasn't in love with it. It was like my older (psycho lime) bee only a touch warmer with less gain. Kinda goes from in-between grind to full saturation with nice clean up. A more modern approach to the '66 sound with a more well rounded eq'ing. Very different from my 1966 special and the vintage vox tonebender I recently bought, but one can easily see where its roots lie. It leads toward a smoother fuzz rather than a raspy one, but the realm is similar. Here I had used it into a clean ac-30 and a fender deluxe reverb with both a strat and a les paul.
Until....
I decided to crank the AC-30 with my Les Paul (everything to 10 on the bee). Pure Magic, it really transformed into something completely different. Almost into superfuzz territory. I rarely use fuzz into already distorted amps as they usually get too muddy and the definitive tone gets lost but in this case it really came to life. I'm really blown away by how great it sounds. Not what you'd expect from a tonebender type fuzz but the best attributes seem to be extracted and it has a much more crusty vintage vibe with no noise at all.
So I'm so inspired by this discovery that I wanted to share and urge any other NKT Bee owners to do themselves a favor and try putting it into a cranked amp with humbuckers. What you'll find is a fuzztone that is so satisfying that you'll be moved to create threads about it.
In some ways reminds me of this
Until....
I decided to crank the AC-30 with my Les Paul (everything to 10 on the bee). Pure Magic, it really transformed into something completely different. Almost into superfuzz territory. I rarely use fuzz into already distorted amps as they usually get too muddy and the definitive tone gets lost but in this case it really came to life. I'm really blown away by how great it sounds. Not what you'd expect from a tonebender type fuzz but the best attributes seem to be extracted and it has a much more crusty vintage vibe with no noise at all.
So I'm so inspired by this discovery that I wanted to share and urge any other NKT Bee owners to do themselves a favor and try putting it into a cranked amp with humbuckers. What you'll find is a fuzztone that is so satisfying that you'll be moved to create threads about it.
In some ways reminds me of this
Maybe I should flesh out the words with the description on the site but I've always tried to point out the Bee is very much a modern day fuzz box. It doesn't suffer from the same gear specific traits as say the original Italian Tone Benders do. It stacks well, likes high gain humbuckers and will move considerable amounts of air if given the space to do so. Right on the money with both dials at 10 too. Same rules as with a large percentage of the pedals we make. Start flat-out then attenuate if/as necessary. I think the testament for me was when the Slomatics boys said they could happily roll out a kidney crushing fuzz tone with the Bee alone. 
