Okay, so. Grease Box GB-80. Plain and simple, it’s a fuzz box. Tone Benders. I likes them. Especially those old crusty germanium fueled ones. I guess you do too seeing as you are here reading this. I’m pretty well acquainted with those early Tone Benders now, they are well and truly rooted right in. I find the Professional MKII particularly interesting but I also have much fascination with the MKIII and MKIV Tone Benders. It’s a pretty smart arrangement circuit wise. I kinda dig its shrouded history too. The whole relation to the Baldwin Burns Buzzaround and the Elka Dizzytone. Which came first? Who influenced whom? That kinda thing. The other cool thing is how a slight change can make the same circuit sound pretty different. For example, early MKIII’s being gated and choppy and later MKIV’s being soupy and gooey. Same shit, different flavor so to speak.
So any huw. The Grease Box. It is at heart, a MKIII/MKIV Tone Bender. Its bare bones and the circuit blue print are very Tone Bendery. The idea here was very simple indeed. What if Colorsound still made the Tone Bender MKIV in 1981. What would that sound like?
The main factor at play from the early MKIII’s made in the late 1960’s to the late MKIV’s made in the mid 1970’s is time. Time, yes time. Time made the changes. Fuzz was heavy and farty in the 60’s. Pedals mainly designed for single note runs that sounded something like a wacked out electronic saxophone. The 1970’s called for more balls and attitude. Big dirty hamburgers of fuzz. Guitars changed, amps changed and more importantly people and their needs changed.
So its 1981. MTV, The Space Shuttle, The Fall Guy, Roland Reagan, Peter Sutcliffe, Britney Spears is born. Satan rules supreme. Awesome times are awesome.
What the hell is happening in music that has a spark with guitar players where they desire a fresh new exciting sound of their own? Heavy mother fucking Metal! Yes, Heavy Metal. The beast awakens. Marshall amps, long hair, cool moustache, humbuckers in yer Strat, can I palm mute on every song? Why yes you can. It’s happening and it’s happening now. Welcome to Hell.
Okay so, gibberish aside. The Grease Box is a fuzz box that thinks, to some degree, that it’s an overdrive. It has a lot of midrange cut and a good amount of clarity. It is responsive to pick attack so comes over as quite dynamic for a fuzz box. You're not gonna get the transparency of a TS-808 or other such things; it is a fuzz box at heart. Remember that. It's kinda like a Distortion + and extra gooey Tone Bender MKIV meeting somewhere in the middle. The 'Volume' control has a linear taper so retains a good dose of the highs as it's rolled off. The 'Sustain' control will darken the tone somewhat as its rolled back. The nature of how both of these controls react will give you a lot more scope than you'd think from a two knob fuzz box. It's Greasy, ay.
Build it up
Basically. I saw this and thought it was the coolest shit I'd seen for a long time. Never crossed my mind that the 'compact' vibe was a thought way back when. I guess it was more from the point of view of saving cash on the enclosure than a space saving thing but how wonderfully cool to see either way. I love how it's the exact same parts you'd find in the Sola Sound MKII's of the day even down the exact same mount bracket but just with the board mounting inverted. Smart.
After the 'wow' factor the first thought that struck me was that the Fuzz Bug reminded me a little of one of Pedalenclosure Mike's fine products. 2 + 2 = Dave's gonna make the Grease Box like that shit. Obviously, Mike's YY box is a fair chunk smaller than the Fuzz Bug but its still got it going on.
I revised the board layout so I could use the same size board as I do for the Sola Sound MKII's so it would be accommodated by the same mounting bracket. The circuit is unchanged in its sonic design though this initial transistor selection is dealing out a very pleasing mix of the original greasy fat sacked drive tone with a sprinkling of vintage dust on the top.
What no LED? Nope. Didn't need it, don't has it. Plus it would have screwed up my whole vibe in this regard. The Grease Box is an 'hey, I'm turned on' kinda fuzz box. You will know its there.
If you ditch the LED, you can ditch the DC. I only added the DC cos the LED was chewing up more juice than the circuit. I ran the prototype from this new batch for a solid 72 hours and that battery only dropped .2 volts. You can do the math there. Lastly, the D*A*M range is kinda split into two groups though this isn't too obvious right now. A few pieces of the puzzle are missing as yet, but, basically you have the kinda compact series and custom vintage series. The Greaser is custom vintage shit. Old school is cool school
