gilmourish | 9 years ago

Here's my review of the OverZiod and Ge Fuzz from SviSound.

Signal chain:
Fender Stratocaster, with DAllen Echoes pickups into a H&K Tubemesiter 18w mic'ed with a Shure SM57.

Full review on Gilmourish
http://www.gilmourish.com/?p=6753

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SviSound (Bulgaria) is a new company for me although they’ve apparently been making pedals since 2012 and since then, received numerous raving reviews for their pedals. Their catalog is fairly large, consisting of what first seems like clones of old favourites. However, that’s just only part of their story.

Looks shouldn’t matter when you’re purchasing pedals but I like to look down at my pedalboard and go “oh yeah”. It’s about inspiration – both tone and design and the pedals from SviSound offer both great tones and some really amazing futuristic industrial design.

OverZoid
The pedal is housed in a MXR-sized box, with controls for volume, tone and gain, a bass boost switch, led and true bypass switching – running on 9V.

It’s hard to describe the tone of the OverZoid in detail because it’s really nothing I’ve heard before. It no doubt belong in the late 70s mids oriented overdrive family, with a close resemblance to the Tube Screamer. It’s got a nice emphasis on the mids, with a smooth gain stage and a rolled off and balanced low end.

Tweaking the controls makes it evident that this pedal has a lot more to offer. Rolling off the gain, takes it towards a Klon, with a much more transparent character and the legendary warmth. Turning up the gain and tone introduces a tone close to the early Marshall amps, with a nice mid range, creamy gain and lots of sustain. Maxing the gain brings out rich harmonics, much like a germanium fuzz.

The strength of this pedal lies in its ability to sound balanced and rich even at low typical bedroom levels. In the featured YouTube clip, I’ve recorded the guitars low enough for the mic to capture me picking the strings. As you can hear, the pedal sounds extremely dynamic and focused.

The bass switch is subtle but it adds a hint of low end boost, which you often need on smaller amps and low volume.

The OverZoid is probably one of the better sounding overdrive pedals I’ve tried in a long time. Perhaps ever. Extremely versatile and it sounds great on almost any guitar or amp you throw at it. Highly recommended!

Ge Fuzz
The pedal is housed in a MXR-sized box, with controls for volume, tone and gain, a bass boost switch, led and true bypass – running on 9V.

As the name implies, the Ge Fuzz is a take on the late 60s fuzz using germanium transistors. This thing is loud and like those fuzz pedals typical of Hendrix and early Gilmour, the Ge Fuzz is able to cover a lot of ground just by tweaking the controls on the pedal and your guitar.

Unlike most fuzz pedals, which sounds like, uh, a fuzz, the Ge Fuzz has a wide range from clean boost to warm overdrive and classic fuzz. Its got all those sweet harmonics and a real vintage flavour but there’s also a slightly modern touch underneath it all.

As you can hear from the featured clip, there really isn’t a huge difference between the OverZoid and the Ge Fuzz. With moderate gain settings, the Ge Fuzz sounds very much like an overdrive and it responds incredibly well to your picking and use of the guitar’s volume control.

Again I recorded the clip low enough to hear my picking, which means that I’m playing at a very low volume level. Unlike most vintage style fuzz pedals, which often sound fizzy on smaller amps, the Ge Fuzz sounds creamy and dynamic.

The Ge Fuzz is an excellent choice if you want that classic late 60s fuzz tone on smaller amps and bedroom setups, without compromising the tone.

SviSound
http://svisound.com/index.php?lang=en