Catalinbread Giygas Fuzz Catalinbread

From Catalinbread:

Catalinbread means business! The Giygas is the most powerful fuzz weapon in the known universe. Featuring a plethora of useful options, the Giygas gives you everything you’ve ever wanted in a fuzz box, along with some stuff you never knew you wanted (but deep down, you totally knew).

The core of the fuzz circuit is brawny and fierce, yet with plenty of violin-like sustain and articulation on tap, and the entire thing is wrapped in a clean blend circuit. From there, the fuzz gets catapulted into a gyrator-based mids boost, and then into a tilt EQ circuit. With the blend rolled all the way back, you can use just the powerful high-headroom EQ to sculpt your clean tone. A horde of options await you under the hood, ones that will make our four-stringed friends extremely happy.

The fuzz circuit rules: Super aggressive yet buttery and violin-like. Muff-based but with some unusual component values, got it dialed in.

EQ workflow/frequencies/nitty-gritty: After the end of the clean blend circuit, the signal goes into a gyrator (simulated inductor) mids boost. This mids boost is centered at 900Hz and gives 10dB of boost or cut. Center is flat. Left of center (LoC) is scoop and right of center (RoC) is boost.

From there, it goes into a tilt EQ, also centered at 900Hz. Center is flat. LoC, the tilt boosts everything below 900Hz and cuts everything above up to 10dB. RoC is the opposite.

The EQ uses premium EQ-centric op-amps and uses a charge pump to run at +/-9V for extra high headroom.

EQ in conjunction with blend: The clean blend circuit terminates after the fuzz but before the EQ. This means at full clean, you can still use the EQ and get a slight volume boost.

Under the hood: There are two trimmers and one slide switch.

The trimmer is another gyrator circuit that sits in the same space as the mids circuit, boosting or cutting the 40Hz band. This can cut some mud when recording or provide a kick in the lows when cranked. BE CAREFUL with this control!

The slide switch shifts the center frequency of both mids gyrator and tilt EQ from 900Hz to 250Hz for our bass playing friends! In this mode, the 40Hz trimmer is especially touchy since rolling down the Tilt knob boosts 40Hz.

Volume: HOLY GOD is it loud. It can and will slam the front end of your amp if you let it!

Specs:

• 10dB of boost and cut at 900 or 250Hz
• 10dB of simultaneous boost or cut centered at 900 or 250Hz 
• Power: 9V center-negative ONLY
• Battery: No