WAMPLER PEDALS
Two-band EQ
LEVIATHAN
BY JORDAN WAGNER
Change comes slow in the world of uzz. Sure, there are always refinements on the form, but in the ears of
many players, the templates were perfected
decades ago in the stinging, furry bite of
the Fuzz Face, the snarl and grit of the
Rat, and the unmistakable sludge of the
Big Muff. So when Wampler Effects was
inundated with pleas to release their own
fuzz pedal, they wanted to enter the fray
with something unique.
Wampler’s way to a more unique fuzz
took a more aggressive route, one inspired
by the sounds of players like the Smashing
Pumpkin’s Billy Corgan. In taking that
path, Wampler created a fuzz worthy of its
namesake—a demon prince of tone rising
from the depths, wholly intent on obliterating everything within earshot.
A Demon Rises
Wampler touts the Leviathan’s circuit as
completely unique and not derived from
any fuzz pedal in particular. Instead, the
company used the sounds of a few specific
players as ideals. Corgan’s tone on the
Pumpkins’ 1994 landmark album, Siamese
Dream, was a major influence, and as some
modern metal fans might guess, the ripping
sounds of stoner-rock darlings Mastodon
were also inspirational.
The Leviathan’s control layout is fairly
conventional, though it might seem busy
to fans of old two- and three-knob fuzzes.
A simple 2-band EQ—Treble and Bass—
shape the low- and high-end content, while
Volume and Gain knobs control level and
fuzz content. The clipping mode can be
switched between germanium or silicon
diodes via the Roar/Rumble switch—
effectively flipping between wider and more
compressed fuzz tones.
Though most gigging guitarists these
days have ditched batteries in favor of
multi-outlet power supplies, it’s still a
hassle to unscrew the back panel to replace
the battery. It wasn’t a huge deal with the
Leviathan, as I didn’t need to change the
Roar/Rumble
switch toggles
between silicon
and germanium
diodes
battery after playing it for several hours,
but having a simple battery door would
have been a nice convenience.
It Came from the Deep
The tones that lie in wait within the
Leviathan are not subtle. In fact, this has
to be one of the most raging, over-the-top
fuzz pedals I’ve come across in quite some
time. Using a Stratocaster routed through
the Leviathan and into a Bogner Barcelona
40-watt combo, I set all of the controls
straight up, flipped the clipping switch
to Roar (germanium-diode mode), and
dug into some early-’90s Seattle-inspired
riffage. The sound was burly and very
aggressive, with great top-end bite and a
pummeling, grinding midrange. Backing
off of the Strat’s volume knob coaxed some
detail back into the tone but sacrificed
high-end bite—nothing a small adjustment
of the Treble knob couldn’t fix.
