REVIEW > sPaceMan
and Beck’s signature Yardbirds riffs a little
extra muscle and danger.
Through a Marshall Super Lead the same
licks were scarily colossal. And a Gibson Les
Paul bridge pickup drove the Ge side and
Marshall to cloud-piercing heights—
impractical and overkill for most of us, but absolute
exhilaration—like a GTO and 30 miles of
desolate, cop-free, two-lane blacktop.
Blend in more silicon and scoop the
mids by rolling off the tone control, and
you’re bound for Iommi territory and
stoner zones beyond. Even in these ultra-thick dimensions, chords retain remarkable
note-to-note clarity—even more so with
single-coils. And notes sustain with a harmonic sheen that hovers airily over a thick
and deliciously muddy bed tone. Aggressive
and crafty use of the filter control here can
give you a hip, even synthy trace of octave
that’s killer for Cream-era Clapton runs and
horn-like stabs in heavy funk jams.
At lower gain settings the germanium
side is great for mid-’60s garage-punk
tones. You might not be able to access that
super-clipped Davie Allan-style Buzzrite
We spent months locked up in our sound design labs with an intense focus on dreaming up the most spacious, lush, creative, tweakable, and musically inspirational delay effects ever heard.
TimeLine. It’s not a delay pedal.
It’s an inspiration machine.
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®
162 PREMIER GUITAR FEBRUARY 2012
beehive fuzz, but backing off the master
a bit, cranking the guitar wide open, and
strangling the Pro Junior a bit conjures a
genuinely skanky and thuggish buzz tone
that will suit the most surly, swaggering,
and chain-slinging biker jam.
the Verdict
You could spend a few hours with the
Gemini III and just start to get into the
nuances and secret back alleys of filth and
fuzz that lurk within the gleaming, polished
aluminum enclosure. There’s not a superfluous function on this thing—even if it looks
really busy for a fuzz. The gain switches, filter function, and, most importantly, the Ge/
Si blend knob enable you to tailor a guitar-and-amp combination to any situation on
the fly, at levels from subtle to extreme. This
is one fearsome studio weapon.
Perhaps the biggest bummer is that, like
most Spaceman pedals, there aren’t many
to go around. So let this review be a plea to
Spaceman Handmade Effects of Portland,
Oregon, USA: Keep these units rolling off the
bench. We’ll never tire of taking this trip.
Rating:
Buy If...
you’re a fuzz nut on the hunt for new
flavors and a way to consolidate
classic fuzz tones in a single unit.
Skip If...
you rarely venture beyond your
favorite Fuzz Face sound.
Spaceman Effects
Street $319
spacemaneffects.com
or use a mobile device to hear
audio clips of the pedal at
CLICKHere…
premierguitar.com/feb2012
premierguitar.com
