Pedal Review- Swollen Pickle Jumbo Fuzz MIII
There’s something about a really good fuzz tone that makes you want to learn every part Geezer Butler ever wrote. This is not to say Geezer used fuzz, especially on those early Sabbath albums where they were just four savants in the studio turning knobs as far as they’d go and giving engineers heart attacks. But, not being a doom metal disciple (I don’t own even one single album with a pot pun in the title), when I play a fuzz pedal I play Sabbath.
The Way Huge Swollen Pickle Jumbo Fuzz Mk III gave me that feeling in spades. There are sweet spots on the Filter and Sustain knobs that send the bass tone into the dirt, but in a good I Call Upon Thee, Dark Lord way. There are also places on those knobs that send the bass tone into the dirt, but in a tumbling end over end on fire kind of way. The latter is true of every pedal brand and type, but there’s something about the wrong fuzz setting that just ruins everything, including the taste of food and the laughter of a child.
Luckily, there is way more I Call Upon Thee then there is Tumbling And Burning to bring to bear with the Swollen Pickle Mk III. Let’s get into it.
One of the great things about reviewing this pedal is the The Bass Channel history behind it. Our first video, way back in the days of Bassic Gear Review in the time long past of May, 2016, Will reviewed the Swollen Pickle Mk II. This is great because, much like how every new Iron Man suit is built from the basic ideas inherent in the cave-built Mk I and judged against the best features of the suits before it*, every iteration of this pedal will first be judged against the previous version. The biggest change between the Mk II and Mk III is immediately clear and, for my money, an improvement-
I would like to call your attention, if I may, to the Crunch and Scoop dials/switches. On the Mk II we see that these are adjustable dials. As I stated in my overview of the Darkglass Ultra series pedals, I feel about these tiny little twisties the same way Zakk Wylde feels about playing a song without pinch harmonics. I don’t like it. They’re too small to be useful, it’s impossible to see where the dial is actually pointing, and I have a secret suspicion that only four people in the world can actually hear the difference between 3 o’clock and 6 o’clock and 7 o’clock and 9 o’clock. You do not need that fine of fine tuning. Especially on a pedal designed to obliterate the edges of your tone.
Enter my kind of solution- switches. Yes, this is what I want. If I want Crunch, which here means it “adjusts the compression intensity of the sustain” (aka- off = fuzz with low volume, on = fuzz but you gotta push it) I don’t want to fiddle with it. Yes compression, no compression. If I want Scoop, which here means adjusting the mids, I just want two choices. Like I said, the only person who can hear massive differences is you, and half of that is in your head.**
I also like that the Filter knob on the Mk III is of equal size to the Loudness and Sustain knobs. In my opinion the Filter knob is the Main Event here, so I don’t see why it should be smaller than the others.
photo credit- Doug Robertson
Speaking of the filter knob, sweeping from left (the “Swollen” side) to right (the “Pickle” side) your fuzz tone will move from what I think of as an underwater or muddy muted sound when pegged to the left all the way to an annoyingly thin, completely lacking in what makes bass bass tone when pegged to the far right. Just about noon is the happiest medium I could find for my personal taste. As always with tones, your mileage may vary. But I like that perfect mix of the two.
The Sustain knob acts as a gain, basically. The further to the right you turn it, the more fuzz you get. Obviously it’s a fuzz knob, so even pegged on the right you’re getting some fuzz, but it’s not overwhelming. It’s Robin Williams after not shaving for a day fuzz. Pegged all the way to the left you’re getting Robin Williams trapped on an island for four years fuzz. It is, to my ear, unrecognizable. Everything blends and crashes together and if you’re into that you are going to love it because this pedal does it well. Me? I would keep mine nearly all the way to the left, giving the bass a little crunch while not turning my amp into a pile of rubble.
Speaking of shaking my amp to pieces, nearly all of my playing with this pedal was done using a Geddy Lee Jazz in standard tuning run through an Orange Crush 50. When I plugged in BEAD set-up Epiphone Thunderbird, which at the time was tuned to A# for a Behemoth song, I honestly thought I could destroy my amp. Turn the Filter all the way to Underwater and the Sustain all the way to Even Lemmy Thinks This Is Too Much and it wasn’t even making notes anymore. It sounded like if the music of experimental jazz black metal trio Imperial Triumphant was a person, and that person owned a jack hammer, and that person with that jack hammer was inside my amp. And they were mad at me.
My overall impression of this pedal is that it is, for a fuzz pedal, it is absolutely amazing. The range of tonal options is wider than the list of “swollen pickle” jokes I decided not to make out of good taste, the knobs are easy to understand and use, and dialing in something you want isn’t a matter of diagrams and charts but of small adjustments that make changes you can immediately feel. The pedal is solidly made and has a satisfying and tactile click when the button is depressed or a switch is flipped. Personally, I am not a fan of fuzz in bass, I much prefer to overdrive my tone if I’m going to modify it, but there are setting on this pedal than even I, a Fuzz Agnostic, would be happy to use. On some songs. Like Sabbath covers.
Thank you to Zzounds for sending us the pedal to review. If you’re thinking about picking one up please follow this link to do it.
Do you own a Swollen Pickle or other fuzz pedal? How do you feel about fuzz in bass. Get your comment on below.
*adjusts glasses- You see, Tony Stark, along with giving some of the suits names ala Iron Man 3 and Age of Ultron, he also tracks the progression of his suits by calling them the Mk 1, Mk 2, etc. The Endgame suit is the Mk 85. None of this has anything to do with the pedal, but if they’re gonna call their versions Mk I, Mk II, Mk III I’m gonna make an Iron Man reference.
** The Bass Channel Blog welcomes any and all audiophile “Well, Actually”s pertaining to this statement. But I want a Pepsi challenge with it then.
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Doug Robertson is the editor of The Bass Blog, the blog component of The Bass Channel, your one stop YouTube channel for all things bass. His number one is a Mexican Geddy Lee Signature Jazz and his boomer is a BEAD tuned T-Bird. Find books by Doug here. If you’re interested in contributing to The Bass Blog please reach out to Doug at doug@thebasschannel.net. We would love to hear from you.
