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Mercury Fuzz Sounds

While My Guitar Gently Weeps (John Verity) – Thanks to John Verity for this guitar solo excerpt from the track ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’. John is using a Fret King Black Label Corona ‘JV’ Guitar with custom wound vintage voiced single coil pickups into the Mercury fuzz then into Blackbird. This is going into an 18 Watt VTR/Verity head driving a cab fitted with 2 x 10″ and 1 x 12″ Tayden loudspeakers. To find out more about the gear John utilises to get his incredibly rich, bluesy guitar tones check out his website.

Mercury Vacuum Tube Fuzz (John Verity) – Thanks to John Verity for recording this live in the Effectrode workshop. Gear used: Strat (bridge pickup), Mercury fuzz and Fender Tweed amp. To find out more about the gear John utilises to get his incredibly rich, bluesy guitar tones check out his website.

Mercury Vacuum Tube Fuzz at low gain (Tristan Klein) – The Mercury simply smoulders at lower fuzz settings – FUZZ knob at 11 o’clock, VOLUME knob at 2 o’clock. First section of the clip on the neck pickup, volume down, second section bridge pickup full volume. The setup used: Les Paul 56 VOS -> Mercury Vacuum Tube Fuzz -> Torepdo CAB -> Mbox pro and Pro Tools. Evidence Audio cables and Lava Blue Diamond patchs. Thanks to Tristan Klein for this sound clip.

Mild Overdrive – Although a fuzz, the Mercury can easily double as an overdrive similar to the Tube Drive, with warm dynamic tube gain and compression. This sound clip demonstrates how well this tube fuzz pedal responds to different pickup configurations and picking techniques – the amount of gain produced by the Helios is controlled by alternating between hard and soft picking. The Mercury settings are: VOLUME = 3 o’clock and FUZZ = 1 o’clock. Increasing the Mercury volume control pushes the amp a little more to increase the natural compression and smoothness of the tone. The guitar (a Strat) volume is at 8.5. Setup used: Laney Lionheart L20 mic’ed with a Shure SM57 slightly off axis. Reverb and delays are added in ‘Logic’. Thanks to Bjorn Riss of Gilmourish for recording this sound sample.

‘Maxed Out’ Fuzz – With the fuzz control all the way up and the FIRE switch engaged the Mercury can produce some wild fuzz tones like a silicon transistor based fuzz on acid – the Mercury screams, chokes and spits like a wild beast! The ‘HEAT’ mode takes the pedal over the edge so that is becomes an untamed animal. For this sound clip the VOLUME = 3 o’clock and the FUZZ = 5 o’clock. Setup used: Laney Lionheart L20 mic’ed with a Shure SM57 slightly off axis. Reverb and delays are added in ‘Logic’. Thanks to Bjorn Riss of Gilmourish for recording this sound sample.

Late 60′s Fuzz – At lower settings the Mercury is capable of producing some classic tones reminiscent of a Bluesbreaker and Humbucker combo. The rhythm track was laid down using a Les Paul with PAF Humbuckers and the lead guitar is a Strat with DAllen Voodoo 69 neck and middle and Duncan SSL5 bridge pickups – guitar volume is at 10. For this sound clip the Mercury VOLUME = 11 o’clock and the FUZZ = 5 o’clock. Setup used: Laney Lionheart L20 mic’ed with a Shure SM57 slightly off axis. Reverb and delays are added in ‘Logic’. Thanks to Bjorn Riss of Gilmourish for recording this sound sample.

Mercury Vacuum Tube Fuzz – Thunderchild Guitar Solo (The War of the Worlds) – Here’s my tribute to the mighty and devastating heat-ray sound created by Joe Partridge on Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds. Special thanks to Phil Shiell for laying down a very nice bass line on this track. Fuzzed guitars are recorded using my Mercury vacuum tube fuzz and Tube Drive pedals. Recorded direct with no speaker emulation and reverb and eq added post recording using VST plugins.

Mercury Vacuum Tube Fuzz – Black Dog (Jimmy Page) – ‘Mercury’ vacuum tube fuzz recorded direct to computer via Palmer PDI-09 guitar DI box. The Mercury fuzz pedal records direct fantastically so just the tiniest amount of equalisation and reverb were added post recording using VST plugins. No speaker cabinet emulation was used.

Helios Vacuum Tube Fuzz – demo by Scott Rabinowitz – Signal path: PRS Custom 24 -> Effectrode PC-2A -> Effectrode Mercury Fuzz -> Effectrode Blackbird SR-71 (green channel) -> Torpedo CAB -> DAW (used a little reverb in DAW). Thanks to Scott Rabinowitz for making this sound clip. Mercury Settings:Rhythm guitar left: Volume 2:00 Fuzz 8:30; Rhythm guitar right: Volume 2:00 Fuzz 12:00; Lead 1: Volume 2:00 Fuzz 9:00; Lead 2: Volume 2:00 Fuzz 2:00; Lead 3: Volume 12:00 Fuzz max

Mercury Vacuum Tube Fuzz (Tristan Klein) – The setup used: Les Paul 56 VOS -> Mercury Vacuum Tube Fuzz -> Torepdo CAB -> Mbox pro and Pro Tools. Evidence Audio cables and Lava Blue Diamond patchs. Thanks to Tristan Klein for this sound clip.

Mercury Vacuum Tube Fuzz (Tristan Klein) – The setup used: Les Paul 56 VOS -> Mercury Vacuum Tube Fuzz -> Blackbird (‘Creamy’ channel) -> Torepdo CAB -> Mbox pro and Pro Tools. Evidence Audio cables and Lava Blue Diamond patchs. Thanks to Tristan Klein for this sound clip.

Gibson 335 into the Mercury Tube Fuzz into a Vox AC15 (Mark Marshall) – Here Mark demonstrates how chimey the ‘Mercury’ vacuum tube fuzz can be. Some fuzz pedals have a ring mod overtone when playing chords or intervals. The Mercury is clear, without dissonant overtones. It works well with a Vox for arpeggiated parts you wouldn’t normally associate with fuzz.

Gibson Les Paul into the Mercury Tube Fuzz into a Headstrong Lil King Reverb (Mark Marshall) – Wanna hear some blues? Here is a cut from a session by Mark. He’s using the neck pickup on his Les Paul Standard with Florance PAFs. The Mercury is in ‘starved plate’ mode yet there is a lot of sustain but I’m still able to retain dynamics. The Headstrong amp is at low volume—it’s at 2.

Gibson Les Paul into the Mercury Tube Fuzz into a Headstrong Lil King Reverb (Mark Marshall) – In this sound clip Mark is playing finger-style with the neck pickup. Here he wants to highlight again that even with the sound fuzzed out, there is a clarity to it. You can clearly hear the intervals, with no pesky dissonant overtones. The sound is warm but not tubby.

Gibson 335 into the Mercury Tube Fuzz into a Vox AC15 (Mark Marshall) – In this sound clip Mark is using the neck pickups, with the plate starved switch on. The fuzz is all the way up. You can still hear the pick attack, which doesn’t happen on most fuzz pedals when maxed out. It sounds fuzzy but reacts a lot like a tube amp—obviously as there are tubes in it! And even though the Mercury is in the plate starved mode, it still has more of that tube loveliness than a transistor-based pedal.

This is your Bass on Mercury (Scott Rabinowitz) – This is a quick demo that Scott Rabinowitz recorded to showcase the ‘Mercury’ fuzz on bass guitar.

Guitars: PC-2A -> Mercury -> Tube-Vibe -> Blackbird -> Torpedo CAB -> DAW
Bass: PC-2A -> Torpedo CAB 1st pass
PC-2A -> Mercury (Volume at 2 o’clock Fuzz at 2 o’clock) -> Torpedo CAB -> DAW 2nd pass
PC-2A -> Mercury ( Volume at noon Fuzz at noon Fire switch engaged) -> Torpedo CAB -> DAW 3rd pass

A little bit of reverb was added to all guitars in the DAW.

Mercury Vacuum Tube Fuzz – Masters of the Universe intro – Recorded direct with no speaker emulation and reverb and eq added post recording using VST plugins.

Mercury Vacuum Tube Fuzz – The One-Eyed Turk (Adrian Legg) – “The One-Eyed Turk” was originally recorded on a Dobro on Adrian’s CD ‘Guitar Bones’. Here is Adrian’s regular guitar DIed via the Mercury, the PC-2A, a little bit of echo and reverb, into a laptop. As the one-eyed Turk became older, sold his kebab shop on Shepherds’ Bush, and, as far as I heard it, retired to Turkey.

Mercury Vacuum Tube Fuzz – Toot Toot (Adrian Legg) – Recorded (on an iPhone!) by Adrian in his hotel room in Crowne Plaza Hotel St. Louis overlooking the Mississippi – which I’m sure helps with the authenticity of his tone! Gear used: ZT Lunchbox Junior and his regular small travel board with the PC-2A compressor.

Helios Vacuum Tube Fuzz – Blocking Distortion – In this sample I’m using extreme plate starvation to create a blocking distortion effect. It sounds like and old tube radio or T.V. perpetually burning out – certainly not the devastating, smooth fuzz tone the Helios is known for. It’s a useful effects for special occasions when you might want to create sad haunting sounds. Recorded direct with no speaker emulation and reverb and eq added post recording using VST plugins.

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Mercury Fuzz Sounds