Answer the call of the wild with Tone Electronix's Animalizzer multi-drive and fuzz pedal

Tone Electronix has unveiled the evocatively titled Animalizzer – a multifunction dirt pedal that packs boost, overdrive, distortion and fuzz into one enclosure.

The Animalizzer (née the MufferFuzzer) is dominated by three large controls for Bass, Middle and Treble across the top of the enclosure, with a three-stage clipping switch for Stage 1 of the drive, and a five-way rotary dial for Stage 2. Other controls comprise Fuzz, Volume, Depth and Pre-Gain.

This is not your average drive pedal. There are many questions – not least how to pronounce "Animalizzer"? Helpfully, Tone Electronix provide a neat diagram [below] charting your guitar's signal path as it moves through the pedal.

The controls offer plenty of opportunities to shape your tone just how you like it. The Pre-Gain control is very cool; it sets your guitar's level before it enter's the gain stage, much like an internal boost pedal.

Depth is where you can change the voicing of the entire pedal. It controls how low end enters the clipping stage, offering a fuzzier tone when dimed and more distortion when dialled back.

Fuzz controls how much of you the Pre-Gain and Depth shaped tone hits the clipping stage. This is where the plot thickens. Stage I allows you to select between symmetrical silicon diode, LED diodes, or natural transistor clipping in the Open position. 

Stage II offers a further four clipping options: asymmetric silicone diodes, LED, germanium and Open, which like Stage I takes the diodes out of the clipping stage.

Handbuilt in Portugal, the Animalizzer ("-izer" like Tizer or "-izzer"? like fizzer? You decide) costs €220, but available at a V2 special of €190. 

See Tone Electronix for more details.