Interview with Brian From Small Sound / Big Sound!

Smallsound/Bigsound effects is a hyper rad custom/small batch pedal company based out of Philadelphia, PA.  They make killer fuzz/OD/glitchy weird pedals for guitar and bass, like the Team Awesome! Fuzz Machine!  Also, look out for the new Mountain Range boost / OD coming soon!




1. What is your name, where are you from and what do you do?

My name is Brian Hamilton and I live in Philadelphia, PA, where it's always sunny!  I run a little operation named smallsound/bigsound where i design, build and obsess over effects pedals.  I also play keyboards in a super band named Cymbals Eat Guitars!

2. Tell us a little more about yourself?

In high school, I dated a girl whose father owned/operated a pedal/string company.  We went out, then broke up for awhile, then got back together again in our junior year.  Sadly, during that interim period of about 2 years, her father passed away and her family sold the business.  I just started playing piano around the time we started going out again and as her mother saw my growing musical interest, she offered me some of the pedals, etc. that were just lying around in their basement.  I respectfully declined them; and why not?  I was serious about becoming a jazz musician and i had no idea how/why i would even use a guitar pedal.  Yeah.

3. How did you acquire your craft/art? 

I was in college (Berklee School of Music) studying performance and synthesis, so a lot of my core knowledge of signal flow and sonic manipulation came from studying sound design.  After I finished school I started getting interested in analog circuitry, effects pedals and circuit bending.  I worked at a coffee shop at the time and met a Northeastern University electrical engineering professor who really helped me a lot with electronics basics.  I actually got my first fuzz pedal working in one of the school labs!  Also, my great friend Jordan Levantini, who fixed studio consoles and tube amps was a real mentor to me - I wouldn't be where I am today if it weren't for him.  Either of them... they were really just so supportive.  I read a LOT, asked a lot of questions and wasn't afraid to make mistakes starting out.  My first projects were overly ambitious and really helped me learn a lot of things that one should NOT do.

4. What inspires you?

Sound as an object in and of itself.  I know that probably sounds pretty pretentious... oh well.

5. What is your creative process?

I draw lots of little pictures, block diagrams, mock up effect ideas using software effects in ableton live or logic.  I have lots of little piles of paper in the shop that are organized in a really weird way and probably just look like trash to most people.  I also talk to myself about new ideas and projects like a crazy person; not exactly yelling or anything like that, but I do get excitable.

6. What do you find to be the secret to your success?

It's most likely appreciative and supportive people who spread the word.  Though it may also be the chest hair...

7. Where are you now in your creative business and where will you be in the future?

I'm trying very hard to make sure things grow at the right pace for myself, for my customers and for my retailers.  I'm not really interested in complacency, but also don't want to overextend myself... I think I'm exactly where I should be and hope to still be where I should be in the future!  That all sounds weirdly cryptic.

8. Any words of wisdom to share with fellow artist/crafters?

Treat others as you would like to be treated and try not to take yourself too seriously.





9. What is your most favorite build so far?

I really love the fuck overdrive.  I left it at the shop before our last band rehearsal and noticed just how much I use it in the set and how integral it is to my sound.

10. Why do you love doing what you do (what fuels the fire)?

I can't put into words how I feel when when someone is inspired or excited by something I've built for them...

11. Shameless advertising = Win. We want all your info!

http://www.smallsoundbigsound.com/
http://smallsoundbigsound.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/smallsoundbigsound
https://www.facebook.com/smallsoundbigsound

Fuzzrocious Momster

Fuzzrocious Momster

This pedal was, I believe, the third original offering from the lovely people over at Fuzzrocious.  The Momster is a high(er) gain take on the first offering from Fuzzrocious, the Grey Stache.  They got the name for this pedal with input from their son, who apparently loves his Mommy very much.  

The Momster has all of the proprietary Fuzzrocious elements: true-bypass switching, great build quality (yay for NO BATTERIES, standard center-negative only kiddies) and hand painted cute-sy graphics.  My Momster was #002 and it had a Violet LED that indicated when the pedal was on and off.  The Momster sports four knobs.  The upper three knobs from left to right read Volume, Chomp and Roar.  If you don’t know what the Volume does by now, ring your call button and Tommy will come back and hit you over the head with a tack hammer!  The Chomp knob performs the same function as a “tone” knob on a traditional Muff-style circuit, with the Roar knob controlling the Saturation.  The Momster differs from the Grey Stache in another way, with the addition of a Gate (the fourth knob) circuit.  This is toggled on and off with the left foot switch.  

The first thing that I noticed about this pedal was that right of the bat, this had a LOT more gain / saturation to it than the Grey Stache.  I thought that the Roar knob was cranking when I first turned on the pedal, but then I realized that it was at about nine o’clock.  Pretty tame, haha.  Just like the Grey Stache, this thing preserves a TON of low end, even without a clean blend, so you have no worry about dropping out of the mix.  As you crank up the Roar knob, things get raspier and heavier, but with out loss of low end.  Things do get a bit ridiculous when the Chomp knob is also cranked, I.E. there is some....well not low end loss, it’s just that the Mids and Highs are a lot more present (looks like the Chomp knob is doing it’s job, eh?).  Either way, Gnarly.

I did miss the extra control over the sound of the pedal that the Grey Stache offered through the Mids knob and the three way toggle switch to change between the two different types of diodes in the clipping section.  It isn’t that the range of the Chomp knob is limited, quite the opposite, and in fact, you might not even ever notice.  I just think that if you have trade the Grey Stache first and then go to the Momster, you might miss the extra degree of control.

GATE.  So, this is where this pedal really starts to differ from the Grey Stache.  Instead of a tone bypass or an oscillation circuit, there is a gate circuit that lets you get all sorts of cool synth-y, 8-bit style fuzz tones. Put this with an octaver in front of it, and you are in synth heaven.  I really dug being able to go from Doom fuzz to gated 8-bit Mario riffs on the fly.  Some general observations:  the Gate knob works from right to left.  So if you put the Gate knob fully clockwise, you won’t really be able to tell a difference between the modes.  As you turn the Gate knob counter-clockwise the Gate circuit bites down on the circuit causing it to glitch and sputter (if those are the right terms) and turn into Super Mario Brothers.  

The only real improvement that I could say about this pedal would be to add a second LED to signal when the Gate circuit is engaged.  With higher settings on the Gate knob, it is pretty obvious that you are in either the doom fuzz or gated glitch mode, but with more subtle settings it can be a bit confusing (especially on stage).  

After experiencing the awesome in both of these pedals, the Grey Stache and now the Momster, I think that the best of the two is.....................................a hybrid.  Wait a minute, they did that with the GREY STACHE PLUS, and a custom ordered mash up for Behndy that included the full Grey Stache circuit with the gate feature of the Momster.  Sick.  Reading over the little blurb about the Grey Stache PLUS, it seams that all of my qualms with the Momster have been answered.  Separate bypass LEDs for the Gate mode, full control over the mids and the clipping section.  It’s like Ryan is INSIDE MY HEAD.

Here are some SOUND CLIPS.  Yep that's right, bitches.  The first one is a finger-style clip of my Franken P-Bass into the Momster, into a Lexicon Alpha, and then into Logic.  Clean first, then DOOM:

Momster Fingerstyle DEMO

This next clip showcases the Gate circuit.  Same setup as before (finger-style P-Bass).  First is clean, then DOOM fuzz, and then gated mode (so you can hear the difference between the two).  Then I through in my Aguilar Octamizer in before the Momster for good measure:

Momster Gated DEMO

As always, comments, questions, concerns are super welcomed, you don't even have to leave your name! Just let me know what you think!!

-Colin (mothertonegear@gmail.com)