SolidGoldFX Imperial MKII
The SolidGoldFX Imperial MKII is built around our J-FET preamp. It offers exceptional clarity and response for your guitar, bass or synth application.
The Fuzz slider delivers as much or as little gain as you may need. The Tone slider, along with its midrange Contour slider cousin, delivers warm and wooly or bright and cutting sounds.
Paired with a dynamic noise gate, this sweet little pedal offers a crisp attack with virtually no noise floor.
If a ripping, royally raucous fuzz, with impeccable manners, is what you seek in your tone conquest or whether you are chasing those soaring Gilmour-esque leads that propel you to the far side of the moon, then look no further than the Imperial MKII.
About the Imperial MkII
The Imperial MkII is charmingly retro appearance.
It is inspired by the JEN Jumbo fuzz, one of our personal favorite vintage fuzzes. The Imperial MKII’s four sliders, textured black paint, and bold red graphics show this pedal means business.
So, what is the JEN Jumbo Fuzz, and what makes it so awesome?
JEN Elettronica was an Italian manufacturer who made pedals for Vox, Dallas Arbiter and Sound City. In addition, they made equipment under their own brand.
The Jumbo Fuzz was their spin on the venerable EXH Big Muff. They swapped the knobs out for sliders and added a nifty germanium noise gate.
In terms of sound, the tuning of the Jumbo Fuzz lies somewhere in the Ram’s Head camp. Not overly scooped or woofy, with a nice gain range. Just a great sounding pedal!
The Jumbo’s noise gate is a great feature and gives this BMP variant a unique attack with little noise. However, vintage units vary greatly, with some gating too much and others not at all.
Capturing the Jumbo Fuzz’s vibe and redesigning the gate was essential to our SolidGoldFX Imperial redesign.
Let’s dive in.
High Impedance JFET
True to the original SGFX Imperial, the MKII retains our high impedance JFET preamp. This gives the low noise floor detail and definition you would expect from any Solid Gold FX pedal.
Bass, guitar or synth, stick it anywhere in your effects chain. Ride your volume knob for clean-up – the Imperial’s preamp will respond.
While the tone stack is carried over from the original design, a new Contour slider replaces the mids switch. This changes the frequency of the high-pass filter in the tone stack. This allows you to boost or scoop your mids, with every shade in between.
The Noise Gate
About that noise gate, this is where the Imperial MKII really shines.
We’ve swapped out the Jumbo Fuzz’s germanium transistor design with silicon devices.
Also we’ve given it an improved envelope generator, to ensure consistency and response throughout.
Having fine-tuned the attack and release, not only does the noise gate allow for virtually zero noise, but it also gives the pedal a unique, sharp attack with no loss of sustain at higher fuzz settings.
Align this to a nice, dry attack at low settings, and Imperial MKII will pair great with other dirt boxes too.
The noise gate will even allow you to add fuzz to a hollow body, while controlling the howl and feedback should you choose.
Finally, the Imperial MKII package has dual LED indicators, top jacks, true bypass switching and, of course, our retro sliders and vintage inspired artwork.
Controls
- Vol: This allows you to boost or cut your volume level.
- Tone: This allows you to set darker tones as you lower the slider or brighter tones as you raise it.
- Contour: This controls the midrange content of the tone stack by changing the frequency of the high pass filter. The effect of the contour slider becomes more apparent when the Tone is set to brighter positions. Raising the Contour slider increases mids while lowering the slider scoops mids.
- Fuzz: This allows you to increase or decrease the amount of distortion.
True Bypass Switch: This allows you to engage or bypass the effect.
LEDs: The Left LED indicates the bypass status while the Right LED indicates the gate status. Both are active when LEDs are on.
9V DC Input: This pedal uses a negative ground, 9V DC power supply with a 2.1mm barrel plug and a negative center
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