Specifications

Manufacturer:
Plush FX Pedals by Fuchs, fuchsaudiotechnology.com

List Price:
$249.00

Originally published in Guitar World, December 2009

If the dirtiest distortion is what you desire, the Plush Noxious pedal delivers what you need.

Thousands of distortion, overdrive and fuzz boxes flood the market (I lost count somewhere around 2,400), and the vast majority of them provide sweet, smooth tones. However, many players these days don’t do the sonorous and soothing thing, and they’re looking for tones that are downright obnoxious and nasty.

If you thrive on rude and raw sounds, then the Plush Noxious distortion pedal may be the dirty dog’s dinner you’ve been waiting for. Designed by Fuchs (the company whose name sounds like your favorite four-letter word) as a signature pedal for Black Label Society guitarist Nick Catanese, the Noxious pedal lives up to its name by delivering tones that are as lethal as the fumes erupting from an overflowing Port-A-Potty at an ECW Championship match in Pittsburgh.

FEATURES

Housed in a standard-sized castaluminum box, the Noxious pedal offers features like output, gain and three-band EQ controls, mono input and output jacks, a nine-volt adapter jack, a heavy-duty footswitch and a bright LED. But while the Noxious pedal may not look particularly unique on the outside, inside is an entirely different story. The heart of the Noxious pedal’s distortion generation circuitry consists of an LM386 op amp IC chip and a variety of mystery transistors and other components whose identities are obscured by a coating of black goop. High-quality components like Neutrik jacks, a Cliff footswitch and pots with metal shafts ensure that the Noxious can handle the inevitable abuse it will receive, while true-bypass circuitry keeps your guitar signal as pure and strong as a Viking virgin.

PERFORMANCE

Because the Noxious pedal pumps out outrageous amounts of gain, it delivers its most versatile tones when used with an amp dialed to a clean setting. If the amp is distorting even slightly, the pedal’s tones lean more towards the fuzz end of the spectrum, spitting and sputtering like the amp is going to blow up, but unlike fuzz individual notes and chords retain definition instead of farting out. The EQ controls are interactive and cover a wide range from razor-wire highs to swampy lows.

THE BOTTOM LINE

If the dirtiest distortion is what you desire, the Plush Noxious pedal delivers what you need.

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