This pedal is ALL OVER THE PLACE! You can't control it too much which makes the fuzz absolutely bonkers! Nails the Smashing Pumpkins sounds to a T. Any fuzz box wishes it were as cool as this pedal.

This pedal is great for those high leads where you want a peirceing tone. It can also give you smoothed out fuzz in the middle of the fret board and muddy up chords if you play them really close to the nut. I put it behind a digitech whammy2 for really out there siren like bends. Its really an item that takes some getting used to and learning how to use it right. It can be used to complement exsisting disortions, in fact at any given time Im running a boss super overdrive and an Ibanez smash box with it. I never have the drive past zero on either so I have a fairly clean driven tone. Then when I want an out there boost of harsh fuzz I use the Fender Blender.

This pedal is not like any other. That is good and bad. There are some very useable tones in the bad boy. There are also some crazy tones and some noises (maxed out it just goes to wall of fuzz sound). If you are a person that adores the mxr distortion + because it just has two knobs and is easy to use, don't buy this. It takes some toying with. There are four knobs and a boost switch and everything is very touch sensitive. Basically everytime you cahnge one control it changes how the others interact. Downside is that the octave is always there. With boost off it is in the background but if the boost is off the guitar isn't quite loud enough. With boost on is gets a freaky tone that Smashing Pumpkins seem to have used for leads. I would at times rather have one of the originals (some were made without the octave) but this is definitely the pedal that sticks out. Again this is pedal that will not be used every song and different styles of playing change the tone a lot. Bending a note back and forth with the tone control one will cause a crazy sounding octave to emarge and it sounds sweet. The pedal also is one of the easiest pedals I've used for controlled feedback.

It's also sweet looking!

The octave is fun to play with, but I think that without the octave the tone would be less harsh (high pitched) and more usable.

This is very much BOTH a fuzz pedal AND an octave pedal, and the octave is always an octave UP from the note you are playing. This pedal can also sound like a ring modulator if you play more than one note at a time. The manual clearly states that the "sustain" knob controls the sustain/volume of the OCTAVE-UP note, not the note you are playing. In other words, the higher the "sustain" setting, the more you will hear the note that is one octave above the note you are fretting. On my guitar (a tele), this octave-up effect works the best when you play between the 12th and 17th frets or so. In other areas of my guitar I will still hear the octave up note but usually I have to hold the note out for a bit, and then the octave-up sound gradually fades in. awesome effect. All in all this pedal sounds crispy, unnatural, and unpredictable, which I think are all good qualities.

Just to clear up some issues...

This is not an Octave/Fuzz pedal...Its just a Fuzz Pedal. There is no Octave effect whatsoever. Its just a very harsh and evil fuzz pedal. If you are new to distortion/fuzz pedals...don't buy this. if you are into very extreme fuzz, then this is your automobile. I use this pedal, a Big Muff, and a Sansamp GT2. All three are very different and all 3 are very great.