Strymon Canoga Analogue Fuzz

Vintage Simplicity

Sometimes it’s the simple things that win you over. Ten years ago, Gregg spent an afternoon building a couple of bespoke fuzz pedals to clear his head, and they’ve been gathering dust on a shelf ever since. When, seven years later, we were looking for a fuzz pedal to complement Strymon’s fantastic UltraViolet Vibe, they were rediscovered – and this rediscovery sparked the development of the new A Series, a range of purely analogue pedals.

We are now delighted to announce the launch of Canoga, a reworked version of a classic silicon-based FuzzFace ® effect, based on one of Gregg’s three original fuzz designs. At full volume, it functions as a fuzz or distortion, but when you turn down the guitar volume, a whole world of diverse sounds opens up for a wide variety of musical styles.

It’s All About The Sound

Canoga is an easy-to-use pedal – there’s a control for the drive and one for the output level – but what really matters is the interaction between the guitar and the Canoga’s input, as well as the interaction between the pedal and your amplifier. Like many fuzz pedals, Canoga works brilliantly when connected to an amplifier that already has a slightly distorted sound – much like Jimi Hendrix and other guitar greats of the 60s and 70s used to run their setups.  

Additional versatility comes from the interplay between your guitar’s volume control and the pedal’s input. Traditionally, unbuffered fuzz pedals are often connected directly to the guitar so that the circuitry can ‘see’ the pickups and the volume control on your guitar. If you turn both controls on the Canoga and your guitar’s volume control all the way up, you get the full fuzz experience, and if you turn the volume down on the guitar, a whole new world of semi-clean blues, rock, Americana and pop sounds opens up. The toned-down sound remains clear in the high frequencies and doesn’t get muddy, so you may find that you can play convincing riffs with the Canoga that you would normally use a distortion pedal for rather than a fuzz pedal.  

SERIES A

‘Killer Code’ only sounds truly stunning when used in an optimal analogue environment, and although Strymon is primarily known for its DSP expertise, the products wouldn’t sound the way they do without the strong analogue team.

The analogue enthusiasts are constantly coming up with interesting designs, which is why Strymon has launched the “Series A” range of purely analogue pedals to provide them with a platform, and Canoga is the second pedal in this series after Fairfax.

The designs you’ll see in the ‘Series A’ are intended to stand out from traditional Strymon products – with no MIDI, USB, firmware or digital signal processing whatsoever. These are pedals that are analogue through and through, which means things could get really exciting! Keep an eye out for more ‘Series A’ pedals in the future.