Sometimes simple wins. Ten years ago Strymon CEO and analog engineer Gregg Stock built a few custom fuzzes in an afternoon as a way of clearing his head, and they’ve been gathering dust on a shelf ever since. Unearthed seven years later when Strymon needed a fuzz to pair with the UltraViolet vibe, that rediscovery became the catalyst for the creation of the new Series A line of all-analog pedals.

Hence the arrival of Canoga, a tweaked version of a vintage silicon FuzzFace based upon one of Gregg’s original three fuzz designs. Full up it works as a fuzz or distortion, but if you back the guitar’s volume down there’s a world of varied tones on tap for all different styles of music.