Re: I finally understand all of the Corgan love
I had an original Swollen Pickle and it was fairly easy to dial in. Sounds like they put too many controls on the reissue version. Or perhaps the old ones just sounded better overall. I don't know. I've never played one of the reissues.
Having played Both, the new one (its not a reissue, and isn't intended to be), actually does sound just as good as the original, and can sound just like it (set the Scoop control to 10 O'clock, Crunch all the way down, don't mess with the internal knobs)....The additional controls just make it more versatile.
The scoop control makes it useable in a band/live setting (original is too scooped, and disappears in a live band setting. Just like BMP's do.). Since you can actually have a flat eq curve, or even a little bump in the mids. The crunch knob lets you adjust the amount of compression. So you can get the classic super compressed BMP/SP sorta sound, or a more open Fuzz Face style fuzz, and anywhere inbetween. Which, also helps it cut through a mix, and work better in a live/band setting. The internal controls are really generally very subtle, and just offer a couple extra tweaks to make the Pedal more usable.
So basically, its not a reissue. Its meant to be an improvement upon the original (hence the MkII in the name). Meant to make it a more versatile/usable version of the basic BMP style fuzz.
Also, Its really not difficult to dial in at all. The originals also have a massive low end, and can sound Boomy/farty/mushy through certain rigs, and at certain settings. Any muff style fuzz is capable of sounding mushy/farty. Just a matter of turning knobs till things sound good.
That said, the additional controls DO also make it possible to make the pedal sound just terrible. Cranking any of the controls to 10 (on the original or reissue) is a great way to make some really ugly sounds. Pretty much every way huge pedal is like that. Theres a huge range to the controls. So while its easy to get a lot of great sounds out of them, its also pretty easy to get some truly horrible sounds out of them too.
But really....even with Five external controls and two inside...They're still just ****ing knobs, you twist em until stuff is sounding groovy/not ****ty. Haha