DAN AGOSTO: Agosto with Gearwire.Com, and we're checking out the HBE or HomeBrew Electronics UFO, and UFO stands for Ultimate Fuzz Octave. So, it is a fuzz pedal. It's sort of a boutiquey -- We got to look at it at Winter NAMM, and while we were editing the video, I heard this sound. I was like, "What is that sound?" and it turns out it was the UFO pedal, and it was something that I really liked, so I actually picked up this pedal for myself. And since it is my pedal, I'm playing my guitar through it, my main gigging guitar, which is a Fender Highway One Stratocaster, slightly modified. I put a DiMarzio pickup in it. Otherwise, it's all stock.

So, if we take a look at the UFO, we got fuzz control, tone control, level control, and then vintage mod selector. Basically, this just takes some of the-- there is sort of like -- it is a very warm pedal. When you're in vintage, it's like there's a high roll-off filter on it or something like that, and then the modern one opens up that filter or it just basically sounds like there's more high end in it and it also brings up the gain a bit.

We got an eight -- an octave switch, 8va, that means eight notes up diatonically. The cool thing about this is that the pedal is disengaged right now...

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING GUITAR WITH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO PEDAL BYPASSED]

...as you can hear. Even when it's not on, you can - the LED for the octave stays on, so it's pretty cool like that so you know when you engage the pedal whether or not the octave is engaged. So, once again let's listen to this sound a little bit. I'm playing through a Fender Twin, the reissue Twin amp. I got clean sound.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING GUITAR WITH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO PEDAL BYPASSED]

And I'll engage the pedal. We're in vintage mode, tone straight up, fuzz down low, level down low. It add a lot of gain so you can use this sort of like a boost as well.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING GUITAR WITH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO PEDAL ENGAGED, VINTAGE MODE]

All right. So, there's a nice fuzzy tone, still very warm. While we're at this stage, let's check out the modern switch to see what it does.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING GUITAR WITH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO PEDAL ENGAGED, MODERN MODE]

All right. So, unlike a lot of fuzz pedals, when you have your sustain or your whatever like on a Big Muff, when you have it turned down low it really sucks the tone out I find at least with the modern designed reissue Big Muffs. This one, I still get a nice full tone, I hear a lot of the amp but really doesn't suck the tone out of the amp. So at this stage, let's mes aound with this tone control. I'm just going to play an open chord and sweep it from low to high. I'm going to do it both in vintage and modern. We'll start with the vintage and we'll start low.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING GUITAR WITH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO PEDAL ENGAGED, VINTAGE MODE]

All right. Now with the modern. Start low.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING GUITAR WITH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO PEDAL ENGAGED, MODERN MODE]

All right. Now let's try that with the octave engaged. You're going to find that with a lot of octave pedals, chords just don't work even when you have the fuzz turned down low. Let's see how this does.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING GUITAR WITH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO PEDAL ENGAGED, VINTAGE MODE, OCTAVE SWITCH ENGAGED]

So the tone still speaks through and you're getting kind of like a phasey effect. Let's try it in modern mode.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING GUITAR WITH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO PEDAL ENGAGED, MODERN MODE, OCTAVE SWITCH ENGAGED]

All right. I'm going to turn off the octave, switch back to vintage, and turn the fuzz up a bit.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING GUITAR WITH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO PEDAL ENGAGED, VINTAGE MODE]

We'll turn the octave on.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING GUITAR WITH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO PEDAL ENGAGED, VINTAGE MODE, OCTAVE SWITCH ENGAGED]

Let's try it in modern mode.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING GUITAR WITH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO PEDAL ENGAGED, MODERN MODE, OCTAVE SWITCH ENGAGED]

All right. And turn the octave off.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING GUITAR WITH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO PEDAL ENGAGED, MODERN MODE]

So, we're starting to lose some of the definition of our tone but it still speaks through, and if we switch to vintage mode, I think it speaks through a bit more.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING GUITAR WITH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO PEDAL ENGAGED, VINTAGE MODE]

All right. Let's go ahead and go all the way up with the fuzz.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING GUITAR WITH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO PEDAL ENGAGED, VINTAGE MODE]

So, we get a lot of sustain and it's a sound that sort of changes over time as a dynamic sort of thing. All right, let's switch to modern all the way up.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING GUITAR WITH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO PEDAL ENGAGED, MODERN MODE]

All right. So, I feel like we lose a little bit of the sustain in the modern mode with the fuzz all the way back up so I'm usually leaving it into vintage mode. But before we go back to that, let's just listen to that with the octave.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING GUITAR WITH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO PEDAL ENGAGED, MODERN MODE, OCTAVE SWITCH ENGAGED]

So that's pretty just out of control right there. Back to the vintage with the octave still on.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING GUITAR WITH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO PEDAL ENGAGED, VINTAGE MODE, OCTAVE SWITCH ENGAGED]

So you can hear it sustains and it changes over time. I feel like you also lose a little bit of the sustain when you have the octave on in the vintage mode, so let's just test it out with the octave on.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING GUITAR WITH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO PEDAL ENGAGED, MODERN MODE, OCTAVE SWITCH ENGAGED]

And octave off in the vintage mode.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING GUITAR WITH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO PEDAL ENGAGED, MODERN MODE]

So, I feel like it stays a little bit longer with the octave off so the octave kind of messes with that a little bit. So, this pedal I'm really enjoying playing with it in my live setup now. It's really good for just pushing the tone over the edge a bit and adding a lot of, of course, fuzz and sustain. So, thanks for checking out the HomeBrew Electronics Ultimate Fuzz UFO.