Beetronics Royal Jelly

The Beetronics Royal Jelly is an analog overdrive and fuzz blender pedal that runs two drive circuits in parallel rather than chaining them, so you can blend them in any proportion or use either one on its own¹²³. Beetronics describes it as covering any ground from overdrive to fuzz, and says it was the first pedal to blend overdrive and fuzz in this way⁴. It is hand made in California and sold through the Beetronics webstore, most often in small limited edition finishes²⁵⁶.

What it does: overdrive and fuzz blended in parallel

Most drive pedals give you one circuit, or stack two in series so the second colors what the first already clipped. The Royal Jelly instead runs its overdrive and fuzz circuits in parallel and lets you blend between them, or use them separately². Beetronics says the result delivers everything from silky buzz to gritty sting³.

The pedal also stores two presets of the blend, called Queen and King, which Beetronics describes as two distinct overdrive/fuzz blends³¹⁰. The maker says the presets give you two different sounds on the fly, and that moving between them makes for a very natural transition by mixing the levels of the overdrive and fuzz rather than switching abruptly¹⁰.

The controls: Queen and King, Dry, Hi, Lo and Buzz

The DRY control is the one that sets the pedal apart from a plain fuzz. Because the clean signal is mixed in parallel with the two drive circuits, you can keep your attack and low end articulate while the fuzz sits behind it. Beetronics says the DRY control keeps your tone tight and articulate, and on guitar it is great for creating unique clean tones with a fuzzy background¹¹².

The HI and LO controls form a two-band EQ with 10dB of cut or boost each, which Beetronics says makes it possible to shape your tone in many different ways, dialing in rich lows and sparkling highs²¹⁰¹¹. The BUZZ switch is a simpler affair: it adds the nasty high end usually found on vintage fuzz boxes to the fuzz circuit¹⁰.

Power and connections

The Royal Jelly requires a 9V DC center-negative power supply, the standard arrangement for pedalboard power bricks, and the supply is not included with any version of the pedal³⁷. RockBoard's PedalPedia lists the circuit as analog with a current draw of just 1mA, so it places almost no demand on a power supply's available current¹.

Designers, limited editions and Custom Shop versions

The Royal Jelly was developed by Filipe Pampuri in collaboration with Howard Davis³. Beyond the standard version, Beetronics has released the pedal in a long string of limited edition finishes, each the same circuit in a different paint job, and many of them are sold out:

• Limited Edition Pink/Blue¹⁰
• Limited Edition "Pomegranate"¹²
• Limited Edition "Donatello"¹³
• Limited Edition Black Pinky¹⁴
• Limited Edition "Great Pumpkin"¹⁵
• Limited Edition Black Verde¹⁶
• 4th Limited Edition¹⁷
• Valentine Limited Edition, Royal Series¹⁸

Beetronics also builds Custom Shop versions of the Royal Jelly, including units numbered RJ3533, RJ3528 and RJ3425³¹¹. Custom examples include the "Blue Squid" Custom, the Custom Fireflower, the Custom Evolve and the Custom Seiva¹⁹²⁰²¹. A Custom Shop RJ3533 was listed at £270.00, against £189.00 for a standard Royal Jelly and £223.00 for a Limited Edition, all in GBP as listed by the maker³¹¹²².

The pedal also appears in the maker's Royal Series range, and a BEE STOCK version is sold with scratches, dings or imperfections on the enclosure that Beetronics says do not affect the sound²³.

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