Beetronics Royal Jelly Limited Edition "Great Pumpkin"

The Royal Jelly Limited Edition "Great Pumpkin" is a version of Beetronics' Royal Jelly, an overdrive/fuzz blender pedal, finished in a pumpkin-themed limited run. Like every Royal Jelly, it runs an overdrive circuit and a fuzz circuit in parallel, so you can blend the two, use one without the other, or store two blends as presets and switch between them on the fly¹.

Beetronics describes the Royal Jelly as "an overdrive/fuzz blender like no other pedal," and says it "can cover any ground from overdrive to fuzz, running two circuits in parallel and giving you the possibility of blending" the two¹. The Great Pumpkin edition is the same circuit in a different finish, and it is sold out¹.

What the Royal Jelly does: overdrive and fuzz in parallel

Most overdrive and fuzz pedals give you one circuit. The Royal Jelly gives you two, an overdrive and a fuzz, running at the same time in parallel, with a blend control between them¹. In practice that means the pedal covers the whole span from a light drive to a full fuzz face, and every mix in between, on one box. You are not chaining an overdrive into a fuzz, which stacks the gain of one into the other; the two circuits process your signal independently and are then mixed, so each keeps its own character in the blend.

Beetronics' own words on the sound:

For a player deciding between a dedicated overdrive or a dedicated fuzz, the Royal Jelly is the third option: both at once, in whatever proportion you set, with the option to run either circuit alone²³⁴.

The controls and the Queen and King presets

The core of the pedal is the blend between the two parallel circuits. On top of that, the Royal Jelly has two presets of the blend, called Queen and King¹. You set a blend you like, store it, set another, store that, and then switch between the two stored sounds while playing. Beetronics describes this as giving you "two different sounds on the fly with a natural transition" between them⁵.

The other control worth knowing about is the DRY knob.

The DRY control

The DRY control blends your clean, unprocessed signal back in with the effected signal. Beetronics calls it "a great feature for bass, drums and synths or any studio use," since blending dry signal keeps the low end and attack of the source intact while the drive and fuzz sit behind it⁶. On guitar, the maker says "the DRY control is great to create unique clean tones with a fuzzy background"¹. Elsewhere Beetronics summarizes the same idea as a way to "keep your tone tight and articulate with adjustable dry mix"⁷.

For bass players in particular, a dry blend is what keeps a fuzz from swallowing the fundamental, which is why it shows up on bass-friendly drive designs. The Royal Jelly's DRY control makes the same trick available to anyone.

Power and size

The Great Pumpkin edition requires a 9V DC power supply with a center negative plug, and the power supply is not included, so you need to bring your own¹.

At roughly six by five inches, the Royal Jelly is a fairly large enclosure by current pedalboard standards, closer to a double-width box than a compact mini pedal. The Limited Edition "Great Pumpkin" measures 6-1/8" x 5-1/16" x 2-3/4", so players with tight boards should check the dimensions against their layout¹.

The Great Pumpkin and other Royal Jelly limited editions

Beetronics releases the Royal Jelly in recurring limited editions, each the same overdrive/fuzz blender circuit in a different paint finish, in small runs that sell out. The "Great Pumpkin" is one of these, and Beetronics' page for it lists it as sold out¹. Other Royal Jelly limited editions include:

• Limited Edition "Pomegranate"⁸
• Limited Edition Pink/Blue⁹
• Limited Edition "Plumbee"
• Limited Edition Black Pinky
• Limited Edition "Donatello"
• Limited Edition "Beeliever"
• Limited Edition "Wonka"
• Valentine Limited Edition, Royal Series
• Custom versions such as the "Blue Squid" and Custom Evolve¹⁰

The same pattern runs across the Beetronics range: the company also issued a Swarm "Great Pumpkin" and a VEZZPA Octave Stinger Limited Edition "Great Pumpkin", so the pumpkin finish itself is a recurring Beetronics theme, not a one-off. If the Great Pumpkin edition is gone, the standard Royal Jelly and the Royal Jelly OD/Fuzz carry the same circuit in regular finishes, and Beetronics has continued to release new limited editions as older ones sell out²³.

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