Beetronics Royal Jelly Limited Edition "Pomegranate"

The Royal Jelly Limited Edition "Pomegranate" is a limited-run version of Beetronics' Royal Jelly, an overdrive and fuzz pedal that runs both circuits in parallel rather than stacking them. Beetronics calls it "an overdrive/fuzz blender like no other pedal," one that "can cover any ground from overdrive to fuzz, running two circuits in parallel and giving you the possibility of blending it or having them separately"¹. The Pomegranate edition carries the same circuit in a limited finish, and Beetronics lists it as sold out¹.

The Royal Jelly line sits in Beetronics' Royal Series of limited editions², and the company describes the original Royal Jelly as "the first of its kind, blending overdrive and fuzz in a way no pedal had done beefore"²³. For a player, the parallel design means you can use the overdrive alone, the fuzz alone, or any mix of the two, instead of choosing one flavor of gain.

Overdrive and fuzz blended in parallel

Most gain pedals chain their clipping stages, so the fuzz feeds the overdrive or vice versa. The Royal Jelly instead runs an overdrive circuit and a fuzz circuit side by side, with a blend control that sets how much of each you hear¹. You can push it fully toward either circuit or sit anywhere between, which is what gives the pedal its range from smooth overdrive to full fuzz.

The blend idea is the pedal's reason for existing. Beetronics' own description of the Royal Jelly Fuzz/OD Blender puts it plainly⁵:

Two factory presets of the blend, called Queen and King, give you fixed overdrive-to-fuzz settings you can switch to without dialing the blend in yourself¹.

The controls

The control set breaks into three jobs: shaping the blend, shaping the tone, and switching the fuzz character.

The EQ is a genuine two-band shelving setup rather than a single tone knob: Beetronics gives both HI and LO 10 dB of cut or boost, which the company says makes "it possible to shape your tone in many different ways"¹. The maker's broader description of the Royal Jelly range sums up the EQ's job as letting you "dial in rich lows and sparkling highs with precise 2-band EQ"².

The BUZZ switch changes the fuzz side of the pedal. Beetronics describes it as adding "that nasty high end usually found on the vintage fuzz boxes to its fuzz circuit"¹, or in the range's shorter wording, a high-end boost "for extra bite and presence"⁴. If the fuzz sounds too rounded for a part, the switch pushes it toward the sharper, spikier character of an old fuzz box.

The DRY control and bass

The DRY control blends your clean, unprocessed signal in alongside the effected one. Beetronics calls this "a great feature for bass, drums and synths or any studio use"¹, because those sources lose too much body when a fuzz circuit processes them on its own. On bass in particular, keeping dry signal in the mix holds the low end while the fuzz adds grind on top.

On guitar the same control has a different use: Beetronics says the DRY control "is great to create unique clean tones with a fuzzy background"¹, a layered sound where the clean note sits in front of a fuzz texture rather than being replaced by it.

Power and physical details

The pedal requires a 9V DC power supply with a center negative plug, the standard arrangement for most modern effects, and the power supply is not included with the pedal¹. There is no battery option in the maker's listing.

Physically it is a substantial enclosure: 6-1/8" x 5-1/16" x 2-3/4", weighing 2 lbs (1 kg), with a package size of 7-1/2" x 6-1/4" x 3-1/4" and package weight of 2.5 lbs (1.25 kg)¹. It will need real board space compared with a mini pedal.

A limited edition in the Royal Series

The Pomegranate is one of many Royal Jelly limited editions in Beetronics' Royal Series, each a standard Royal Jelly circuit in a distinct finish produced in a limited batch. Others in the series include the Pink/Blue edition⁶, which shares the same parallel overdrive and fuzz design, dry blend and Queen and King presets, and editions such as the "Donatello", "Great Pumpkin" and "Plumbee". Beetronics lists these limited runs as sold out once the batch is gone¹⁶.

The Pomegranate itself is listed as sold out on Beetronics' product page¹. Players looking for the same circuit in a current finish can look at the standard Royal Jelly and the Royal Jelly OD/Fuzz, or browse other fuzz pedals and overdrive pedals for a different take on parallel gain.

Questions