Chase Tone Silver Stardust BC183/2L Silicon Fuzz

The Chase Tone Silver Stardust BC183/2L is a silicon fuzz pedal built around BC183/2L silicon transistors. Chase Tone positions it as a pedal that covers both Tonebender and Fuzz Face style territory, with the Bias knob moving the circuit between those voices rather than switching between them¹.

Chase Tone describes the target sound in its own words:

Chase Tone product page¹

Note that "germanium warmth" here is the maker's description of the character of a silicon circuit, not a claim that the pedal uses germanium transistors.

A silicon fuzz with Tonebender and Fuzz Face voices

The core idea of the Silver Stardust is that one circuit can reach several classic fuzz voices through biasing. Chase Tone frames the range as "a balance of Eric Johnson, 1968 era live Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck and early Zep Jimmy Page Tonebender Fuzz"¹. Those references are the maker's own framing of what the bias range covers, from smoother, compressed lead fuzz to aggressive, gated crunch.

The pedal sits in a family of Chase Tone fuzzes. On the silicon side there are the Blue Stardust BC108 and Black Stardust BC109, each named for its transistor type, and on the germanium side the Red Stardust and the Dallas Arbiter Germanium Fuzz Face Replica. The Fuzz Fella line is another Chase Tone silicon fuzz family; its FEEL control adjusts "from dying battery velcro fuzz to germanium softness and tube overdrive," which is a similar idea of one knob sweeping a wide range of fuzz characters².

External bias controls on BC183 based fuzzes are not unique to Chase Tone. The SolidGoldFX If 6 Was 9 BC183, another silicon fuzz in the same transistor family, also uses an external bias control, and Gearnews described its Bias knob as one that "varies the operational voltage"³. A technical writeup of that circuit on Guitar FX Layouts likewise noted that "the addition of an external bias control and the 2-way tone switch provide maximum versatility and allow for quick adjus[tments]"⁴. The Silver Stardust takes the same general concept, a bias control that reshapes the fuzz character, and maps its positions to specific classic voices.

The controls

The Silver Stardust has four controls: Fuzz, Bias, Headroom, and Volume/EQ.

Two of these deserve a closer look for how a player would actually use them.

Fuzz behaves like a fuzz control with a useful quirk: the sweet spot for many settings is slightly below maximum. Chase Tone says backing off slightly from full increases feedback and the pedal's response to guitar volume changes, and tames bright fizzy overtones that appear at some bias positions¹. That matters for players who roll their guitar volume down to clean up, a habit carried over from playing vintage style fuzzes.

Volume/EQ doubles as a tone control. Rather than only setting level, higher settings roll off treble, so a player can darken the pedal without a separate tone knob¹.

Headroom is aimed at practical board problems. It trims low end, improves cleanup when riding the guitar's volume knob, and addresses oscillation that can occur when a fuzz sits after a wah in the signal chain, in the order guitar, then wah, then fuzz, then amp¹. Fuzzes placed after wahs are a known trouble spot, and this control is Chase Tone's answer to it.

Bias positions and the tones they target

The Bias knob is the heart of the pedal. Chase Tone describes it as controlling "the preferred gate, feel and pick attack," and maps the sweep from under biased "rubber band" Eric Johnson fuzz tones, through punchy exploding Hendrix fuzz tones, to Jimmy Page early Led Zeppelin Tonebender style crunchy tones¹. The maker breaks the knob's range into four zones:

Read as a sweep, the knob moves from gated and crunchy at the low end, through thick and compressed in the middle, to sustaining Fuzz Face style fuzz around noon, and back to a crisper Tonebender MKII style crunch at the top of the range. The artist and song references are Chase Tone's own shorthand for these voices, not claims about those players using this pedal¹.

For comparison, the SolidGoldFX If 6 Was 9 BC183 MK II approaches biasing differently: its Bias knob varies the operational voltage and works alongside a separate Saturation knob³. The Silver Stardust instead puts the whole range on one knob with marked clock positions, which makes the voices easier to find but gives less fine control over how saturation and bias interact.

Buying, shipping and warranty

Chase Tone listed the Silver Stardust at a normal price of $239.99, with sale pricing of $215.98, a $24.01 instant savings, at the time of this page's verification¹. The pedal is made in the USA¹.

• USA shipping: flat rate $10, USPS Priority Mail, 3 to 5 days for delivery¹
• International shipping: flat rate $20, USPS First Class Mail, 7 to 14 days for delivery, with customs possibly adding wait times¹
• Shipment within 2 to 3 business days of ordering, possibly sooner¹
• 30 day money back guarantee for USA buyers¹
• 5% discount for United States Veterans¹

The pedal was marked as a best seller on Chase Tone's site, and as a limited edition with limited quantities remaining, it is now shown as sold out¹.