Fredric Effects Unpleasant Companion Mufftone Special

The Fredric Effects Unpleasant Companion Mufftone Special is a fuzz pedal built on the Shin-Ei FY-2 Companion Fuzz circuit, which Fredric Effects calls "perhaps the definitive take on the Shin-Ei FY-2 Companion Fuzz circuit"¹. In the maker's own words, it is "the great sounding waspy velcro-ripping fuzz with lots of control"¹. What sets this version apart from the rest of the Unpleasant Companion family is its tone section: the stock Shin-Ei tone control is replaced with the tone stack from the Big Muff¹.

Fredric Effects has made multiple small runs of this pedal over the years, with tweaks and improvements to each version¹.

What it does

The Mufftone Special takes the sound of the vintage Shin-Ei FY-2 Companion Fuzz and makes it more controllable. Two changes do most of the work. First, "the amount of gain is now adjustable," where the original circuit offered far less range¹. Second, "an extra boost stage increases the overall volume"¹.

That boost stage matters because the vintage FY-2 was known for a volume drop. Premier Guitar's reviewer, writing about the related Deeply Unpleasant Companion, noted that pedal "houses a volume-boost circuit to steer clear of the volume drop characteristic of vintage FY-2s"². The same problem is what the Mufftone Special's boost stage addresses, and it is a fix DIY builders were making on the original circuit years earlier: the Guitar FX Layouts blog's FY-2 build "added simple one transistor amplifier at the output to deal with the volume issues"³.

The result, in the maker's description, is the waspy, velcro-ripping fuzz character of the FY-2, but with gain, tone and level all on knobs instead of being largely fixed¹.

The controls: Gain, Tone and Volume

The Mufftone Special has three controls: Gain, Tone and Volume¹.

This is a simpler control set than some of Fredric Effects' other FY-2-based pedals. The Unpleasant Companion MKII adds a scoop control "to add to the versatility of the effect"⁴, and the Deeply Unpleasant Companion MkII carries eight controls: Gain, Volume, Blend, Tone, Scoop, a Blend Bypass switch, a Tone Bypass switch and an EQ ordering control⁴⁵. The Mufftone Special instead keeps the FY-2's three-knob format and puts its changes inside the circuit.

A Shin-Ei Companion circuit with a Big Muff tone stack

The circuit lineage is the core of this pedal. The starting point is the Shin-Ei FY-2 Companion Fuzz, the vintage Japanese fuzz that Fredric Effects has built an entire family around, from the Unpleasant Companion MKII⁴ to the Super Unpleasant Companion, which reproduces both the FY-2 and the FY-6 Superfuzz in one enclosure⁶.

The Mufftone Special's specific move is the tone section. Fredric Effects "substitutes the somewhat ineffectual stock Shin-Ei tone control for the tone stack" from the Big Muff¹. For a player, that means the Tone knob works the way a Big Muff player expects it to, sweeping the balance of bass and treble, rather than the limited effect of the original FY-2 control.

The rest of the family solves the FY-2's limitations in different ways, which is worth knowing when comparing:

• Unpleasant Companion MKII: an improved FY-2 with a volume boost circuit and a scoop control, £140⁴
• Super Unpleasant Companion: a faithful reproduction of both the FY-2 and FY-6 Superfuzz, £200⁶
• Petite Super Unpleasant Companion: the same two-circuit reproduction in a smaller enclosure with top-mounted jacks, £185⁷
• Nouveau Super Unpleasant Companion: the two-circuit pedal in a slightly smaller enclosure, £185⁸
• Mufftone Special: the FY-2 circuit with a Big Muff tone stack, adjustable gain and a boost stage, £125¹

At £125, the Mufftone Special is the least expensive pedal in the family as listed by the maker¹⁴⁶⁷⁸.

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