Mythos Pedals AU-79 Fuzz

The Mythos Pedals AU-79 Fuzz is a small, one-knob fuzz pedal built as an exclusive version of the Mythos Golden Fleece, made for the Mass Street Music store. Where the standard Golden Fleece leans into fuzz, the AU-79 pulls back: Mythos says it has less gain and less bass than a standard Fleece, making it slightly more focused and landing it somewhere between a drive and a fuzz¹. The name comes from the periodic table: Au is the symbol for gold, 79 its atomic number, and the enclosure carries a golden, elemental motif built around that symbol¹.

A Golden Fleece variant between drive and fuzz

The AU-79 is a variant of the Mythos Pedals Golden Fleece, a fuzz pedal with what Delicious Audio called an incredibly simple circuit, describing it in 2018 as an overdrive/fuzz pedal²¹. For the AU-79, the team at Mass Street Music wanted an exclusive version of the Golden Fleece, and Mythos built it around the very first versions of that circuit¹.

The maker describes the result as a smoother, lower gain take on the Fleece. Guitar Pedal X's Stefan Karlsson, covering the pedal in his roundup of fuzzy-drive pedals, called it "specially made for the Mass Street Music Store - as a smoother, lower gain version of the Golden Fleece"³. He also noted it was "the only place you can acquire this from"⁴.

Inside, the AU-79 uses a specific diode pairing and value tweaks to reach what Mythos calls a wholly unique fuzz drive tone, and the units are made by hand with through-hole components¹. Mythos also says it stacks great with overdrive pedals, which suits its in-between character: pushing an overdrive in front of, or behind, a lower-gain fuzz is a common way to thicken the sound without tipping fully into distortion territory¹.

One control: Volume

The AU-79 has a single volume control on the unit, and that is the whole interface¹. There is no gain knob, no tone knob, no voltage sag control. Mythos says that with the single volume control, relying on your guitar and touch will yield a huge variety of tones¹. In practice that means rolling your guitar's volume back cleans things up, and digging in with your pick pushes the fuzz harder, the way players of classic one-knob fuzzes work them.

Guitar Pedal X described the control as a combined master volume and gain knob, one knob doing both jobs at once⁴³. The standard Golden Fleece takes the same approach: its manual describes its single "More" knob as controlling the output of the pedal, with the rest up to you⁵.

Power and practical notes

The AU-79 runs on a standard 9V DC power adapter, center negative only, with an approximate current draw of 10 mA¹. There is no battery option: Mythos states its pedals do not have internal 9 volt battery clips¹.

The pedal uses true bypass switching, so it drops out of your signal path entirely when disengaged¹.

One behavior worth knowing before buying: Mythos says the fuzz can pick up radio just like classic fuzzes, and that it just happens. The maker also describes it as sensitive to your rig and power situation, and says plainly that it is not for players worried about ultimate clarity¹. That sensitivity is characteristic of low-part-count fuzz circuits, and the maker treats it as part of the design rather than a defect.

Golden Fleece roots and the Mass Street Music edition

Guitar Pedal X's Karlsson believed the Golden Fleece to be a single-transistor variety fuzz, which he said lends itself well to fuzzy-drive sounds lower down the gain range⁴. JHS Pedals, in its buying guide on small pedals, called the Golden Fleece "a huge favorite of mine in the fuzz category"⁶.

The AU-79 edition keeps the circuit's simplicity but changes the look: Mythos went with a more golden appearance and an elemental motif featuring the periodic symbol for gold, Au79¹. Guitar Pedal X listed it at $149 in its 2021 roundup⁴.

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