Red Witch O Fortuna! Polychromatic Fuzz

The Red Witch O Fortuna! Polychromatic Fuzz is a fuzz pedal that can generate an Octavia-style note an octave above what you play and a sub octave below it, with either octave blended into the fuzz in any amount. Red Witch's Ben Fulton describes the result as epic and panoramic: use it as a straight ahead fuzz on its own, or dial in the two added octave notes for what the maker calls a polychromatic fuzz¹.

What it does

The O Fortuna! sits in the octave fuzz tradition: alongside the fuzz voice itself, the circuit generates a note an octave above the note you are playing, in the manner of an Octavia effect, and a sub octave below it. The key feature is blending. As Fulton puts it, "You can blend in as little or as much of the octave up or octave down as you like"¹. That means the octaves can carry the sound or sit quietly underneath it, in any combination.

Red Witch describes the pedal's character as "epic, panoramic" and sums up the two ways to use it: "Use it as a phenomenal stand alone, straight ahead fuzz, or dial in the additional two notes to enter an expansive world"¹.

Build and switching

Each O Fortuna! is hand built, numbered and signed by Ben Fulton, using through hole components¹. The footswitch is a super high quality true bypass switch that is independent from the main PCB, a layout the maker says offers much more durability and resilience than a switch mounted directly on the board¹.

Availability

At 599 USD, it sat at the top of Red Witch's fuzz range, which includes pedals such as the Red Witch Fuzz God IV, the Red Witch Zeus Bass Fuzz Suboctave and the Red Witch OPIA Fuzz Engine. For more on the effect type itself, see Fuzz Pedals and Octave & Pitch Pedals¹.

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