Operating out of Atlanta, Georgia, Acorn Amplifiers crafts hand-made amps and pedals. The TMA-1 is, to date, their most involved foray into the world of fuzz, a four-stage transistor circuit that, quite uniquely, lets you select the clipping options for two of those stages (precisely, the second and third).
The two, 3-way Clip toggles are where the voicing action’s at, with identical functions, as following:
Top position: Germanium diode
Center position: Off (diodes bypassed)
Down position: Silicon diode
The Demos in the Dark demo below tries out all 9 different combinations, here are links that facilitate navigation:
As you can hear, some of these settings sound radically different, and, when added to the sculpting options granted by the Tone knob, make the Acorn TMA-1 a very flexible and multi-faceted fuzz pedal.
Detected by its strong magnetic field emanating from the lunar crater Tycho, the TMA-1 was found buried 15 meters beneath the surface of the moon. The moment 9 volts of direct current hit the TMA-1, a powerful signal burst across the universe, searching for other devices of its kind. This is how the new fuzz pedal from Acorn Amplifiers came to be. The TMA-1 fuzz is a four stage transistor fuzz featuring a series of selectable diode clipping options. Germanium diodes, silicon diodes, and a bypass of the clipping diodes are switchable in two separate stages of the fuzz circuit, allowing for a vast array of shapable fuzz tones. A giant glass lens indicator glows red on the face of the pedal to remind humans of the impending singularity that threatens to doom mankind, and also to let you know when the fuzz is engaged. True bypass, powered by standard 9V tip-negative pedal power, 360 grams.
