To mark ten years since the pedal that put Spruce Effects on the map, founder Brian is celebrating a double milestone. Both the original Lichen Fuzz Overgrowth and his daughter Owyn were born in 2016, so Brian brought her in to draw the enclosure’s tree artwork of the pedal’s 10th Anniversary Edition, design the box, and pick out a pink-accented knob set called “Owyn’s Choice.” It is a personal, family-driven reissue that pairs nostalgic storytelling with a serious stash of old-school parts.
What’s Special About It
This new version combines two classic 1960s germanium circuits—a Fuzz Face and a Rangemaster treble booster—into one box. While it keeps the original circuit intact and adds modern 9V center-negative power filtering, the real story is under the hood. Brian spent months digging through boxes of 1960s and ’70s parts, loading the board with NOS Allen-Bradley carbon resistors, Mullard tropical fish capacitors, and Philips electrolytics. The first 30 units pack rare Mullard OC44 transistors, while later builds use hand-tested, matched germanium transistors gathered from Japan, Europe, America, and the former Soviet Union.
Most Intriguing Controls:
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Rangemaster Depth Control: Takes the treble booster beyond its traditional bright bite, letting you dial in a much thicker, bass-heavy push.
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Independent Circuit Stacking: Lets you run the Fuzz Face or Rangemaster by themselves, or stack them together for huge, saturated fuzz tones.
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Internal Bias Trimmers: Lets you tweak the transistor bias if warm or cold room temperatures start affecting your cleanup.
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“Brian’s Choice” Knobs: Gives adventurous buyers a random grab-bag of one-off NOS knobs from the shop’s personal stash.
Other Controls:
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Fuzz Volume & Gain: Controls output loudness and thick germanium fuzz saturation, cleaning up nicely when you roll back your guitar’s volume.
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Boost Level: Sets the output volume of the Rangemaster stage.
Whether you are chasing authentic, vintage-spec germanium breakup that cleans up with a twist of your guitar’s volume knob, or looking for a deeply personal, hand-biased boutique collector’s piece with real soul, the 10th Anniversary Lichen Fuzz Overgrowth delivers classic 1960s grit wrapped in a genuinely heartfelt milestone build.
