It seems like Red Witch’s own website can’t decide if the Famulus pedal is an overdrive, a distortion, or both. What is for certain is that it contains 2 dirt circuits in 1 pedal with gain controls for each independently and an “alchemy” control that allows you to blend the 2 signals together. So far as I can tell this pedal originally came out in 2009 and currently retails for $299 (USD) new (price from Perfect Circuit website).
For putting the pedal through its paces I played a St Vincent signature model with triple mini humbuckers through an amp/cab simulator with a Green Matamp/cab IR loaded. If anyone is unfamiliar with Green amps, they are roughly similar in profile to Orange amps with a bit more bottom end on call.
At first blush with the Alchemy knob turned all the way counter clockwise I was a bit underwhelmed with the Gain A sounds. It tended to be in the light and fuzzy category of dirt with a sweet spot from about 11-o-clock to 2-o-clock. Playing through the various pickup options I had I didn’t feel like it reacted much from picking style or rolling the volume on the guitar back. It definitely sounded better (imo) on notes above the 7th fret/higher in pitch. If I had to compare just the Gain A sound to another pedal it would probably be an Earthquaker Devices Plumes (TS style pedal) with the gain set to noon. It doesn’t get a whole lot more crunch than that even with the Gain A knob fully cranked. Likewise with the Gain A knob turned as low as possible the sound doesn’t completely clean up either.
With the Alchemy knob turned all the way clockwise the Gain B sounds are much more to my taste. With a sweet spot all the way between 9-o-clock and 4-o-clock this dirt circuit delivers the goods. It sounds much more of a full spectrum crunch that makes chords sound razor sharp and riffs anywhere on the fretboard bite hard. Clarity is lost somewhat especially on the multi-pickup settings but I would say that Gain B definitely knows what it wants to be and doesn’t pull any punches.
But playing with the Alchemy knob is where some magic happens. The 2 dirt circuits run parallel to each other and while Gain A didn’t leave much of an impression on it’s own, it compliments the Gain B side wonderfully. There is a slight detent at noon on the Alchemy knob and rightfully so as with a 50/50 mix of these 2 gain circuits there is some true transmutation occurring.
A couple quirks about this pedal:
- The tone control has a pretty dramatic sweep with much more clarity and high end when turned completely counter clockwise, which feels like the opposite of normal.
- Both the Gain A and Gain B controls seem to do very little before 9-o-clock or after 4-0-clock.
- There is a significant volume increase when mixing the 2 gain circuits with the Alchemy control, so it doesn’t feel like it’s linear.
- The fact that the Bypass/Active LED is not centered will probably annoy some people.
Overall I would probably find a setting I really liked from this pedal and leave it there for eternity. The charm of mixing 2 dirt circuits in parallel is not lost on me, I do it quite frequently with an A/B/Y pedal. But the Famulus doesn’t provide an extraordinary range of options. At least not compared to what I was expecting. That said, I would say the $60 I spent on it (used) was worth every penny.