00:00A Klon, a boutique boost, a sound bending fuzz, and a lush phaser, that's the
00:05territory of a boutique pedal builder, right? So what's Stumac, a brand we know
00:09for parts, doing making these? The story about how Stumac got into the pedal game
00:15and became the go-to brand for a lot of pedal connoisseurs is kind of
00:18unexpected. For decades Stumac has been known for their guitar parts and their
00:23DIY kits and a couple years ago they started making DIY pedal kits and those
00:27took off like crazy. And then the request for ready-to-play pedals started pouring
00:31in, so these pedals are the answer to that outcry.
00:40Okay, let's take a deep dive into these four new Stumac pedals. First off, the
00:45Two Kings. The Two Kings is a dual drive pedal based on a very famous boutique
00:49overdrive pedal. Smooth, transparent boost on one side, gritty drive on the other.
00:54You can tailor the tone and the gain structure so that your guitar and your
00:58amp always is sitting in the sweet spot. Here's my clean sound.
01:04And here's with some boost.
01:11And that could be a great always-on sound, right?
01:19Roll back the volume to clean it up a little bit.
01:28On the right side of something a little bit gainier.
01:39That's a great lead sound, a lot of nice high-end. And that's what you'll notice on
01:43this style of pedal, that the high-end can really help drive your guitar. So if you
01:47have a dark guitar, a dark amp, this is a great pedal for that kind of situation. And
01:51of course, if you don't want that, you can always just roll back the tone on your guitar
01:54or roll back the volume too.
02:04This is boosting into that channel.
02:06It's gonna be a pain.
02:11This one, it's gonna be a little bit lower.
02:14And I'll be sure to keep it down.
02:16Yeah.
02:22This is boosting into that.
02:22I will do that all up a little bit more.
02:24Here you go.
02:25Here you go.
02:25Here you go.
02:28Here you go.
02:30Here you go.
02:34When both channels are activated, you get a great
02:36great cutting, driving, raw kind of overdrive sound. Where I like to set a
02:40pedal like this is I have two channels and both of them are low gain, low drive
02:45and that way I can have little successive steps up in gain on my gain
02:49stages without having too much compression or losing dynamics.
03:22Here's a guitar with some humbuckers and it's a little bit darker than what I
03:25would normally want. Now it's much brighter now it's going to cut through the mix a
03:37lot more.
03:58Let's talk about fuzz. The Sun fuzz is Stu Mack's take on a silicon BC-108 style fuzz
04:05pedal and the cool thing about this tone knob on this fuzz pedal is it actually
04:09controls the voltage where it can go from thin and like sputtery to a full fat
04:13and massive fuzz. And there's a huge amount of tones you can get from this
04:16fuzz pedal not just from those knobs but from the knobs on your guitar as well.
04:30Let's roll back that volume get a great clean sound.
04:56Let's roll back that volume.
05:24Now it's almost like an overdrive pedal, right?
06:11That's really where I like to have it, just a little bit of fuzz.
06:19And you can roll it back with this wonderful textured clean sound.
06:32Now if you want to tame it even further, you can throw an overdrive after it, like the
06:36ghost drive, which does really well.
06:44See, a lot smoother.
07:08It adds a nice amount of compression too, so if you have a low gain overdrive pedal, adding
07:12that after the sun fuzz, that's another great tone.
07:15The Light Cycle is Stumec's Phaser pedal, and I feel bad about Phaser.
07:19It always gets overlooked, right?
07:20Chorus always gets like first billing, and then after chorus maybe flanger, and people
07:25always forget about good old Phaser, which has so many great sounds in it.
07:41If you're in a band, and you've got a comp on one note and one chord for a long period
07:46of time, but you want to add some variety and some texture, Phaser's perfect for that.
07:50They got you on D minor for like a minute, here you go.
08:13Now the more you turn up this feedback knob, the more extreme the effect is going to be.
08:17So if you really want high peaks and really like piercing Phaser sound, that's what you
08:22do.
08:39Sometimes it's really fun to create these like trippy 70s kind of classic rock sound, right?
08:53It almost sounds like a cocked wah, right?
08:55Like a wah-wah pedal.
08:56So if that's too much, you just roll back the feedback.
09:09And it adds that nice sound.
09:11Now notice how different it is when Phaser is before or after drive.
09:28Subtle difference, but having Phaser before your drive pedal will actually make the Phaser
09:31effect more pronounced.
09:33Whereas if it's after a drive pedal, it'll be less pronounced.
09:36Now it can also do like a faux Leslie sound.
10:04Then you can use your tone knob to pretend you're doing like left hand, right hand on an organ.
10:09And now for Stumeck's number one best selling pedal.
10:11The Ghost Drive is a Klon style pedal and it can go from low gain, boost or medium or really
10:17even cranked overdrive sounds.
10:18And it adds a lot of great clarity to your signal as well.
10:21Listen.
10:33I could play this thing all day.
10:35It's just such a wonderful drive characteristic on this.
10:46The gain controls gain.
10:47The treble obviously controls the amount of treble instead of a tone.
10:51And then output.
10:52There's a lot of output on tap on this pedal.
10:54So a cool thing that a lot of people do is use it as just a boost with a little
10:58bit,
10:59a touch of gain.
11:00And so you turn the output up, all the way down.
11:11And then adjust your treble to taste.
11:18And adding a little more treble means when you roll back the volume, you're still going
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11:56When you crank the gain all the way up, it's got a great punchy mid-forward character.
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12:17But where I like to have it is just around here.
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12:39That's a great overdrive sound, you know?
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12:53Again, I can just play this thing all day long.
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13:56it has a lot of clarity. You don't hear it like really that much compression on it. So your signal
14:01still blooms. Your notes still really kind of come into their own. So some people have said that the
14:23Ghost Drive also can be a Tube Screamer replacement. Right now I'm going to compare it
14:27to a Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive, which is a take on the Tube Screamer.
14:46The Ghost Drive has more low mids to my ear, a little bit less compression.
15:05A little bit less compression, a little more top end, a little more high, a little airier,
15:09but still like a very similar drive characteristic. So if you're looking for a Tube Screamer alternative,
15:15a little bit less compression, a little bit different character, Ghost Drive is where it's at.
15:26I just get lost in this pedal. I just find a tone and I just go right in.
15:48If you turn down the treble, turn up the gain and gets this really honky sound.
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16:38The Ghost Drive was my personal favorite. Just perfect lead tone, a perfect always-on pedal, and really, you can't
16:46set it anywhere right.
16:46You're wrong. Wherever you put the knobs, they're gonna sound good.
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17:20I, like many others, just assumed Stumac would just give you stuff for you to build. Now you have to
17:25build this, so I didn't know what to expect when they were the ones saying,
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17:31I can't be the only one who's surprised at how good these pedals sound.
17:34Again, not that I thought they were going to sound bad, but like, usually I'm the guy
17:37that's building the Stumac stuff, but this time they're building it, and they're honestly
17:42doing a better job than I ever could.
17:45Each pedal has a great core characteristic, right?
17:48Which Stumac pedal is your favorite?
17:49And do you think they'll continue to evolve in the pedal community?
17:52Let us know in the comments below.
17:54Then check out one of these other Guitar World videos, and we'll see you in the next
17:58Guitar World Spotlight.
18:05Guitar World
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