The Monolith Silicon Fuzz is a pedal that is based on the legendary Lovetone Big Cheese, which is known for its versatile fuzz tones. The Big Cheese has been used by many high-profile musicians, including The Edge, Jimmy Page, and Johnny Marr.

The Monolith is an exact adaptation of the Big Cheese, with the addition of an optional boost stage at the end to increase the maximum volume. This boost stage allows the pedal to go beyond unity gain and provide even more volume.

The Big Cheese is a hybrid of different circuit topologies, with an op-amp for input buffering and output gain recovery, a silicon transistor fuzz similar to a Fuzz Face or Tone Bender, diode hard clipping, and a Big Muff-style tone control. It also features a rotary control that allows for three different tone stack modes: tone bypass, scooped mids, and flat mids. There is also a fourth mode called “Cheese” that changes the bias on the transistor fuzz, resulting in gated “amp death” tones.

The Monolith faithfully recreates all of these features and tones, making it an extremely versatile and unique drive pedal. The addition of the boost stage allows for even more sonic possibilities.

Special thanks to Ian, the DIY community’s resident Lovetone expert, for helping to verify the accuracy of the Monolith prototype against an original Big Cheese.

Summary created by AI from the original source.