One of Catalinbread’s first fuzz boxes, the Merkin was created with a focused intent: to build upon the legacy created by American fuzzboxes and their place in the pantheon of fuzz-adjacent classic rock music. What evolved from that was a circuit that shared DNA with the Mosrite Fuzzrite and the Jordan Bosstone but was markedly different from both. The Merkin borrowed the gain-stage mixing element from the Fuzzrite and the raw fuzz power of the Bosstone’s plug-in unit to create something new with a distinct classic flavor.

Many fuzzes that employ a blendable gain approach employ two identical stages and normally take the output from the mixer. The Merkin actually employs two different stages before the mixer, and so the Texture control has a staggering array of sounds on tap, dependent upon your guitar, pickups and wiring, with a subtle phase cancellation when set dead center. The result is a highly expressive control that lets you dial in the exact sound you want. There’s a lot to discover across just two knobs!