Review: Evol Audio Fucifier
When someone tells you they’ve sold their soul to distortion they’re probably referring to the Prince of square waves himself, Evol Fucifier.
By Greg Walker
1 June 2011
‘Fucify’ verb… pronounced ‘Fu-si-fy’. To distort, tone-shape or mangle a sound by means of preamp overdrive, tape saturation simulation, resonant analogue filtering, two-band frequency distortion, inductor EQ or any combination of the above using a mono 2U device with crazy flashing lights.
If I ever finish my literary life’s work – ‘The Distorter’s Handbook’, Evol Audio’s Fucifier will be one of the central characters in the narrative. Head designers John Kuker and Lorren Stafford at Evol have not done things by half here. From the branded timber veneer faceplate to the comically demonic and very informative manual “printed on 100% recycled human skin using biodegradable human blood” – I kid you not – the Fucifier is clearly a work of love made by audio obsessives who just can’t get enough of the dirty stuff. They even throw a plastic human skull into the shipping box to show you they mean business! The amount of features and distortion options this box gives you is truly heart-warming, and while the faceplate has a certain novelty value thanks to its quirky design smarts, the sonic toolset and the sheer amount of grunt under the bonnet are all geared towards making great sounds.
LOOK AT ME!
The first thing that struck me when I unpacked the Fucifier (apart from the skull of course), was the bold yellow timber-finished faceplate and the bright red aluminium casing. No conservative gun-metal greys or blacks to be seen here, and the ‘look at me’ aesthetic was really rammed home when I fired the unit up and the seven large transparent acrylic gain knobs glowed in different colours like a demented Christmas tree.
While at first I had somewhat mixed feelings about all this bling, I soon got used to the flashing lights and learnt to read them as they were intended: non-existent or subdued flashes mean little incoming signal, brighter flashes mean plenty of incoming signal; handy for instantly assessing the various levels in your gain structure. Indeed the more I used the Fucifier the more sense this made as the absence of extra metering frees up space on the front panel and you really do have to constantly check your gain structures as there are so many elements at play here.
THE DEVIL’S IN THE DETAIL
The controls are divided into six main sections – the distortion processing and EQ sections being enabled by blue ring-lit soft-switches. On the far left is the Input section with the first of the large flashing acrylic knobs controlling the gain of a switchable mic pre and line input as well as hi-Z DI input. The mic pre has no phantom power capability – a strange omission given the attention to detail elsewhere. The pre offers plenty of clean gain, however, for most standard dynamics, ribbons or remote powered condensers. Below these main controls are three small micro-pots for mic gain, instrument gain and dry blend gain. These allow you to set your basic input levels either to modest levels or to run the preamp hot from the get-go. Next along the chain is the Vintage Germanium Preamp section, driven by another gain knob along with separate tape drive and saturation controls, and a clean/dirty toggle switch that enables the tape saturation circuit. The Filter Distortion section that follows is probably the most unique sonic aspect of this unit, allowing the user to inject some very synth-like qualities into the sound with control over filter frequency, resonance, LFO modulation, rate and envelope amount. Another flashing gain control knob rounds out this section.
DIVIDE & CONQUER
Just when you thought it was all getting a little complex, along comes the dual-band distortion section with separate sections for the high and low frequency components of your signal. Each band has its own gain and distortion level controls as well as a stepped pot giving you a choice of up to six distortion types, based on various combinations of transistor-based FET, LED lamp, Silicon and Germanium distortion.
The high band also has a ‘symmetry’ control for clipping the top half of your waveform more (or less), and a three-way switch gives you high-pass, band-pass and HP+BP options. There’s also a very useful high/low frequency blend control for mixing the two bands to taste at the other end of all this sonic mayhem. A five-band graphic, inductor-based EQ comes next with yet another gain control. This section is simplicity itself and is easy to read at a glance; the five sliders are just begging to be toyed with, delivering very powerful and useful results with a minimum of fuss. Finally the Output section has another gain control (aaargh), a blend pot to mix the original unprocessed signal back in with your distorted sound, and then there’s the thoughtful addition of a speaker output jack and amp volume control so you can run the Fucifier as an amp head! Around the back there are line in, out and mic in XLR sockets, and two ¼-inch jack outputs for high and low frequency sends from the dual-band distortion section and even an expression pedal input for riding the filter’s frequency!
NEED TO KNOW
DIABOLICAL MY DEAR WATSON
My first experiments with the Fucifier were somewhat alarming. There were massive jumps and drops in gain level when the different sections were engaged or disabled, but gradually I worked my way through it, rode the bumps and discovered the extraordinary potential inherent in this comprehensive distortion generator. Over-the-top, bad-assed distortion is extremely easy to generate at almost every stage of processing and it helps to back off a section’s gain if you want to really hear what’s going on further down the chain. The tape saturation and drive are very tasty, even in modest doses, and help to ring the filter’s bell as they feed into it. The filter does very interesting things to sounds and can be a really creative tool in subtle tone-shaping ways, as well as delivering bombastic shrieks and wild oscillations when driven flat out.
The dual-band distortion section is pretty confusing at first but patience is rewarded here, and careful attention to the gain levels and LF/HF blend allows you to sculpt a wide range of tones with the help of all the distortion circuits on tap: the FET and LED settings work really well on low frequency information and have higher clipping thresholds; the Silicon setting has a brighter, crunchy signature; and the Germanium circuit delivers a rounder vintage tone. The EQ is great and allows you to rein in or emphasise different aspects of your sounds with its simple bands. It’s also worth noting how useful the wet/dry blend knob is on the output section. This type of control has found its way into a lot of processor designs lately and is a real blessing when working predominantly ‘in the box’ as it allows you to effectively parallel process your signals while mostly avoiding phase issues.
The ‘look at me’ aesthetic was really rammed home when I fired the unit up and the seven large transparent acrylic gain knobs glowed in different colours like a demented Christmas tree
LET IT BLEED
One of the first things I did once I’d got my head around the Fucifier was to process some individual drum tracks. My first big (and pleasant) surprise was on the snare track. I ran the tape simulator and tape drive levels at moderate levels to impart a bit of thickness and attitude, and then things got really interesting when I engaged the filter. By slowly introducing more resonance into the circuit and tuning the resonant frequency I discovered I could actually retune the drum and make it sound radically different to the raw sound. I found a higher note that sat better in the context of the song and then added further levels of euphonic bite with some Silicon high frequency distortion while treating the low frequencies to some FET action. I tweaked the LF/HF balance to about 30/70 to reduce unwanted low-frequency build-up and then played with gain levels here, there and everywhere to tune the exact amount of distortion I wanted from each section. A gentle nudge of EQ to emphasise the sweetest tones and, bingo, a brand new snare sound with bucket-loads of attitude that sat beautifully in the mix. On the mono overhead mic the Fucifier conjured up everything from mild enhancement to full-bore destruction without raising a sweat. I also processed some complete drum submixes to great effect and was firmly addicted by this point.
On lead vocals I was able to do any number of treatments that added focus, weight and attitude, again with an enormous amount of fine control over all the distortion artefacts. A penny-drop moment was when I processed a lead vocal and a stereo group of backing vocals complete with reverb sends on a mellow track. After much tweaking of frequencies and distortion types, the sound I ended up with was orders of magnitude better than what I started with. After running each channel of the stereo pair through the processing separately, not only had the sound of the vocals become far more compelling and sonically tuned to the track, the reverb had been transformed from an ordinary plug-in sound to something altogether more special, with a kind of analogue halo that certainly hadn’t been there before. I recorded some drums and guitars using the built-in preamp and found it to sound good and extremely versatile. Plugging the speaker output into my Fender Tremolux cabinet, I found the Fucifier worked best as an amp head on pretty heavy Germanium distortion settings where it evoked Marshall-esque tones from my Gibson SG. Though it lacked versatility it did sound pretty good for thick riffing and the like.
SEEK & YOU SHALL TWEAK
To get the best out of the Fucifier much tweaking and juggling of gain structures is required, as well as a bit of patience. It’s definitely not a device you can set and forget, and neither is it for the time-challenged or those of a pedantically scientific mind. There are no centre detents or numerical markings on the acrylic gain knobs and technical information on the various processors is scarce, to say the least, though the manual is in other ways very informative. The Fucifier is an absolute tweaker’s delight and I found each session with it brought new discoveries and revealed more of its strengths. While flat-out distortion treatments are available in massive doses and sound great, I suspect those who delve more deeply will find that Evol’s demonic child is equally gifted at subtle euphonic enhancements and parallel processing tasks where it adds colour and texture, weight and dimension in a hundred different ways. While its price tag will unfortunately relegate it to more esoteric studio setups, those who can afford it will find many uses for the Fucifier and it will no doubt be a secret sauce in many a mix.
RESPONSES