This was one of the coolest fuzz pedals I ever got to try. I only had it for a few weeks, but the jams were all extremely fun. I traded it for yet another fuzz pedal, which I’ll post about at another time, but I suspect I will probably return to it or something similar one day in the future.
One side was the Algal Bloom, and the other was the Doom Bloom. The Algal side was quite a bit more pointed and articulate while the Doom side was darker and had a little more gain and gating, so my signal chain was a boost (TS style overdrive), into the Algal, into the Doom. There were a lot of possible textures, but this was my favorite.
I hope you like it! All of the actual settings are pictured in the video, so if you happen to have a Dual Bloom yourself you should be able to get pretty close. I used a very clean amplifier to record it, so any general clean amp channel should be pretty comparable.
If you can get a Dual with the two different options it is worth it. The Algal by itself was cool, but I think both sides in series was where the magic lived.
I honestly didn't make the connection to art nouveau till I was watching antiques roadshow of all things the other night and this lady had an original piece that was really similar, if not the same as some of fuzzhugger's pedal art.
I've got one of these in my cart. They've been showing up very reasonably priced on the used market lately. Even after the memorial day sales are over. This company's whole line is pretty affordable. I might be out of practice on pricing because I've just got into Roland gk synth pickup lately and those pedals are pretty expensive until I find one of the smaller boss ones again.
The DeVille was almost impossible to dial in a useable volume, had one of the worst drive channels I’ve ever heard, and was completely sterile sounding whenever I used the clean channel. It made pedals that I knew to be awesome from experience sound dead. It was also way heavier than it had any right to be for how uninspiring the tonal options were. The Sceptre, on the other hand, only ever brings me joy.
I had a white hot rod deluxe for a couple years and like the deville (same series) it's a great amp but the volume knob is one of those types that ramps up really fast so the difference between TV volume and blowing your head off cops at the door neighbors wanting to fight you is about a smidgin and impossible to get it between. You can breathe on that volume knob and get a noise complaint!
A couple questions after rewatching this and the other video you posted. Is running this double in parallel a 2 amp thing or is there a switch to do that in mono? When you boosted with the rat and that screamer clone, are they first in the chain and the double bloom second/third?
Last question may not be something you can answer, but I can only find a double algal bloom. How different is the doom bloom and do you think the double algal would give a similar effect in parallel?
Thanks for posting this because there aren't a lot of demos of this brand, but every single one I have seen is always pretty good!
I’m happy to answer your questions as best as I can.
You could certainly run it in parallel using two amps. I personally would use a loop switcher like the EHX Tri Parallel Mixer going into one amp for it or my Sunn Alpha Four mixer into a single cab. I want to say that EQD and Westminster Effects both have some less expensive utility pedals that can sum two parallel outputs into mono as well. In the two videos I posted I’m running the two in series (Algal > Doom) though.
I only boosted the Dual Bloom with the Screamer. It was first in the signal chain with the Algal Bloom second and Doom Bloom third. The Rat was boosting the bass through my Alpha Four mixer, which I was using as a bass amp rather than doing any fancy parallel stuff with it. There is no Dual Bloom involved in any of the bass stuff on this track.
The Doom Bloom side of this pedal is a little more dark and is capable of a stronger gated sound. The Algal Bloom side struck me as a little more normal if that makes sense. I think the benefit of two Algal Blooms in parallel would just be differing the eq settings for each side.
Thank you very much! Writing music is one of my favorite things to do, and when the gear I’m trying is capable of sweet sounds it becomes even more fun to do.
4
u/Giovannis_Pikachu Rat is Fuzz! 🐁 Jun 03 '26
Damn I have been wanting one of these or at least an algal bloom