"If you are what you eat, then I only want to eat the good stuff." – 'Ratatouille' (2007)
There's a certain attitude towards food that you cultivate when you're from a place like New Jersey. We don't think we have to take it much further than that for those native to the great Garden State. Sandwiches, bagels, pizza... if you're from Jersey, you already know. If you're not familiar with the region's – how would we call them – "staunch" opinions on food, skip on over here sometime and ask any person walking down the street about the best pizza place in town. You'll get nothing short of an informed lecture.
If you're also not aware, this year marks Russo Music's sixty-fifth anniversary as a New Jersey born-and-raised company. Proudly still operating in Hamilton, New Jersey, where the story more or less all started, we only found it fitting to do something special for this particular anniversary. Our central Jersey origins distinctly informed this particular something for all the denizens of Garden State – no matter where they're at now, no matter where they're getting their pizza.
This is the Caroline Guitar Company x Russo Music Tomato Pie Fuzz.
Shop the Caroline Tomato Pie Fuzz
The Secret Sauce
Introducing the Caroline Guitar Company Tomato Pie Fuzz
For a quick history lesson, Russo Music has been operating out of Hamilton, New Jersey, for decades. Hamilton, New Jersey, as it happens, is local to a number of the state's (and country's) oldest and most celebrated pizza spots. You come to this part of Jersey and you're on no shortage of places to get a pie, let's just say.
pie: noun (1)
- peet – za pi : a dish made typically of flattened bread dough spread with a savory mixture usually including tomatoes and cheese and often other toppings and baked - Merriam-Webster
The love for pizza runs deep in Mercer County, if we could say so ourselves. Because of this, for our sixty-fifth anniversary, we tapped one of the leading experts in distorted delicacies, Philippe and the gang at Caroline Guitar Company, for a crack at one of their famous, saucy signatures.
The Caroline Hawaiian Pizza is a sweet, savory, and sizzling specialty made with heaps of heat and reserves of refreshing tone baked in under the hood. Its bright, fiery, and scrambled tonal profile rocketed it to popularity, making it today one of the boutique pedal world's favorite fuzzes. Our own love for the Hawaiian Pizza made it one of our own personal favorite Carolines and sparked the inspiration for the fuzz we have on the platter today. Let's talk about it.
Pizza Time
Caroline Hawaiian Pizza Fuzz vs. Caroline Tomato Pie Fuzz
At the onset, we should establish something. The Caroline Tomato Pie is an exclusive Russo Music model, and, what's more, an original circuit. That's right. Way more than just a re-skin of everyone's favorite sweet-and-savory fuzz, the Tomato Pie is a never-before-seen take on Caroline's Hawaiian Pizza.
The Caroline Tomato Pie was designed in collaboration with Caroline Guitar Company to make something strikingly unique yet wholly faithful to the original's vision. Our own saucy spin centers around the introduction of BC109C semiconductor transistors to the circuit that drive the tonal profile of the Tomato Pie in a bold, new direction. The BC109C, a transistor itself with central Jersey design origins, plays a huge part in making the Tomato Pie unique while remaining distinctly Caroline.
With these new semiconductors at the helm, the Tomato Pie sets out on a new course from the Hawaiian Pizza. In essence, this is a new pedal inside and out. Let's talk some specifics.
That's Amore!
Caroline Guitar Company Tomato Pie Fuzz Controls and Tones
Like we said, the Tomato Pie is a completely fresh take on Caroline's Hawaiian Pizza. Despite this fact, the Tomato Pie operates in a similar, intuitive fashion as you work your way across its three front-facing dials.
Caroline Guitar Company Tomato Pie Fuzz Settings
With three controls and a vast tonal spectrum to conquer, let's dig in.
- Cheese – Moving from right to left, we're starting with our "Cheese" control. The Cheese in this recipe controls the Tomato Pie's incoming signal gain. This control plays similarly to the original Hawaiian Pizza's as we start shaping the signal. We'll circle back to how this all spices up the pie in a second, but for now, our Cheese is our input signal gain.
- Sauce – Our center control, our sawwce, harnesses the power of the pedal's voltage. Starting all the way clockwise and rolling it back, the Tomato Pie's circuitry will get starved and thin out. Our voltage control does quite a bit to stoke the effect's overall distorted flame.
- Dough – The last, leftmost control, our Dough, shapes the output signal gain. With this, we get a responsive way to turn the whole effect up or roll it back.
Three controls, three parameters. Pretty easy, right? What's great about the Tomato Pie is that, in addition to the setup being so streamlined, it makes for an endlessly inspiring distortion circuit that delivers time after time. One thing that should not simply be left implied, the Tomato Pie is a bottomless well of distorted dreaminess. This comes from the control setup that allows for further tonal sculpting than just that which is dependent on your usual zero-to-one-hundred parameter control. The Tomato Pie operates exceptionally well for extensive sonic mixing.
The Tomato Pie specializes in concocting fiery, fuzz frequencies sure to inspire. With the pedal, we get an effect that runs the gamut of fuzzstortions from the top-end grind of a Fuzz Face to the searing sustain of a Tone Bender to the effervescence of a Big Muff. Utilizing the holistic mixing allowed by the Tomato Pie's three-dial setup, the Tomato Pie summons low-end, crackling overdrives and explosive, fiery fuzzes. As you move across the controls, you quickly get perspective on the Tomato Pie's depth.
Rolling back on our Sauce voltage control, we can begin to starve the circuit. Thinning out the distortion, we can turn to our Dough output gain control to compensate for the lessened volume output. The Tomato Pie's output gain control is highly influential on the whole circuit. Where other distortion circuits might feel a little limiting in their capacity to only make the effect louder or softer and not allow for even more avenues of tonal shaping, the Tomato Pie presents no such limit. The fact that we're not strictly working with your usual Volume, Gain, and Tone setup, we get to work with some more freedom.
As you take on the world the Tomato Pie fosters, you're working with heaps of tasty distorted tonality. However you like your dirts, like a Muff, a Bender, a Fuzz Face, or otherwise, the Tomato Pie dishes up a delectable fuzzstortion at every turn. Grab a Tomato Pie and get into a highly shapeable, tonally versatile, and musically expressive experience. The Tomato Pie can be crispy, roaring, crunchy, and fiery – sculpt your distortion how you see fit and serve up something tasty every time.
Caroline Guitar Company x Russo Music Tomato Pie Fuzz Final Thoughts
The Tomato Pie is, like all delicacy dishes in one way or another, a labor of love. Brought about by the crack team at Caroline Guitar Company – a crew always inspiringly inventive and distinctly delightful – the Tomato Pie is something we certainly hope translates both our and their love for fine musical devices. Our Tomato Pie might have been dreamed up for our sixty-fifth anniversary celebration, an event limited by time, but the principles at the heart of the pedal, we feel, are universal and infinite.
You are what you eat. Make it good.
