A Long History
I designed The Ruthie to bring out the uniqueness of each guitar that plugs into it.
One of the consistent issues I ran into with overdrive, distortion and fuzz pedals is that they always cause a major shift in the tone of my guitar and can make my different guitars sound the same.
Additionally, many gain pedals lack touch sensitive dynamics. This causes the tactile loop between the guitar and the amp to die. I wanted to enhance the tactile response of playing my guitar so that it always felt like I was using a hot & loud amp.
Ruthie doesn’t lay a blanket over your signal. She is your signal.
If you have ever played circuits based on a Fuzz Face or the Tone Bender or then you have likely learned a few basic rules: volume at max, set your fuzz level to taste and then roll down your guitar volume for some of the best clean sounds you have ever heard.
You also likely learned the drawbacks in these vintage circuits: High levels of hissy noise, radio interference bleeding into your signal, transistors tempermental to temperature, component tolerances eroding consistency, and a serious dislike of buffers.
While The Ruthie can trace its sonic lineage back to these classic Fuzz pedals, I put the focus on touch sensitivity and an improved signal-to-noise ratio. I added a control knob that sculpts low frequencies and tightens up the fuzz effect. Plus you can use The Ruthie with a buffer.
I am extremely proud of the pedal and I think you are going to love it.
At the core of its design, Ruthie utilizes carefully selected PNP transistors. I spent over a year – partnered with an electrical engineer – to make sure we focused on the specific values in transistors that actually matter to the tone. I did a lot of A/B testing using through-hole and surface mount transistors. I spent days recording and comparing the frequency profiles that the transistors generated. And I spent way too many hours recording and then obsessing over the frequencies of the noise they generated at loud volumes. I really wanted to get this right and the transistors I’ve chosen provide a very dynamic gain range and touch responsiveness allowing for beautiful cleans and gated thick fuzz.
Beyond the transistors, the additional components were carefully selected with a focus on low tolerances, in some cases as low as 1%. It doesn’t matter what Ruthie you play, they will all sound exactly the same.
I build and solder everything myself using SMD construction to build a consistent circuit. I want to ensure that each pedal sounds perfect.
The Ruthie takes a bold approach to guitar pedals by removing the stomp switch. This was only done after countless months of testing and realizing that the circuit cleans up beautifully without a dramatic loss in volume. I simply never turned it off. Removing the foot switch also gives me a larger canvas to do the custom paint job.
Should you want to turn the pedal off, a true bypass switch is available next to the input jack.
Quick Start Guide
- With The Ruthie in bypass, set your amp to the volume and tone you like best.
- Turn the Mitten’s knob so that the white line is fully to the left. This will give you maximum fuzz and the most bass frequency passthrough.
- Lower your guitar’s volume to around 50% and activate the Ruthie pedal. Your guitar should sound familiar to your normal bypassed tone but now it’s sweeter, more dynamic, lightly boosted. Play and slowly increase your guitar volume. The Ruthie will continue to overdrive more until you reach maximum volume and a thick fuzzy tone.
- Play your guitar softly to hear the pedal clean up, hit your strings hard to create fuzz. Try playing with your volume at 90% and 70%. Learn how it reacts to your playing and volume dynamics.
- Now that you understand how volume influences The Ruthie, begin to turn the Mitten’s control to the right. This will cut low end frequencies and tighten up the fuzz response.
Guidelines for Best Performance
- I recommend putting Ruthie first pedal in your signal chain. It uses a medium impedance input and connecting Ruthie directly to your guitar will give you a better tactile feel. That said, you can run a pedal with a buffer into The Ruthie. Because Ruthie sounds so transparent, using a buffer first in your signal chain will usually make the sound brighter.
- With your instrument volume around 50-70% Ruthie should have a clean sound. This will depend on how hot your pickups are. You can also keep your volume at 100% and experiment with using a softer touch to clean up the signal.
- The Mitten’s control is subtle but powerful.
- The Mitten’s knob controls how your guitar’s signal interacts with the pedal. Maximum bass from the Mitten knob means more of your guitar’s frequencies, specifically low frequencies, will run into the transistors. As a result, the fuzz will increase. Maximum bass for maximum fuzz!
- If Ruthie is getting too thick and wooly, adjust your Mittens to cool things off. Reducing low-end brings back sparkle and clarity.
- Hot and dark pickups will cause the Ruthie to sound angrier and gate more than low output single coil pickups. This is intentional. Ruthie is designed to respond to the character and frequency range of your pickups.
Painting
The exterior of each pedal is hand painted by me in my Decon:Degen style. I will never make the same painting twice.
Why hand paint the pedal? I know The Ruthie is special but there is a lot of competition in the Fuzz Pedal marketplace. I wanted to give you something else beyond a great pedal. I also know that pedal collecting can get pretty wild on the used market so each painting provides rarity and plays into that collectable game.
You will be able to see the texture of the paint and other happy accidents that showcase its organic creation. These are not flaws. It’s hours of my life – often days to make a single painting – that has been put into the physical object you now hold. These are honest handmade pieces of art and there usually some unplanned chaos along the way before these leave my shop and go into your hands. Each Ruthie is signed, dated and given a clear coat to help preserve the artwork.
The pedal belongs to you. You can let it earn battle scars or you can baby it and keep it pristine. It’s up to you. Whatever gives you happiness.
I hope to see these pedals being used. Show them off and tag me in your social media posts. I am @jeffstarr on YouTube, @mrjeffreystarr on instagram and @jeffreystarr.com on BlueSky
Powering The Ruthie
The Ruthie can be powered with a 9v battery using the internal battery snap or by using the included 2.5mm center positive DC input jack. If you are using DC power then you need to use a 2.5mm plug with CENTER POSITIVE power running at 9 volts.
The Ruthie will NOT run above 9 volts. Using incorrect power may destroy the circuit.
Ruthie uses PNP transistors and this means that the positive voltage is going to ground. While this was common in fuzz pedals from the late 60s it’s uncommon in the modern era where 90% of all guitar pedals use negative voltage to the ground. PNP power allowed me to choose the specific transistors used in The Ruthie.
It also required some unique considerations in the design. You can NOT use a common 2.1mm 9-volt center negative power supply that you might use for a Boss pedal. I made the DC power input on the Ruthie a larger size to avoid the wrong power cable being used.
For The Ruthie you will need a 2.5mm 9v CENTER POSITIVE cable. A cable of this size that is designed for center positive power is available for most power supplies by brands like Voodoo Labs, Strymon, Fender, and TrueTone. Many times this adapter is even included in the power supply kit and given a different color. Check the instructions for your power supply.
I also worked with a brilliant electrical engineer to include extremely robust power filtering. I wanted to ensure that using The Ruthie with an inexpensive power supply would still sound clean.
My recommendation is to power Ruthie using an isolated DC port on a dedicated power supply. The pedal will almost always sound better this way. But if you don’t have this, simply remove the 4 bottom screws to reveal the battery compartment.
WARNINGS and WARRANTY
If you look inside the pedal you will see two mini trim pots. Do NOT adjust these. Seriously, do NOT touch them. You could potentially short circuit the pedal and ruin it. I will have set these trim pots to specific voltages, measured and played each pedal before it ships.
Once again, do not adjust the trim pots. If you have done this, send it back to me and I’ll re-set them for free. You just need to pay for the shipping.
Should the internals of your pedal break, contact me for repairs.
Please note that I will NOT repaint a pedal. Damage to the enclosure and artwork is expected and is not covered. See the section on painting for more information