Aclam Guitars The Mocker

THE VOX UL730 HIDDEN GEM

The Vox UL730 amp is not only a super rare amp, but also a piece of music history thanks to The Beatles, Joy Division and Led Zeppelin. 

Built from the real thing

The Mocker is based on the built-in fuzz circuit of our own 1966 VOX UL730, S/N 3042. Over the decades, a component in our amp had drifted out of spec, giving its fuzz a distinctive gated and spluttery character. Instead of correcting it, we decided to preserve it.

A Bias control lets you move from that underbiased character to the original 1966 fuzz response and take the circuit even further.

After restoring and analyzing the internal circuitry of our S/N 3042 unit, we captured its beautiful tube saturation in the Dr. Robert. But the amp had much more to offer…

Although Vox included a built-in “distortion” circuit in the UL series, the resultant tone was primitive, closer to a fuzz than a regular distortion pedal from our times. 

Moreover, compared to other UL’s, our unit fuzz tone was unique: kind of gated and spluttery. No other Vox UL offered alike tones because some components on our amp had degraded and misbiased the fuzz circuit.

We developed a prototype pedal to recreate that tone plus the non misbiased one after finding a small batch of the original clipping diodes Vox used in the UL series and the result was outstanding. 

Thus, The Mocker was born: an extended version of the original Vox UL series fuzz circuit, ready to nail the tones from the ‘66s and ’67s era plus many more. A pedal that amazes for its versatility thanks to the Bias control, capable of landing on so musical terrains, from vintage to modern, by tweaking a single knob. 

Inspired by the ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ album —whose eponymous song has a lead guitar intro, probably recorded with the UL fuzz— The Mocker owns a beautiful Hammerite finish, the same on most British fuzz boxes of those times, also used on the Vox UL series original footswitches. Nothing is made by chance in The Mocker."

FEATURES

• Faithful replica of our Vox UL730 (S/N 3042) internal fuzz circuit.
• New Old Stock OA200 diodes, same used in the Vox UL series!
• Bias and Tone controls for a wide range of fuzz tones.
• Grey Hammerite finish: a tribute to the ‘60s British fuzzboxes.

• Inspired on the lead tones from ‘Sgt. Peppers’ album.