Rare Buzz Strikes Fuzz Gold Again With The Rubidium Superoxide Pedal

After wowing me with the Fuzz Bob-Omb, Rare Buzz has outdone themselves with this boosted octave fuzz.

During 2022 I fell in love with Rare Buzz’s Fuzz Bob-Omb, a silly looking, grizzly sounding germanium fuzz based on some old forgotten Soviet tech. The pedal ended up in my top 10 list, right at #5 and has been by my side ever since. I don’t use it for a lot of demos, but I’ve moved it around all sorts of studio and gigging boards and have loved messing with it.

So when I had the opportunity to check out another Rare Buzz fuzz, I had to say yes. Which brings us to the Rubidium Superoxide fuzz that you’re staring at on your screen above. This is their popular Rubidium fuzz circuit paired with a boost/octave side that has its own footswitch. So like many other fuzzes I’ve reviewed here, there’s a lot of flexibility and a lot of fun to be had.

Why The Rubidium after all these other fuzzes?

A good question indeed, as I’ve waxed poetically about many a fuzz on this website in recent months. But the Rubidium side is kind of a Big Muff Pi, but not a perfect clone, with three clipping modes; traditional silicon, low voltage compressed diodes, and LED. That’s a lot of fuzz sounds to tweak.

Other interesting controls include the scoop knob, which tailors how much of the mids are altered by the tone knob. When you turn it clockwise you begin to scoop more mids as you turn the tone knob. Or you can leave them flat and only adjusting high/low frequencies via the tone knob when Scoop is turned counter clockwise

Sustain and level do what you expect them to do, and they do it well. As you’ll hear in the demo, this thing SUSTAINS.

On the Superoxide side of things, you can adjust boost, which uses a warm MOSFET-style boost. It boosts everything after the fuzz, including the octave (which you can turn on or off via the octave knob). Thus, you can even use this as a standalone boost for what’s next in your chain. See, lots of options here?

Watch the demo!

Down below you’ll find my demo, which plugs my Maybach Little Wing directly into this fuzz, and then splits that signal between UAFX Dream (Fender) and Ruby (Vox) amp/cab sims in stereo before hitting my computer to record.

Does it have the goods?

Yes, the Rubidium Superoxide unquestionably has the goods. There’s synthy, glitchy sounds which you know I loved dialing in with past fuzz pedals. So it checks that box. But this is one of the more impressive sustaining fuzzes, that can also borderline on punk-ish distortion. The Rubidium’s shared DNA with a Big Muff make it feel slightly tamer at times, and more musical than some fuzzes.

So while I’ve ranted and raved about how other fuzzes have pushed the boundaries, the Rubidium is likely more adaptable to a broader audience. And that’s a very good thing, as more often than not pedals that can do a lot of things stick around my board longer. As many of you can relate to, I get easily bored, so if a pedal is one dimensional or redundant, it’s out. Luckily, Rare Buzz seems to have a knack for making pedals that are uniquely not redundant and/or flexible enough to cut it. This can be a Big Muff, it can also be a grizzly octave fuzz, or a ring mod, or a boost. If you’re going to spend $179.99 on a pedal, that’s a lot of bang for your buck.