Uploaded December 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
This is the Electro-Harmonix (or EHX) Bender Royale Germanium Fuzz MKIII: an incredibly versatile and nasty sounding take on the Tone Bender fuzz format!
Get it at Thomann: thmn.to/thoprod/626941?offid=1&affid=1250
At Sweetwater: sweetwater.sjv.io/XmPJ1g
The Bender Royale is a new take on an old circuit: the iconic MKIII Tone Bender. The EHX pedal, however, takes that vintage design and adds plenty of modern flourishes, options, and tonal sculpting capabilities, making this potentially one of the most versatile fuzz pedals out there today.
First off, we have two modes of clipping here: vintage-correct germanium, and LED. You can flick between the two with a mini switch, with LED giving you a more chaotic and sputtery tone that the smoother germanium tones.
We also have a Bias control, that lets you starve the voltage in the pedal. This allows you to easily access all those ripping, velcro fuzz tones we all know and love from the likes of Jack White.
Then there’s a Blend control. Possibly more one for the bass players out there, rather than the guitarists, this lets you gradually wind in more of your dry signal along with the fuzz tones, helping to retain attack and clarity in your sound.
And alongside these innovations, we still have a pretty versatile fuzz at our fingertips: you get a two-band EQ (where Treble is active, and Bass is passive), Volume and Fuzz controls, and a Fat Switch, which gives you a boost in low end and mids frequencies when set to On.
On top of all of this, the Bender Royale’s bypass footswitch can be switched from standard latching On/Off mode to momentary mode, letting you press down for a couple of seconds of glorious fuzz before letting go to remove it again.
Finally, the action continues inside the pedal, where you get an internal trim pot for input impedance. This lets you tweak the pedal’s impedance to your setup, meaning that you can run the Bender Royale anywhere in your signal chain no problem - even after something like a war pedal.
All in all, that’s a lot of fuzz pedal to contend with, making the $149/€149 asking price seem not too high at all. But how good does the Bender Royale actually sound? That’s what we’re about to find out!
Here, I use my Ibanez AZ Standard HSS guitar to test the pedal out in as many different single coil and humbucking fuzzy musical styles as possible – from Hendrix-infused rock to blues, garage punk, doom, metal and more – to see how good it truly sounds. We’ll also wheel out my trusty Boss OC-5 octave pedal for some killer octave down fuzz tones too!
Let me know your thoughts on the Bender Royale MKIII in the comments!
Here are some links to the various playing samples and info bits:
00:00 Intro to the Bender Royale
01:08 Pedal controls, features and info
04:43 Today’s rig and plan
05:31 Fuzz Sounds - Amp Clean Channel
09:20 Fuzz Sounds - Amp Crunch Channel
13:18 Adding the Boss OC-5 Octave pedal!
15:13 Guitar volume pot rolloff test
15:41 Fuzz control sweep test
16:19 Blend control sweep test
17:02 Clipping Mode test
17:21 Fat Mode test
17:46 Bias control sweep test
18:44 Internal impedance trim pot test
19:08 My thoughts
19:38 Tones and versatility discussion
21:34 Other things I like: looks, build quality
21:50 EHX clearly had some fun making this pedal!
22:23 Things I don’t like
23:07 What other similar fuzz pedals are out there that you should consider instead?
24:20 My conclusions on the Bender Royale and why you should buy it
My setup was as follows: I ran the Bender Royale into my Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 head, using the Boss OC-5 for octave tones. The amp went from the Red Box DI straight into my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, which went into Logic Pro X. That's it. No post-processing on the sounds was done except some volume level matching.
---
At Thomann: thmn.to/thocf/jkhog8l06m
At Sweetwater: sweetwater.sjv.io/LXqdE0
---
Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Duck In The Alley – TrackTribe.
#EHX #ElectroHarmonix #EHXPedals #ToneBender #Fuzz #FuzzPedal #FuzzPedals #BossOC5 #IbanezAZStandard #RichWordsMusic
*Note: certain links in the description are affiliate links. If you click said links and purchase anything as a result, I will receive a small commission. This doesn’t cost you anything extra, but it does help to support the channel. So, if you do that, thank you very much!*
@EHX
@IbanezGermany
This is the Electro-Harmonix (or EHX) Bender Royale Germanium Fuzz MKIII: an incredibly versatile and nasty sounding take on the Tone Bender fuzz format!
Get it at Thomann: thmn.to/thoprod/626941?offid=1&affid=1250
At Sweetwater: sweetwater.sjv.io/XmPJ1g
The Bender Royale is a new take on an old circuit: the iconic MKIII Tone Bender. The EHX pedal, however, takes that vintage design and adds plenty of modern flourishes, options, and tonal sculpting capabilities, making this potentially one of the most versatile fuzz pedals out there today.
First off, we have two modes of clipping here: vintage-correct germanium, and LED. You can flick between the two with a mini switch, with LED giving you a more chaotic and sputtery tone that the smoother germanium tones.
We also have a Bias control, that lets you starve the voltage in the pedal. This allows you to easily access all those ripping, velcro fuzz tones we all know and love from the likes of Jack White.
Then there’s a Blend control. Possibly more one for the bass players out there, rather than the guitarists, this lets you gradually wind in more of your dry signal along with the fuzz tones, helping to retain attack and clarity in your sound.
And alongside these innovations, we still have a pretty versatile fuzz at our fingertips: you get a two-band EQ (where Treble is active, and Bass is passive), Volume and Fuzz controls, and a Fat Switch, which gives you a boost in low end and mids frequencies when set to On.
On top of all of this, the Bender Royale’s bypass footswitch can be switched from standard latching On/Off mode to momentary mode, letting you press down for a couple of seconds of glorious fuzz before letting go to remove it again.
Finally, the action continues inside the pedal, where you get an internal trim pot for input impedance. This lets you tweak the pedal’s impedance to your setup, meaning that you can run the Bender Royale anywhere in your signal chain no problem - even after something like a war pedal.
All in all, that’s a lot of fuzz pedal to contend with, making the $149/€149 asking price seem not too high at all. But how good does the Bender Royale actually sound? That’s what we’re about to find out!
Here, I use my Ibanez AZ Standard HSS guitar to test the pedal out in as many different single coil and humbucking fuzzy musical styles as possible – from Hendrix-infused rock to blues, garage punk, doom, metal and more – to see how good it truly sounds. We’ll also wheel out my trusty Boss OC-5 octave pedal for some killer octave down fuzz tones too!
Let me know your thoughts on the Bender Royale MKIII in the comments!
Here are some links to the various playing samples and info bits:
00:00 Intro to the Bender Royale
01:08 Pedal controls, features and info
04:43 Today’s rig and plan
05:31 Fuzz Sounds - Amp Clean Channel
09:20 Fuzz Sounds - Amp Crunch Channel
13:18 Adding the Boss OC-5 Octave pedal!
15:13 Guitar volume pot rolloff test
15:41 Fuzz control sweep test
16:19 Blend control sweep test
17:02 Clipping Mode test
17:21 Fat Mode test
17:46 Bias control sweep test
18:44 Internal impedance trim pot test
19:08 My thoughts
19:38 Tones and versatility discussion
21:34 Other things I like: looks, build quality
21:50 EHX clearly had some fun making this pedal!
22:23 Things I don’t like
23:07 What other similar fuzz pedals are out there that you should consider instead?
24:20 My conclusions on the Bender Royale and why you should buy it
My setup was as follows: I ran the Bender Royale into my Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 head, using the Boss OC-5 for octave tones. The amp went from the Red Box DI straight into my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, which went into Logic Pro X. That's it. No post-processing on the sounds was done except some volume level matching.
---
At Thomann: thmn.to/thocf/jkhog8l06m
At Sweetwater: sweetwater.sjv.io/LXqdE0
---
Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Duck In The Alley – TrackTribe.
#EHX #ElectroHarmonix #EHXPedals #ToneBender #Fuzz #FuzzPedal #FuzzPedals #BossOC5 #IbanezAZStandard #RichWordsMusic
*Note: certain links in the description are affiliate links. If you click said links and purchase anything as a result, I will receive a small commission. This doesn’t cost you anything extra, but it does help to support the channel. So, if you do that, thank you very much!*
@EHX
@IbanezGermany
