Fairfield Circuitry Modèle B

Once again, I own a Fairfield pedal and once again, I’m surprised by how it rocks that Fairfield outfit. You know those ladies that spend hours in front of a mirror to thoroughly apply a makeup that makes them look like they are not wearing makeup? It feels like the raw finish of the Fairfield pedals are like that. They look expensive and high quality despite their raw enclosures. I don’t think pictures transport that. If you ever held one in your hands, you know.

There is not much else to say about what it is or how it looks. Let’s dive in for a second time. I bought the Barbershop in February 2022, so three full years and scores of pedals separate us from the me that played a Barbershop for the first time.

I realize my approach to a pedal has become more analytical, since I spend the first few minutes not trying to dial in a great sound, but I try to find out if I can tell by ear what the knobs do exactly. In case of this pedal, it’s quite easy. One knob controls the output volume. The next knob controls the drive. It passes signal fully CCW. The last knob is called Sag, and that one is there to starve the preamp. With Sag fully CW, there is no effect. So with Drive fully CCW and Sag fully CW, we’re as clean as we get, and I hear little difference between my clean signal and the pedal in this setting, but I’d have to rig an A/B setup with a looper to confirm that.

Sagging the Sag knob makes the drive a little hoarse. You loose some top end definition and clean-ness, the voice gets a husk of too much whiskey and cigarettes in the past. With the Sag fully un-sagged, traveling through the range of the drive knob shows what this pedal is intended for. There is no thin line between clean and driven sound. Clean and driven live on the opposite ends of the knobs’ travel, with a wide thicket of not-entirely-clean-but-also-not-yet-overdrive-happening between the two. Smooshy and also a bit itchy. Like a ball of asbestos wool.
With drive happening, the Sag knob comes in. It is an interesting tool of shaping the voice and the texture of the drive. Imagine a pair of identical twins. Separated at the age of 16, one got private school education followed by an ivory league college degree. Healthy food, regular workouts.
The other mostly lived in the streets and managed to stay off the drugs – For nearly three years, until he discovered meth. This addiction led to a chain of increasingly stupid crimes, until the police had to rescue him from a used car dealership where he climbed the fence to steal a ’72 Mustang, but never checked for dogs. The Rottweiler got him good before he could climb on top of a van and cry for help. His face needed 62 stitches. In jail, he sobered up and even began learning a trade. Take a mugshot of him now. Now take a mugshot of his brother – who just bought a ’72 Mustang from a used car dealer, smiling from ear to ear (both him and the car dealer).
With the Sag knob, you can travel between those two mugshots. The gleaming teeth in a well maintained and well fed mouth reflect the light from their pearly texture and perfect whiteness is what you hear with the gain just past noon and the sag fully up – and as you roll it back, you blend in that manic grin with those ghost white meth teeth that don’t really gleam at all. Being upper management in a fortune 500 company certainly has its merits, being able to easily afford vintage cars among them, but that’s not very much rock ‘n roll. Not much at all. Basically no rock ‘n roll at all. None.
The meth addicted life is a bit too much rock ‘n roll. A bit? Maybe a lot. So being able to seamlessly blend over is something great, since it is highly interactive with the gain knob. As you take off the polish by dialing back, you get more distortion in the signal, but the texture is less even and about as pearly as fresh tarmac. I mean it does gleam in the sun. You feel like you’ve gone too far? Dial back a little and then try to readjust the Drive to suit your tastes. There’s a lot of interplay with those two knobs, especially when you hone in on your personal sweet spot. Give it a little more drive and turn up the sag, or turn down on the drive and starve some more – you’ll stay in the same range of dirt, but change the texture by doing so.
This pedal obviously wants to be ridden somewhere on the edge, because said edge is so wide you don’t need to balance, you can walk. You can even increase the headroom of the pedal by upping the voltage – up to 18V is fine. In my case, I don’t do that because 9V has more than enough headroom for my worn flats and passive bass with not too hot of an output. Getting a range that is mostly clean but effortlessly crosses over to a dirty growl by altering playing dynamics is what this pedal excels at and that’s why it often gets recommended when a bassist asks for a low gain drive. Having this tone as your default setting is, in more styles than one would imagine, quite the asset. That’s why Fairfield Circuitry went
one step further and created the Modèle B from the Barbershop. When you use your Barbershop as an always on, you might as well save up some real estate on the board and opt for the Modèle B.
The sound you’re getting from either is that smooth, organic and raspy breakup that feels absolutely natural. There is no loss of low end, and the high end depends on how you use the Hi Cut and the Sag knob. There is no EQ in the pedal and not really a baked in tone, either – but when you’re riding the Drive knob high enough, you get more treble from the added harmonics. In my case, it works to add a gentle squeeze of drive in order to get a little bit more articulation for my tone. Blending chords or double stops together with a blooming sort of overdrive is effortless and feels natural, the pedal is easily controlled by the playing dynamics to accentuate notes. I recommend using a compressor downstream to even out the spikes. When doing so, you can really play around with your tone and drive without upsetting the mix. Feeding the pedal a higher input and maxing out the drive, the tone gets a little bit more artificial and it kinda feels like the pedal is forced going places it does not really enjoy being. If you’re looking for a massive grind, there are better choices – but note that the Barbershop/Modèle B stack up with others really well. Feeding it into another pedal set to an equally gentle drive gets you the kind of gravel a high powered offroad car spits at you when dropping the clutch while standing on the shoulder of a road. It can get mean, but stays in the realms of overdrive at all times. The tone of your bass guitar stays largely unaltered by all that, so if you haven’t spotted it between the lines already I’m gonna spell it out: It’s a transparent pedal that adds a bit of what is widely referred to as “Tube Amp Warmth” to the signal. If you’re looking for something like that particular thing, give one of the Fairfield pedals a spin!

I did enjoy the Barbershop three years ago and I do enjoy the Modèle B right now. Back then I wrote that had I, instead of deciding to go on a Dirt Bender, simply bought a Barbershop this whole endeavor might never have occurred. I do stand by that. If you want a gentle drive and you don’t want to tinker much, just drop in something that works, this is it.