Messiah Guitars Flare Review

Origins in the Underappreciated

The Flare may feel new and unfamiliar to guitarists that haven’t dabbled in octave fuzz much. But its circuit is rooted in an underappreciated, classic octave-up fuzz and ring modulator, the Dan Armstrong Green Ringer, as a well as a popular modification to the Green Ringer, the B.Y.O.C. Armstrong Twin. The Flare differs from the Armstrong Twin in the sense that the B.Y.O.C. circuit uses a Dan Armstrong Orange Squeezer compressor as the source of boost, where the Flare uses a MOSFET-derived boost circuit. Almost any gain source in front of a Green Ringer makes a powerful pair, and the Flare makes the most of the potential in that relationship. But it also explores additional variations by offering a tone control (called sparkle) and an output level control that reshapes how the boost interacts with the octave effect. And by making the boost and octave circuits operable independently or in tandem, the possible tone permutations become thrillingly abundant.