Burford Electronics 'Cybertron'

I recently came across this little beast on an ebay mission, described as ring modulator esq sounds with a filter sounded like a good addition to a skronkers pedal board.

Having now got it, the 'ring mod esq' is firmly in the 'esq'. The 'Cybertron' takes your guitar signal and modulates it with an internal oscillator, giving a synthetic quality to the original guitar signal.
"What are you talking about? Your ring mod article a few months ago described this concept as ring modulation." you say to yourself. True this is ring modulation; however there is some additional circuitry at work.
There appears to be some find of mild fuzz circuitry in the mix along with the VCF (voltage controlled filter). Unfortunately you cannot adjust the fuzz level, gain or colouration.
A gain control overall would have been a nice addition since there is a slight volume drop, but on the plus side there is a noise gate in there so no osc sounds leak out while you don’t play.
The VCF switch adds a sweeping sound based on the pitch you play at, it adds a bit of variety to the box and definitely helps make it a more skronky number. When the VCF is off its usable as a half way house between modulation and fuzz, plus it doesn't sound exactly like anything else you'd have got your teeth into before. It seems to work best picking individual notes or power chords, however it isn’t monophonic so you wont get confused circuitry sounds if you hit two strings at the same time.

To my mind the 'Cybertron' feels like the guitarists useable mxr blue box, its doesn’t do the octave down thing but you can make weird noise that still sounds like a guitar. Alan Exley at Burford Electronics has designed this specifically for guitar it feels, unlike similar effects (refering to the blue box, again) you can't use that many other instruments on it other than stringed numbers with a pickup or a keyboard (i tried an analogue casio number and it sounded sweet).

The 'Cybertron' is no longer made as 'Cybertron', probably due to the Transformers franchise connotations. Reading up on the Burford Electronics site at projectguitarparts.co.uk I think 'Techno lo – fi' is probably the closest match, it seems the VCF on/off is now an adjustable pot, which would be better, and you have some control over the fuzz colouration.

I think if you're after something a bit different there are plenty of options out there, however a gander at the Burford site might be a starting place, esp when Alan's boutique pedals are available at a reasonable price compared to the Z Vex