Colorsound Tonebender

The Colorsound Tonebender was a distortion (fuzz) effects pedal used by Mike Rutherford, Steve Hackett, Daryl Stuermer and Tony Banks.

Mike Rutherford's Colorsound Tonebender
The Colorsound Tonebender was one of several distortion boxes used by Mike Rutherford during his Genesis career - primarily on bass guitar. He used it from the late 1970s to mid-1980s, between ...And Then There Were Three and Abacab eras as part of both his live and studio pedalboard setup.

Daryl Stuermer's Colorsound Tonebender
On his first tour with Genesis in 1978, Daryl Stuermer utilised the Tonebender to recreate Steve Hackett's guitar sound on some of the songs.

Tony Banks' Colorsound Tonebender
Tony Banks had a couple of Colorsound Tonebender distortion boxes, which he used for effects on his synthesizers in the early 1980s. Tony commented: "[The Colorsounds are] the kind of fuzz [boxes] I like - low quality. [As] much as I like MXR, I don't like their fuzz boxes [the MXR MX-104 Distortion+]. I find that they're too good. For some reason, the better the box, the worse the keyboard sounds." For instance, he used the fuzz to make the distorted bass synth sound on "Dodo/Lurker" with the Yamaha CS-80.

The Colorsound was mentioned in a breakdown of Tony's stage rig in Musician magazine March 1982 issue. But tour programs from 1980 to 1982 simply list 'MXR/Roland & Boss effects' in the equipment list without much further detail. So there is little photographic or text evidence to reflect this.