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.

Steve Hackett's Colorsound Tonebender
The Colorsound fuzz was part of Steve Hackett's signature guitar tone, both during and after his career with Genesis in the 1970s & 80s. It was one of two fuzz boxes he normally used (integrated into his Pete Cornish pedalboard), the other being a Shaftesbury Duo Fuzz.

His association with the Colorsound led to the Steve Hackett edition of the Supa Tonebender, which was manufactured in 1988 in limited production runs.

Daryl Stuermer's Colorsound Tonebender
On his first tour with Genesis in 1978, Daryl Stuermer used the Tonebender to recreate Steve Hackett's guitar sound on some of the songs, before using other distortion units.

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.