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This is a weird one – as I quite liked the look (and sounds) of the Vintage Pastel Edition of the Dirty Birdy in particular. Seemingly an SMT Silicon Transistor Fuzz with at least 3 Transistors onboard (Q3!), and 2 Diodes (D2!) – with excellent playing dynamics and superb guitar volume gain cleanup.
All good things in my book! And the ’Airline’ ticket price is super appealing too at $99 / £75. They advertise ’worldwide shipping!’ – where I got as far as checkout – before being blown out of the water by absolutely ludicrous shipping costs – with the cheapest option at £95 equivalent, rising to £147 – so up to nearly twice the price of the pedal!
Of course Customs and Imports charges are paid on the total value – which includes shipping. In my manor – this would be seen as akin to a mugging / having your trousers pulled down somewhat vigorously!
I of course exited stage left fairly swiftly – somewhat mystified by the eventual diminishing returns!
Dirty Birdy Controls – Level, Tone, Thrust (Fuzz).
Fender very evidently have a grip on the International market – reasonable / appropriate shipping costs etc. per their recent Godzilla Distortion pedal. Where Airline actually somewhat fittingly – are operating up in the clouds!
It’s a darn shame that naught came of this endeavour – as I really did quite fancy one of those Vintage Pastel ones. ’We Ship Worldwide!’ – nah – not likely at those prices!
As mentioned – we have 3 artwork variants – all with the same core dynamic / responsive fuzz circuit – Seafoam Sparkle Edition, Transistor Radio grey, and Vintage Pastels.
This is not by any means the first time this kind of thing happens to me – I’ve had many a pedals in the checkout in recent years – only to be surprised with untenable shipping costs at the end. If you’re shipping affordable / budget pedals – the delivery price has to be commensurate with that central value proposition – and as mentioned – for global operators like me – several additional fees are typically accrued in getting the pedal into the UK – not just shipping, but customs and import charges also – paid on the full total amount!
It means that increasingly Import pedals just aren’t properly viable a lot of the time. I ship in a lot of pedals from the USA – and I’ve never had to pay as much as £95 for that service – seems like Airline started early on its Football World Cup pricing accelerator, evidently in cahoots with all those transit authorities!
Would have been nice to have been able to grab a Dirty Birdy more cost-effectively – but it was not to be alas! Airline’s slogan is ’Go Fuzz Yourself’ I guess they mean the international shipping pricing also!
As of writing this – each of those 3 variants still has stock – that may no longer be the case though when this article goes live!
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