Fuzz sounds bad at high volumes.

Jayhell

Hi, I have had this issue for while now and my solution is usually just to skip the fuzz all and all, but I really want to use my fuzz pedals. So here is the situation:

At home at a moderate level both my fuzzes [Big Muff an Woollyphant (POP mammoth clone)] sound awesome to the point where I can never decide witch one to use. Through both my Marshall AVT50 and Class5 they both rock. Then I get to band practice crank the amp and it sound thin and lifeless. Even when tweaking the controls on the pedals and the EQ on the amp, the life just never returns. When I switch on the fuzz, there goes my tone.

Do you guys think it is a head room issue? Of coarse the more the amp is cranked the more it drives, does this mean I should get a bigger clean amp? there goes my sweet clean-on-the-edge-of-break-up clean sound.

I think I have tried more volume less gain on the amp, but again there goes my general sound. (I might have to revisit this as I can't remember what the result was)

Does anyone have any good tips or is either the fuzzes I use crap (but they sound so good in the bedroom) and should my entire rig be re-evaluated to support a good fuzz tone?

daveo1977

Howzit Jayhell!

First a disclaimer, I am a noob, so hopefully the more experienced players pitch in. Couple of things I picked up from Guitar Gear Tech Talk and That Pedal Show:

Fuzz / boost pedals with germanium transistors need to "see" the guitar pickup first, so they should be first in the signal chain
- I've got an octave fuzz/ring mod pedal (Catalinbread Ottava Magus), and used to have it last in the chain. It's doing better sonically now that its first

Buffers after fuzz; active pedals already act as a buffer (cryptic, sorry - I'll have to go back to the forums for more on this point)

Are you going from fuzz straight into the front of the amp?
- I don't have an amp with an effects loop so everything's up front. Some pedals - I gather from the talks - don't like to be in an effects loop. Something to do with instrument and line level signals

Pedal power
- What's giving juice to the pedals?

Dude, sorry if all this is old hat. The one guy Daniel, over at That Pedal Show is a fuzz connoisseur so he's done a couple of fuzz-related episodes on Youtube. Check him out.

Jayhell

Thanks. the fuzzes are after a true bypass boost pedal in a loop switch (OD in other loop). So basically true bypass up until it hits the fuzz, all buffered pedals after the switch. I have experimented by removing the whole lot and just go Guitar>Fuzz>Amp, same result. If I putt buffered pedals before the Mammoth it sounds horrid. The reason I had the loop switch built was because when stacking either fuzz with my SD-1 it sounded terrible. Therefore I can switch between the two without them effecting one another. Thanks for all the advice but most avenues in this regard i have tried.

My power supply is a T-Rex Fuel Tank Jr. with isolated outputs, so that cant be the problem.

I'm starting to think, either Head room or lack of mids inherent to both these fuzzes. My low end is always cut as I hate infringing on the bassists frequencies. Therefore my overdrives always cut so nicely through the mix, I just wish I could say the same for the fuzz. What fuzzes have good mid response?

I have not tried the fuzz in the effects loop, but that's way too much admin for me at this stage. I try to eliminate tap dancing as much as possible.

Just to clarify the set up:

Guitar (ES-339) > LPB-1 (Moded to be more transparent and completely true bypass)> Loop switch> Fuzz/OD> BF-3>TR-2>TU-2>DD-6> Amp. (Amp is gain and volume both at 12 o'clock, bass at 9 o'clock and treble at 2 o'clock.

As I said it all sounds wonderful except for the fuzzes.

ezietsman

I have this problem sometimes. I think its a matter of either/or or a combination of Fletcher-Munson and your speaker response. Basically, at low volumes we don't hear treble and bass that well, but it is at low volume that you play your amp and set up everything and you get used to this. Also, at low volume your speaker is not producing the treble and bass it will at higher volume. Now you move your stuff into a different room and crank it all up, now suddenly you are hearing an increased treble/bass response plus the speaker behaves differently and I'm willing to guess you're not used to that sound. This applies doubly (or even triple) to Celestion speakers, they need a hammering before they break in and I'm willing to bet you, just like me, have never really played your amp loud enough for long enough for this to happen properly. There may also be strange interactions in the room itself, bass cancelling etc.

I don't know the answer. Good luck.

Werner232

Put you fuzz pedal somewhere first from the guitar in your effects chain. Remember Fuzz has a very basic sound wave and you should be able to control the intensity by using your guitar volume and tone. Very high gain on your amp might be a cause of your sound dropping off. My experience with fuzz is limited but I have used it and my experience is that it tends to work well directly after your wah(if you use one). If you have a EQ pedal fiddle around with that as well. Might just be a EQ problem.

My 2cents worth!

Good Luck!

Jayhell

Thanks, good advice so far.

I have played the same amp (Marshall AVT50) live since 2002 so the speaker is pretty played in I think. But yes the response is very different when it is loud. When I play softly I use a bit of imagination to imagine what my overdrive sound sounds like because I know it sounds sweet at band volume. I guess, the same applies in reverse to the fuzz. I need to sit with it at a high volume and fiddle with the knobs. I know many musicians do wonders with their volume and tone knobs on their guitars but I'm a simpleton in that regard. If I need to turn down my volume knob to the sweet spot while tap dancing between pedals and trying to sing at the same time, I might just fall over and break something. But yes, I think I need to find a place where I can play loud alone for an afternoon and do some serious experimentation with both fuzzes and see what comes out. But as I stated a couple of times now, I'm not willing to compromise my overdrive sound for a good fuzz sound. Maybe I should try a tamer fuzz. Any suggestions?

Werner232

Maybe a Boss Fz5 if you can get it in this poor country of ours.

singemonkey

I doubt the fuzz pedals are the real problem. Why not do as you suggest: get to rehearsal early, turn the amp up, and fiddle with the pedals and EQ settings. Do you like fuzz on records? What kind of sound are you looking for. Is it possible that you're hearing a very mild fuzztone at low volumes and you don't actually like what fuzz sounds like when it's really doing it's thing?

Jayhell

singemonkey wrote: I doubt the fuzz pedals are the real problem. Why not do as you suggest: get to rehearsal early, turn the amp up, and fiddle with the pedals and EQ settings. Do you like fuzz on records? What kind of sound are you looking for. Is it possible that you're hearing a very mild fuzztone at low volumes and you don't actually like what fuzz sounds like when it's really doing it's thing?

I love fuzz tones. I'm trying to get that Jack white (especially the Lazzeretto album) vibes. He apparently still uses a big muff but I get that sound on the mammoth at low volume. It's intense fuzz sounds almost to the edge of synthy that I'm after. Like some stuff on the new Dead Weather album (although that is actually a synth pedal). Think Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground... I would think with that much gain it should be easy to simulate it, but alas it fails...

Tonight is practice, so hopefully I'll come to some conclusion. The other thing might be the big contrast between the OD sound and the fuzz sound. The mid scooped sound of The MUFF is in clear contrast to my Mid heavy OD sound, so The MUFF might not work at all, so my hope is on the Mammoth. As someone mentioned above; Maybe I'm just not used to what I'm hearing. But yes, a part of tonight practice is dedicated to sorting out the FUZZ.