Fuzz 101?

V8 · Oct 28, 2020

Useless fact : Fuzz was the first transistor floor pedal fx for guitar. There were guitar fx prior, but all were vacuum tube based and not exactly pedal board friendly...

Quote from the page

The tube driven effects pedal was soon almost entirely replaced when the engineering marvel called the Transistor was created. This occurred in 1962 when the first full production transistorised pedal called the ‘Maestro Fuzz Tone‘. Despite being invented in 1962, it was made famous three years later when the Rolling Stones produced their smash hit ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction‘.

Joss @ JHS Pedals covers the origin of fuzz - it more a run through his fuzz pedal collection, tbh.

He also did a Big Muff Shoot out - which was great. I'm definitely a Green Russian fan.

The Big Muff Pi one was my first fuzz experience and I hated it. Much later I tried a Boss Hyper Fuzz and that was similarly sucky (to me). Also had a run with octave fuzz, which I'm also not a fan of. After that, I thought fuzz sucked- until a couple years ago I got to mess on a original Russian Green Muff. Wow. Since then I've been messing around with the 'fuzz face' model on my multifx - it's also the most gainy of the 4 drive options I got on the sucky zoom b2 of mine (hey. it's a bass unit).

On a single coil guitar, fuzz makes a lot more sense to me - back in the day I was humbuckers only. But These days I'm leaning the opposite - so I'm kinda understanding the about turn on fuzz (I had a similar thing w/wah back when I got my strat).

I'm figuring it it slowly - but placement in your fx chain is apparently important. It seems you want it before any buffered pedal(s). Since mine's multi-fx based - no issues there (yet...foreshadowing).

It's a mids rich fx so tweaking the low & high mids totally change things - I'd say to get the most out of the typical fuzz, you want a EQ somewhere in your rig. The zoom has a 6 band one, and it makes all the difference. Cut mids for a darker, more 90's scooped metal tone or boost for a TS9-y in yer face rawk vibe.

And, lastly experiment with your guitar volume backed off - here's a demo

Got any tips/idea's/comments or furry pedals to gift me?

guidothepimmp · Oct 29, 2020

Cool topic Veee.

I dont have any ideas on making a fuzz sound any worse or better. Dont own one, however i hated the one i did borrow at some point. Curiously similar experience to your description above.
I did come across some delectable fuzz sounding filth the other day while doing my ZZTop binge.. and it got my fuzzhead on. I had to learn more. Came aross this video by Rabea doing a "sound like" video.. and he spoke about the Fuzz pedals the Reverend uses.

I also found other videos of guys getting quite damn close sounding sounds using just their amps and wotnot.
I tried a few things on my amp and got a similar muffled fuzzy sounding vibe by diming the bass and mids and squashing the treble. Also a roll back on the tone on the guitar and half back on the presence.

So in an understandable way... used a LP on neck. Vol up, tone rolled back.. into a AC30/DC30 style amp with the gain dimed and vol at irritated neighbour volumes.. and it passed as a fuzzy tone for my uncouth ears.
I may be tempted to drop a few notes on a fuzz pedal.. but feel like i need to trawl through heaps to find one i fancy.
Will be watching this space fosho

V8 · Oct 30, 2020

guidothepimmp Rabea doing a "sound like" video.. and he spoke about the Fuzz pedals the Reverend uses.

Great find, thanks G! Seeing the GE-7's settings is gold Rabea's ear's are f**king good.

"Just got paid" has such a fat fuzz sound on the bass strings. Damn. I like.

Had a chuckle at them grabbing a strat for La Grange They nailed the lead tone, but the verse riff tone is slightly bright? Perhaps that's how it sounds solo'ed from the mix.

Sharp Dressed Man also impressive!

guidothepimmp Will be watching this space fosho

Do - I've done some asking and it turns out someone has a stash of FuzzFace boutique circuits that have been waiting to be stuck in a enclosure. It's not as near as filthy as that la machine. That's almost porn in a pedal. (Quote from the Anderton's retail page -> "THICK, SHAGGY 70'S FUZZ").

I did experiment w/fuzzface model on the multifx past couple days. highlighting some cool things. Fuzz is indeed very responsive to dynamics - particularly when you back off from the "spinal tap or nothing" way of guitaring (guility, guilty and guilty am I).

The one I'm using is far more suited to bass frequencies (makes sense, it's a bass unit). I've long used fuzz on the bass to add a bit of colour and lowend to a autowah (Bootsy tip) - but now unleashed the fuzz and dialed back the autowah - using autowah now more of a control where the fuzz gates (or glitches, rather than a wide range effect (if that make sense). I found that the gate in the wah and the gate in the fuzz interact in interesting ways. Now the volume control on the bass was now waaayyy more responsive - feels like you have direct control of how much crazy you want just by dialin up/.down the volume. HuGe Fun, though I'm doubtful of the giggability of it - you have to be able to hear it to feel it.