Fuzz Pedals

S

secretpizza

Member
Just a quick note of appreciation - I went through a huge fuzz phase some years ago, collecting Analogman Sun Faces, Super Fuzzes, and a couple Shin-ei recreations, and recently got the big to play around with some fuzz lately. While there’s not as many options as other drive pedals, I’m finding that with a little tweaking, there’s a ton of great fuzz tones to be had in the Axe III.

I think the mistake I had been making was to run a Fuzz without stacking or messing with advanced parameters - the Fuzz Face is a little meh on its own, but throw a Treble Boost in front, or run an Octave Distortion into it with drive set low, and you can get some really killer fuzz textures. Messing with bias and bit reduction gives you even more range. Plus you can easily run these fuzzes into a cooking amp and get some excellent stacked tones without your ears bleeding. Really impressed.

That said, I don’t ever hear much about fuzz on the forum - anyone else have any positive experiences with the fuzz pedals? I’d love to hear suggestions on other good combos.
 
secretpizza said:
Just a quick note of appreciation - I went through a huge fuzz phase some years ago, collecting Analogman Sun Faces, Super Fuzzes, and a couple Shin-ei recreations, and recently got the big to play around with some fuzz lately. While there’s not as many options as other drive pedals, I’m finding that with a little tweaking, there’s a ton of great fuzz tones to be had in the Axe III.

I think the mistake I had been making was to run a Fuzz without stacking or messing with advanced parameters - the Fuzz Face is a little meh on its own, but throw a Treble Boost in front, or run an Octave Distortion into it with drive set low, and you can get some really killer fuzz textures. Messing with bias and bit reduction gives you even more range. Plus you can easily run these fuzzes into a cooking amp and get some excellent stacked tones without your ears bleeding. Really impressed.

That said, I don’t ever hear much about fuzz on the forum - anyone else have any positive experiences with the fuzz pedals? I’d love to hear suggestions on other good combos.
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I too am a fuzz addict. Like you, I had a bunch of the good stuff from Analog man et al.

There are some good tricks to make the fuzz feel more like the real ones react. (Fractal units have a buffer in it before the fuzz).

One is to try and use 90k impedance instead of Auto (not an option on the FM3).

When using the old Tone Bender, to get it spitty, nasty like Jimmy Page's, in advanced parameters set the type to LV (low voltage tube). Then play with the bias. It can really do it! I discovered that trick when making the Brit Rock Royalty #1 TonePacks for first four Zep albums.

Try both silicon and germanium types. Don't be afraid to use the 10 band EQ. I tend to prefer fuzzes that are less bright - they seem smoother and less harsh, so I'm not afraid to roll the Fuzz tone knob down from default to 3 or 4. Helps with Octavia too to my ears.

Using a Pi Fuzz with a boosted 700-800Hz EQ is fun.

Running two different fuzzes in parallel and blending them together (via pedal) to get a cool or sick texture is another good trick. Dweezil Zappa is master at that stuff.

What other fuzz tricks have you guys discovered?
 
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I was new to fuzz before fractal. Now i own a couple pedals to go with my jamspace rig.

Since I wasnt chasing any actual pedals at the start, my fuzz journey has been pretty fun. I use them more for heavily downtuned stuff, which most users here probably dont.
 
austinbuddy said:
I too am a fuzz addict. Like you, I had a bunch of the good stuff from Analog man et al.

There are some good tricks to make the fuzz feel more like the real ones react. (Fractal units have a buffer in it before the fuzz).

One is to try and use 90k impedance instead of Auto (not an option on the FM3).

When using the old Tone Bender, to get it spattyy nasty like Jimmy Page's, in advanced parameters set the type ot LV (low voltage tube). Then play with the bias. It can really do it! I discovered that trick when making the Briot Rock Royalty #1 TonePacks for first four Zip albums.

Try both silicon and germanium types. Don't be afraid to use the 10 band EQ. I tend to prefer fuzzes that are less bright - they seem smoother and less harsh, so I'm not afraid to roll the Fuzz tone knob down from default to 3 or 4. Helps with Octavia too to my ears.

Using a Pi Fuzz with a boosted 700-800Hz EQ is fun.

Running two different fuzzes in parallel and blending them together (via pedal) to get a cool or sick texture is another good trick. Dweezil Zappa is master at that stuff.

What other fuzz tricks have you guys discovered?
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Manna from heaven - thanks for the great tips! I’m a big fan of your presets and appreciate the insight.
 
Budda said:
I was new to fuzz before fractal. Now i own a couple pedals to go with my jamspace rig.

Since I wasnt chasing any actual pedals at the start, my fuzz journey has been pretty fun. I use them more for heavily downtuned stuff, which most users here probably dont.
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That’s mostly where I use them as well - I’m back on an old QOTSA kick and I just love the thick, doomy textures I can get with my LPC and a good fuzz.
 
secretpizza said:
That’s mostly where I use them as well - I’m back on an old QOTSA kick and I just love the thick, doomy textures I can get with my LPC and a good fuzz.
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SDD pre and treble booster are also a good time. I tweaked the fas bass into a york audio 412? 212? and its the goods. Used a stock OH orange 212 mix before that. I liked the sdd enough to have my friend build me one via his new company (photo booth sound design).
 
The best fuzz I ever heard was the one built into the Hofner guitar I bought back in 1970. Spoiled me for life. I think being built into the guitar itself was the secret. Also a treble booster was built in there as well. It was a hollow body though (a guitar version of Paul's bass) and squealed like a pig, so I traded it for a SG.
 
I was under the impression that it's really difficult/impossible to accurately model a fuzz pedal, for reasons that go over my head. But I'm excited to try out these tricks, I've been chasing a good fuzz/doom tone since I got the Axe.
 
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Tonedeaf said:
The best fuzz I ever heard was the one built into the Hofner guitar I bought back in 1970. Spoiled me for life. I think being built into the guitar itself was the secret. Also a treble booster was built in there as well. It was a hollow body though (a guitar version of Paul's bass) and squealed like a pig, so I traded it for a SG.
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That’s awesome man. I’ve never heard of a built in fuzz - I did see an EGC guitar a while back with a built in Carbon Copy delay, which is pretty cool.
 
I love fuzz. I thinks I must have a dozen fuzz pedals (sunface, jmi tone bender II , a bunch on orginal and copies of various years of muffs, mxr fuzz(with the buffer switch), roger mayer classic fuzz, a a couple fuzz face copies, a few octave fuzzes, and a fuzz factory) You can get some great fuzz tones out of the Axe-fx (with a ton of eq shaping options). I wish there were a way to translate the guitar impedance to the model. That would be awesome. I don't know how that would be done unless the capacitance was measured before the buffer.
 
austinbuddy said:
I too am a fuzz addict. Like you, I had a bunch of the good stuff from Analog man et al.

There are some good tricks to make the fuzz feel more like the real ones react. (Fractal units have a buffer in it before the fuzz).

One is to try and use 90k impedance instead of Auto (not an option on the FM3).

When using the old Tone Bender, to get it spitty, nasty like Jimmy Page's, in advanced parameters set the type to LV (low voltage tube). Then play with the bias. It can really do it! I discovered that trick when making the Brit Rock Royalty #1 TonePacks for first four Zep albums.

Try both silicon and germanium types. Don't be afraid to use the 10 band EQ. I tend to prefer fuzzes that are less bright - they seem smoother and less harsh, so I'm not afraid to roll the Fuzz tone knob down from default to 3 or 4. Helps with Octavia too to my ears.

Using a Pi Fuzz with a boosted 700-800Hz EQ is fun.

Running two different fuzzes in parallel and blending them together (via pedal) to get a cool or sick texture is another good trick. Dweezil Zappa is master at that stuff.

What other fuzz tricks have you guys discovered?
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Would you care to share any of your fuzz drive blocks? I have your live gold preset pack
 
I’ve must have over a dozen fuzz pedals. They’re addicting to build and they’re the only thing that I haven’t been able to replicate in the FM9. I’ll note that the impedance issue isn’t a problem for every circuit—I have a couple of pedals (a germanium fuzz face and a clone of the Spaceman Gemini IV) that use a transformer-based debuffer circuit and work fine even when placed after a buffer or in the FM9’s effects loop. So I’m holding out hope for improved Fractal fuzzes in the future. In the meantime I have five or six pedals hooked up to the front of my FM9 to scratch the fuzz itch.
 
I’m more of a modern metal player that requires tight tones, so most fuzz pedals make my style fall apart. But I’ve gotten sweet results using the fat rat to add some extra filth to slow chugs. From what I understand it’s more like a distortion pedal than a true fuzz (prob makes me a poser), but that’s probably why it’s more agreeable with my style. I use it as a not-quite clean boost on a dirty Marshall amp model; on the bridge pickup, it’s still passable as a nice modern metal tone, and on the neck pickup I get some Smashing Pumpkins kinda vibes (even though I’m pretty sure they use a Muff). That’s the best I got for ya. I’ll try some of the tips that are mentioned here.
 
I love fiddling with things, so as a compromise with myself I’ve got like 5 fuzzes in front of my FM9.

I still need to get a Fuzz Factory and a few others. No such thing as too many fuzzes 😁
 
secretpizza said:
That’s awesome man. I’ve never heard of a built in fuzz - I did see an EGC guitar a while back with a built in Carbon Copy delay, which is pretty cool.
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If you look at my avatar, I'm holding a Messenger guitar, same as Mark Farner played in the early days of Grand Funk. His had a built in fuzz. That's what you're hearing in songs like Paranoid. Mine didn't. It had stereo outputs instead.
 
sean.e said:
Would that be the sludge one? I got a big kick out of it.
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That one has had a couple versions. I can upload my stock IR version of my current preset at some point.
blastbeatdown said:
I’m more of a modern metal player that requires tight tones, so most fuzz pedals make my style fall apart. But I’ve gotten sweet results using the fat rat to add some extra filth to slow chugs. From what I understand it’s more like a distortion pedal than a true fuzz (prob makes me a poser), but that’s probably why it’s more agreeable with my style. I use it as a not-quite clean boost on a dirty Marshall amp model; on the bridge pickup, it’s still passable as a nice modern metal tone, and on the neck pickup I get some Smashing Pumpkins kinda vibes (even though I’m pretty sure they use a Muff). That’s the best I got for ya. I’ll try some of the tips that are mentioned here.
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Modern metal? Treble booster.
 
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