I'm getting into Fuzz pedals.....school me

Tremonti

Tremonti

Fractal Fanatic
Rival Sons are my new favorite and the impetus for this. What amp models take fuzz blocks well? Settings for amp and fuzz(general).
 
Tremonti said:
Rival Sons are my new favorite and the impetus for this. What amp models take fuzz blocks well? Settings for amp and fuzz(general).
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The best for fuzz is the hiwatt imho, but you can get great results with fenders, ac-20 or some marshalls too
 
Search for my fuzz thread from last year, lots of good replies in there.

Plexi, jcm800, hiwatt, RV50, JC-120, then choose IR's that make sense. The pi fuzz in front of just about anything clean or broken up is tons of fun.
 
I like the Bender Fuzz and Master Fuzz. Sometimes you may want to increase the bass in those models if you want some extra girth, but the fuzz textures are really cool. Setting your amp with a little breakup helps to make the fuzz a little more complex. Listening to Rival Sons "Feral Roots," I'd start with the Supremo Trem and the Legacy 001 1x6 Oval factory IR for your main amp tone and then choose the fuzz with the texture you like the most. The drive on their fuzzes sounds pretty low to me, so don't be afraid to back down the drive to get the tone you're after.
 
York Audio said:
I like the Bender Fuzz and Master Fuzz. Sometimes you may want to increase the bass in those models if you want some extra girth, but the fuzz textures are really cool. Setting your amp with a little breakup helps to make the fuzz a little more complex. Listening to Rival Sons "Feral Roots," I'd start with the Supremo Trem and the Legacy 001 1x6 Oval factory IR for your main amp tone and then choose the fuzz with the texture you like the most. The drive on their fuzzes sounds pretty low to me, so don't be afraid to back down the drive to get the tone you're after.
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Thanks!
 
One of the best aspects of a good fuzz is how well it cleans up. There's a multitude of great shades of dirt available by just rolling back the guitar volume knob. Don't over look this aspect of them. Set your fuzz a bit raunchier than you'd expect and then ride the guitar volume for all those great in between tones. If you put the drive block first in the grid chain after the input 1 block, the variable input impedance circuit of the Axe FX will load down your guitar's pickups the way a real fuzz does as well. That lowers the resonant peak of the pickup and can help take a bit of harshness off the high end.
 
mr_fender said:
One of the best aspects of a good fuzz is how well it cleans up. There's a multitude of great shades of dirt available by just rolling back the guitar volume knob. Don't over look this aspect of them. Set your fuzz a bit raunchier than you'd expect and then ride the guitar volume for all those great in between tones. If you put the drive block first in the grid chain after the input 1 block, the variable input impedance circuit of the Axe FX will load down your guitar's pickups the way a real fuzz does as well. That lowers the resonant peak of the pickup and can help take a bit of harshness off the high end.
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So a Wah block before would negate this?
 
Yeah, the automatic setting of the Input impedance would then reflect that of the wah if it's first in the chain, but you can always override the auto setting by manually choosing a lower input impedance for that preset in the Input 1 block settings. Fuzz Face's have a very low input impedance somewhere around 10k IIRC. I think Tone Benders have a bit higher at around 100k or so.
 
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I mostly use Marshalls, so I think these are the best fuzzes that work with those amps. These tips work with every amp, so don’t worry.

Face Fuzz: think of Hendrix. Drive 5-10, level 7-10. One way to set a fuzz face is to lower your guitar volume almost all the way with the pedal on. Then dial the drive until your sound is clean. Compensate the possible volume loss with level. Mess with the input impendance if your fuzz doesn’t seem to clean up well enough.

Pi fuzz: some people don’t like Big Muffs with Marshalls, but I think they sound good and many players use them. If the pedal sounds muffled with the default settings, here’s something you can do:
  • Crank up the tone: I usually prefer to set the tone around 5-10 with Marshalls depending how much treble there already is in my sound. If you prefer a rounder (I’d call it muffled) sound, set the tone to 5 or below.
  • Set the level low: Depending on your amp and pedal gain you might need to dial the level low (2-4) to get rid of too much muffle. Try to have at least unity gain.
  • You can set the drive anywhere from 1-10. This depends on your amp gain and what you’re looking for. Higher values can make your playing harder since there can easily be too much gain to handle.
  • Try different clipping types: I prefer OP-amp instead of silicone
  • Lower mix: try 75% or 50% to get more pick attack in your sound. Vintage Deluxe Muff used to have an option to mix in some dry sound. I set my Muffs like this because I think it sounds amazing.

Octave fuzz: another Hendrix fuzz. Should sound good with default values already. I typically leave the tone knob noon, set drive around 3-7 and compensate the sound with level depending on drive.

Master Fuzz: set level 8-10 and drive to taste. It’s a nasty but a great sounding fuzz.

FET/SDD preamp: not a fuzz, but can sound really awesome. You might have to set level to 3-4. Crank the drive up to 7-10. Kind of sounds like a Roger Mayer Axis Fuzz.

So far I’ve not bonded with the other fuzzes that much. Happy to hear any tips or recommendations especially for Marshall amps.
 
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Glad this topic came up again. I have not been satisfied with the vol knob response I was getting from from the fuzz face block. My own fuzz faces sound great in front the unit. I was close to starting a thread about fuzz faces and was going to ask Cliff to keep the fuzz impedance/buffer interaction in the modeling world in the back of his mind (some crazy math algorithm stuff), also offer to send in 2-3 of mine. So my usual chain is guitar-wah-vibe-fuzz into Axe III, sounds great. I prefer vibe before fuzz. Today I think I finally got the blocks to be acceptable. Thanks to mr-fender and others I decided to keep trying. So I placed fuzz first in chain then the vibe. Made some tweaks to the blocks. I preferred the input impedance set to 22K vs Auto. Seemed pretty good, but I like the vibe first and swapped them and it still sounded good, so left it a lone for now. So that's were I'm at. Here is my preset, ignore other stuff cause I just clicked and dragged blocks and most other effects are just there like I'd have them laid on my floor. See how it sounds/feel. Any other tweak ideas? Amp and cab also, I just got a ClR and dabbled a little in selecting cabs. And I'm pretty lite user of the power of the unit. thanks I'm now using Factory 2 #773 cab.
 

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Tremonti said:
Rival Son's are amazing. Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and a Southern Baptist preacher had a baby. Scott Holiday, the guitarist, IS COOL.

Check out 23:00
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Rival Sons rules. Have you nailed down any tones, and got a preset to share? Apologize for the thread revival.
 
My quick opinions: Clean boost always before muff/fuzz, PI my favorite. Many amps like them but I tend to lean towards Hiwatt, but biased because like gilmour's sound that much
 
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