FUZZ. Players? / Users? Too Old Fashioned? My Very Favorite Type of Gain Pedal.

[blowtorch]

I have an MXR Super Badass Variac fuzz. My taste is for the more light and controlled fuzz so I have the variac up at 15v and pretty low gain. Turing the variac down does get that spitting, tearing sound that many like. I set it to be an almost always on boost that goes from clear to all the fuzz I want using the guitar volume. It is very touch sensitive and can be controlled with pick/finger attack. I don't know if it is compressing the signal or boosting certain frequencies but even at low guitar volume with no fuzz it fattens the signal and makes any guitar sound like more of itself. It really pushes the amp so there is a mix of fuzz and amp crunch. Humbuckers push so much more signal than single coils that they require different pedal and amp settings to have the same range of clean tone to fuzz.

I did find it doesn't like to have any buffer in front of it, or else it will generate a constant droning fuzz at one specific frequency that stands out as the guitar is played. I now have it first in line and it is perfect.

that's a good one, yeah. blowtorch approves
My main fuzz these days is a Blackout Effectors Musket. It can cover everything I want a fuzz to do, and always sounds powerful and awesome

 

[telemnemonics]

I've been tempted to get a fuzz. Been only 50+ years since I had the Mosrite! It was a damn buzzy noisy pedal though. But I do want some coarse, almost Cello like sound. But QUIET! Anything out there close to that now days?

I have similar whinings and the only solutions I have found are gated fuzzz and modern noise gates.
The sadly OOP Blackout Musket and Blunderbuss fuzzz are gated at useful settings, wihout being gimmicky velcro noise, just ripping roar then dead silent when you mute the strings.
Otherwise I sometimes use a four wire one knob smart gate with the same silence effect.

 

[telemnemonics]

The best fuzz is not smooth, it's raw and primitive and trashy and dangerous and sort of broken-sounding, and brings mental images of psychedlic chopper gangs from the late 60s made up of evil dirty non-peace-loving hippys, manson family and altamont types

It's your looney but cool uncle's garage full of contraband

It's bashed-in trash cans and switchblades in a dark and forbidding alley

In the Land of Fuzz, there is no purer truth than the Danelectro French Toast.
View attachment 1036111
Because gloriously garbage tone should not be at all expensive

Careful there torchy yer getting close to West Side Story with yer prose...

 

[ChicknPickn]

Fuzz is the only kind of pedal worth owning one of each.

I'm in my 30s. When I bought my first EHX big muff (from Samash with money I got working fir a catering company) in the early 00s, fuzz was associated with Grunge, garage, psychedelic, and a little blues.
Now?
Even more genres use it, some metal genres can't exist without it.
I wouldn't relegate Fuzz to an old people pedal.
When used properly, it's unpredictable, like trying to tame a mammoth with a stick and a string.
I've even used it a bit with my psychobilly band on some covers. Very useful.

I don't know exactly why, but when I use my EHX Big Muff Pi, I feel dirty afterwards.
And I like it.

 

[telemnemonics]

that's a good one, yeah. blowtorch approves
My main fuzz these days is a BLoacout Effectors Musket. It can cover everythingI want a fuzz to do, and always sounds powerful and awesome
View attachment 1036575

Zatta custom shop version or something?
I have three and none are that groovy?
One here today, my board is swapping around a lot but lately I have a Musket AND a Blunderbuss on the board.

 

[blowtorch]

Zatta custom shop version or something?
I have three and none are that groovy?
One here today, my board is swapping around a lot but lately I have a Musket AND a Blunderbuss on the board.
View attachment 1036581

It's simply the cheapest used one I could find while I was looking. I was actually worried that it wasn't the genuine article, but when I took it apart I saw the tag that's in that picture. I do assume that the cheap price was due to the swirl paint job

 

[telemnemonics]

Love my Ennio Fuzz Trinity Edition. Beautiful range of tones and not just fuzz. Based on a Maestro I think. Hadn't been in a garagepunk band for decades and needed tons of fuzz. I lost quite a bit by splurging on what seemed like the best pedal(s) for certain songs before I got this.

Spaghettitone?

 

[blowtorch]

Careful there torchy yer getting close to West Side Story with yer prose...

That's fine, until they start dancin...
shooting for more Harlan Ellisonian, actually. You ever read his pulp JD stuff?

 

[telemnemonics]

It's simply the cheapest used one I could find while I was looking. I was actually worried that it wasn't the genuine article, but when I took it apart I saw the tag that's in that picture. I do assume that the cheap price was due to the swirl paint job

Interesting, certainly looks like a legit label, maybe made toward the end before they went under and they hand painted an enclosure?
Mine all have lower serial numbers but maybe they changed the numbering and yours is an early prototype?
Killer pedals

 

[telemnemonics]

That's fine, until they start dancin...
shooting for more Harlan Ellisonian, actually. You ever read his pulp JD stuff?

Not familiar, just thought Id point out how it might appear to others, like my wife who digs WSS.
Me I cringe...

 

[blowtorch]

Killer pedals

Killer indeed

 

[blowtorch]

Not familiar, just thought Id point out how it might appear to others, like my wife who digs WSS.
Me I cringe...

buddy of mine used to tell me "you know a lot of showtunes, for a tough guy"

 

[telemnemonics]

buddy of mine used to tell me "you know a lot of showtunes, for a tough guy"

Had some difficulty with my wife and her whole family liking MUSICALS.
They got me to at least tolerate the marque with Coen Brothers.
Sorry, from fuzzz to musicals is a sorry a$$ drift.

Here we go, a small sampling of my other family...

 

[debrad]

I am an absolute fuzz junkie. My favourites are the more gated velcro type tones but I definitely love 'em all!

 

[telemnemonics]

Fun & uncommon from the archives, top is a Fix'd fuzz deluxe clone

 

[CV Jee Beez]

I like fuzz.

I use OD more often but, I think that has to do with the fact that most of my playing is done alone at my house.

In a mix, fuzz always brings something positive.

Muffs don't cut but are a great substrate for vocals. Tone Benders cut and can sound real vocal. Fuzz Faces are great for fattening up signal coils.

All the ragged stuff they impart really ties the room together (

for my Lebowski fans).

 

[CV Jee Beez]

that's a good one, yeah. blowtorch approves
My main fuzz these days is a Blackout Effectors Musket. It can cover everything I want a fuzz to do, and always sounds powerful and awesome
View attachment 1036575

I've had three Musket V2 pedals and probably want to get one again. Wren and Cuff Green Russian is similar as both are relatively low output. The Level is pretty far up before you get to unity.

 

[Greenmachine]

Fuzz is amazing. But like most pedals, there's a time and place for it.

 

[cyclopean]

My silicon fuzz face clone has become my almost-always-on pedal. I love the way I can go from clean to overdrive to nasty with the guitar volume knob.

I'd still like to try a Big Muff and the Behringer Super Fuzz.

The clean boost on that behringer pedal is really under rated.

 

[cyclopean]

maybe I should have said "cleaner". Not all bacon fry! To me, the fuzz in the song Satisfaction is marginally clean, not all nasty and garbly, just a buzzsaw!

For me, fuzz is for going all out, and I’m more likely to use an OD or something like a distortion + if i don’t want that kind of firepower. Or maybe even just a loud clean boost.