I have 3 fuzzes on my board. My favorite is definitely the Keeley Darkside, the "full" setting on the fuzz really fixes what i never liked about the Big Muff and gives me back my mids. Second would be the Fuzz on the Morley Tel-Ray Power Wah Fuzz. It's just a completely different kind of fuzz sound and looking at then schematic i have no idea if its based on something or an original circuit and it runs on 120vAC. It has a very gated sound unless you turn your volume almost off to where it becomes a nice smooth fuzz, It seems like the gain is always on full and the Intensity knob almost works as a blend. When only the fuzz is engaged the treadle controls the amount of wet signal you get from it, unless you turn on the wah in which case the treadle is a wah. I love the way you can blend the fuzz and dry signal as i typically run my amps on the edge of breakup and i can get both the fuzz and natual overdrive of the amp at the same time.
thanks for this. i had always avoided fuzz, and have just recently started to play with them. i have grabbed a handful of different ones, currently been enjoying the sputnik 3 by spaceman
Rx Experience, pre LED, I just keep going back to it, it cleans up for me, rides that edge of break up, and gores way the F over with a epi lp. When the octave is on, I like it stacked into a rat octave and then/or into a muff. The stacked, two dissimilar dirt octaves seem fun.
Fuzz has always been one of those effects that when I hear someone else playing through it, I think: "Man that sounds great!" The second I plug into one, I find my self saying: "Is this the same pedal? It doesn't sound right."
Man i hear ya. I keep persisting .. currently a fuzzface mini, but yeah i just can't get it to work and sound good whenever i kick it in. Other people do the exact same thing as me and i go, yeah that sounds cool
Was going to write almost the same thing. I’m assuming it’s a setup issue for me. I have heard that on some Pedals, they work best on certain places in the neck, so that Might be part of it too, not fully understanding its limitations. I also tend to like mid range guitar tones. And I’m not sure that mixes as well with fuzzes. Some really good tips in this video.
As Brian says in the vid, you've got to play with the fuzz. It's interactive, note by note. That said, I still have that problem sometimes with Muff-based fuzzes, so if what you've been playing is Muffs, try something else. DOD Carcosa is an inexpensive pedal that's more compelling in real life than in demos. Very versatile and responsive.
What I’ve found works best for me on fuzz is have it first in the chain followed by a buffer, set fuzz pedal volume at about unity, maybe a bit higher, and fuzz all the way up, then get everything setup so I can roll back the volume on the guitar to 5/6 to clean up the fuzz, then I can roll the volume up until I like the amount of fuzz.
@@Seriouslycantplayguitar Like, I want it to sound like there's a 1 and 3/16" tear going diagonally just under the magnet... nothing more, nothing less. Oh crap, I played one bar through it, now I'll never get that sound again.
Fuckin' 'ell Brian... This channel is SUCH a cool little authentic corner of tonal deliberation, on this RUclips thing. Love ya, man - best regards from the UK!
Just bought the Fuzztration. As someone who loves the sounds other people are getting from their fuzzes while being pathetically incapable of getting good sounds out of a fuzz myself, I do appreciate the 3-band EQ and the way that it helps me sculpt a fuzz sound that I can work with. And the independent Octave is awesome. I can now have octave on any drive sound I want. Well done, guys.
I definitely prefer fuzz into a dirty amp. At least needs to be edge of breakup with the Fuzz pushing the amp into overdrive and Fuzz to taste. Also worth noting that fuzzes with a very scooped sound, will likely sound harsher and even get lost in the mix with an amp that is voiced scooped like a Fender or many modern high gain amps. I find the scooped sounding pedals work best into an amp that is very mid focused like a Marshall or Vox.
I've always wondered if using a wireless system would interfere with the ability to make glassy tones from a fuzz. You specifically addressed that in the video. Thanks for keeping some cash in my pocket!
I've found putting my fuzz pedal (various big muffs) in my amps effects loop changes the characteristics of it dramatically, and often for the better. It behaves well by itself on the clean channel, and gets really "the amp is melting" on the drive channel if you let it. Cleans up well too; have tried it on a variety of valve and SS amps. Food for thought!
My older ears caught on to that scarab "sound" right off. Love your description of how tone should expand out from under your fingers. The right fuzz got Geddy Lee to go with a Fender Bass set up after cutting his teeth with Rickenbacker. BITD so many trying to "get it right" playing guitar through bass amps etc. Now, too many options making it too ...?? Thanks for the video.
I love fuzz pedals. The ones I have kept are a germanium mini Fuzz Face, a silicon mini Fuzz Face, an old Russian Big Muff Pi (BLACK NOT GREEN), and the one I use most of the time now is a Keeley Fuzz Bender. For a “traditional” fuzz tone, I go with the mini silicon Fuzz Face over the others. For whacky stuff, I go with the Fuzz Bender. The black Russian Big Muff I use for more “Black Sabbathy” stuff, and some old Santana licks if you can believe that! Also, on the topic of into clean or dirty, I go into clean amps. Further on that topic, I’m a huge fan of stacking pedals, but RARELY use a fuzz with another effect (except a uní-vibe type thing on occasion) and almost never with another “dirt” pedal.
Just throwing this out... there’s something really cool about that “sizzle” that you get with putting a buffer before a fuzz face. Once I accidentally once put a buffer before my germ fuzz face (I was using the Voodoo Lab Pedal Switcher and was accidentally plugged into the buffer input) and I was pleasantly shocked. I quickly figured out what was going on, but I dug the extra craziness and now keep a true bypass buffer boost before my fuzz face when I want the effect. Easy magic. Thanks for the video!
Love IT!!! Here in Brasil the price is really high, so usually we can`t make collections, but a have a couple os Fuzz pedals. Love them all. even the cheap Chinese ones. My peronal favorite is a clone of Zvex Fuzz Factory. (Got no money for a original one).
Great explanation on that "you have to feel your fuzz"... it's not overdrive or distortion... It's kinda a one note only thing. You pick up a heavy fuzz and play it, with a little bend on the note and you can achieve different harmonics with different fuzzes. It is indeed a "instrument on their own"
I love all of the fuzz. Silicon Fuzz Face. Germanium Fuzz Face. Tonebenders I, I.5, II, III. All of the Big Muffs. Bee Baa. All of the variations people have created. It's so much fun to explore and so easy to radically change your tone.
Yes! Outstanding video........I’ve had this topic on my mind as I’ve been trying to decide on what Fuzz pedal would work best for my personal setup. Getting great results from Fuzz can be a tricky/frustrating/expensive journey....... Thanks Brian
One of my fav of your videos so far, thank you! I’ve not cracked the secret of fuzzes yet, and your sharing your experimenting with us is so so useful. I learned tons.
I like EHX Green Big Muff овердрайв when I want to play a tune...and Wampler Velvet Fuzz when I want to play a fuzz pedal, haha. The EHX seems to give me something coherent to work with. But on very rare occasion I sit down and just relax, I can can plug into Velvet Fuzz pedal, and just give it something to eat. It IS the instrument...I could chill for hours with Velvet Fuzz pedal and headphones...it's hypnotic to me...as someone who is mostly still into 80's high gain metal. I've purchased several fuzz pedals in 30+ years...hated them all and gave them away. Now, I have the EHX овердрайв and Wampler Velvet Fuzz...love them...they're all I need for this type of sounds. Thank you, Wampler!
I often run a fuzz (Way Huge Havalinea, Tone Bender style) into a booster or overdrive, usually my Spark Booster (set up more like a very light OD) when I want a sound of a Fuzz into an overdriving amp - and it's great! It's very different types of sound and works wonders - and the Havalina can sound absolutely MASSIVE with the right overdrive.
I can spend a lot of time messing with my fuzz pedals to get a decent sound. When I think I finally got it, I realize it’s starting to sound like my Overdrives, and then I put the fuzzes away. But this is very helpful, Brian. Thank you.
I didn't used to like fuzz pedals but in the last couple of months I have become a fan. I scratch built a silicon Fuzz Face because I had parts here from a couple of other projects and had gotten one of those $20 Azor 303 Fuzzes (Big Muff Pi clone) as that circuit is a lot more involved than a FF and the parts were going to run more than the completed pedal (but I'd have enough parts for a dozen pedals of the same thing, lol). Because there must be two thousand fuzz designs sold ... perhaps a follow up video is breaking down a family tree of all the types out there. I'm sure you have most of the fuzzes made for benchmarking purposes so you can pop the backs off and identify what each is. Make a white board chart of "these are all a FF with a extra mids or bass knobs", "this is a BMP style with a distortion pedal added", "this is like a single knob RAT", and so on. You might identify new product holes in the market this way too ;)
I like to blend two fuzzes in my mix of two amps to get that sweet wall of noise that I love. Russian muff in one side, and a modified fuzz face on the other. It's amazing
This proves fuzz faces and let's say big muff fuzzes for starters are simply different things. Many fuzzes are. It's not just overdrive, distortion and "the fuzzes". Every fuzz type is a chapter on its own. When you go deeper into it, you'll find not so much people hate fuzz, but only some fuzzes. life is complicated. :)
Dirty or clean partly depends on how much you love fuzz. If you really love fuzz, why would you want it obscured by other dirt? Muffs sound better with clean amps. Gated and velcro fuzzes sound better with clean amps, or just a tiny bit of hair. Octave fuzzes sometimes like just a bit of dirt. Fuzz Face-derived pedals sound better with dirt, usually. Of my 5 or 6 fuzz pedals, only one of them really sounds better with a dirty amp.
The swollen pickle is the granddaddy big muff to me, when it’s not pumping a clean twin it’s pumping a DS1 into that twin. Or maybe if I’m far enough away from the Marshall I’ll route the fuzz there LOL
I've always struggled with finding uses for the fuzz tones in my playing. I really like rolling back the volume but have found that to be finicky with most fuzzes. Plus the impedance issues with where you place it the chain and having buffers before or after are a bit of a headache. For me they end up being more trouble than they are worth. I absolutely love the sounds that others get with them though.
Yes, I love fuzz pedals, especially my current one, the Keeley FuzzHead. It reacts with the guitar volume controls and your picking dynamics, I use mine into a 100 watt tube half stack, set at the threshold of clipping. Great show as always!
I have several fuzz pedals Fuzzlord Drone Master is my number 1 but also enjoy EQD Hoof Reaper, Blammo, EQD Life Pedal v2 and Dongemac germanium with Range Master boost. Your Tele and rig sound amazing!!
I play with a replica of the Roland BeeBaa that my friend helped me build for myself. It's really great but it doesn't clean up like the typical fuzz face. I hope to build myself another fuzz that will do that in the future as I think that's a really cool feature. I do prefer fuzz into a distorted amp or ahead of an overdrive pedal instead of a clean amp.
Another great video! This fuzz glutton approves! I adore the, “Boost,” channel of my Triple Wreck; gets nice and fuzzy! These days, I run a Pantheon into a Hoof; goes into a souped up MIG-50. Doom for days.
First & foremost, that Tele is awesome! Okay now to the video. I'm a dirt pedal junkie, mainly OD pedals (currently running a Chicago Stompworks TS808 clone), but recently bought my first Fuzz (Green Russian Big Muff clone) but have been disappointed because i haven"t been able to get that Fuzz tone out of it. I like running my dirt into a dirty (Tube) amp. After watching this video, I think I've learned my problem, the volume on my guitar is too low. Thanks for the info. P.S.- I'm a Single-coil/P-90 player.
I sure love the sound of a fuzz pedal, and in the right hands they sound amazing. My favorite is the Analogman NKT 275 red dot. I haven't had a chance to try a Wampler fuzz yet, but the fuzztration with octave sounds fun. Also love the Clean tones when a fuzz face style circuit has the volume rolled back.
I've never enjoyed for myself when I play fuzz into a clean amp. I find it too brittle for my tastes. Into a crunchy or dirty amp, I find it's warmer, spongier, and smoother, more conducive to my playing style. I love the recent op-amp Big Muff and Outlaw Effect Five O'clock fuzz
I’ve only really in the last year started getting into fuzz. It hadn’t really intrigued me before. But now I love it. I’ve tried various fuzz faces and similar devices. I’ve tried 1 tonebender clone and a few muff style circuits. So far I definitely lean towards the fuzz face/tonebender camp. But I’m open try try out a bunch!! Fuzz seems so interestingly me now due to the very instrument like nature to them.
It's pretty 50/50 in my experience. What sounds ok is also subjective though so there really isn't a right or wrong answer. Usually if there's germanium transistors, I don't like how it sounds after a buffer. I've got roughly 40 fuzz pedals and prefer nearly all of them first but they aren't necessarily bad otherwise. It's insane how much impedence can change sound, even on clean tones. If you ever have a chance to use an HX stomp/helix, dial in any tone, clean or dirty and then just go through all the different input impedences. I just suggest that since you rarely will have a way to accurately control it otherwise. With a clean tone, it can go from sounding like a bassy jazz chorus to a biting vox just by going to lowest to highest. It's not exactly the same as this but it's a really good way to hear it and understand it.
Michael Scott when you have long cables or a lot of pedals between the guitar and amp you build capacitance which causes signal loss and changes the tone of the guitar. A buffer helps to counteract that signal loss, and a lot of people will put either a buffer pedal or a pedal with a buffered bypass as the first pedal in their chain. An example of a popular pedal with a buffered bypass are boss pedals. Some fuzz pedals, such as a fuzz face, don’t react well to being behind a buffer so you’d want the buffer behind the fuzz instead of in front of it.
as someone who records and mixes guitar in rock tracks, I can see taking the tone of the fuzz through a dirty amp and having to spend a ton of time eq'ing it just to get a little bit of clarity from the notes. That said, I wouldn't be surprised to be surprised.
I really love fuzz sounds, but my biggest problem is I just fool around and make noises more than I play anything that sounds like music, but it's fun! I am quite fond of my Velvet, but I think the sweetest I ever tried was the Black Arts Pharaoh Fuzz in the germanium setting. Sadly, I did never buy that one... My oddest one is probably the Black Cat OD/Fuzz combo with Si/Ge selection. It's very versatile, but maybe a bit much for me, I'm simple.
Yeah, I tend to just mess around I've I turn the fuzz on too. It's cool though - run it through reverse reverb and stop every 7 or so minutes and you'll soon have a killer shoegaze record.
I have an original Mike Fuller 69 Pedal. Aside from a Fuzz Face it’s the only one I’ve ever owned. It’s versatile and has an amazing range via the guitar’s volume control. I’m powering it with a GigRig 9 volt battery simulator that sits in the pedal like a regular battery. That makes a difference in natural sound compared to a standard 9V adapter cable. It’s an odd pedal because of the negative pin on the adapter port.
Eric Johnson with FuzzFace in His Rig It sounds Like He's Getting Violin-ish Tone's that are really sweet.. Fuzz Can sometimes be Construed as a Crude Distortion Then again Like Brian say's Some are really Creamy…. Those I like
Love the different fuzz flavors! I have EQD hoof reaper which has muff circuit and tone bender. Great options both. Loved the Fuzztration in this video too.
Love your explanations man! I usually play through a clean amp and prefer a fuzz that will clean up with my volume knob so I don’t have to turn it off and on so much. Then if I want something a little extra I’ll stack an mild overdrive pedal behind it. 🎸🎼✌🏻
Do you call the Wampler office the "Wamp Lair?" Just wondering (probably heard that one before)... I like how the volume knob on a tele style guitar is an extension of the effects chain. If you have the volume set at about half, the possibilities are amazing. In particular TS style overdrive sounds ring true for me. Not a big Fuzz player. Maybe I need to try it...
@@theccarbiter Certainly. Good catch. Always love to reach for... just a little bit more Overdrive! I am a single coil performer and have been digging into my tele more lately. Sorry for the confusion.
What's weird is: When you're in a position where enough people are familiar with your tone, to want to emulate it, you're also suffering permanent hearing damage. Then those kids who copied your shitty tone...some of them hit the big time, tour for years, fuck up their hearing, and keep twiddling the knobs so it sounds the way it used to, until, eventually, their fucked up tone influences another generation. Joking aside: Great tone doesn't make great music. Great music makes great tone. If you make the next big rock classic, using a tone that's considered shitty today, it won't be considered shitty tomorrow, that's for sure. So people should prolly chill out about the tone thing, and just write more music
I've got the EHX Big Muff Pi, EHX Cock Fight and surprisingly the Joyo Voodoo Octave (Octave Fuzz) is good too. And yes you can hear the creaminess and extra sustain with the driven amp.
Absolutely love fuzz pedals. A little too much. Have the large Dunlop Hendrix silicon bc108 (like it a lot), the Dunlop large and small BOG fuzz-ish one (love it), the Dunlop Gypsy Fuzz, 2 Octavios (small and cheese wedge), Arbiter late ‘90s reissue with NKT275 red dot germanium, Analogman Sun Face with BC183, Wren & Caprid Your Face 70s silicon with bias, low cut and buffer adapter mods, Wren & Caprid Your Face 70s silicon BC183 with bias, and low cut mods, the Basic Audio Scarab Deluxe, and a few more. If we’re including Big Muffs and clones, I won’t even go into all that I have. And, for good measure, I have my RAT2 that I got in ‘89. Clearly I need to sell a few pedals and get on of yours! I like them all, but my favorites are as follows. The BOG has a very specific use in some of my songs - love it. I do really like the Arbiter reissue - I like it so much, I got rid of my other germanium fuzzes. Really like the Dunlop Hendrix big round blue BC108, but I find the W&C 70s Your Face give me more options for switching between single coils and humbuckers. The Analogman BC183 is amazing. My biggest issue is that I like to run my Wah in front of fuzz. If I had to choose, I’d have to choose 3 - one of the Gypsys (probably the Gypsy fuzz for the tone control), the W&C 70s BC108, and my Scarab Deluxe. The Scarab is fantastic, and being a tone bender derived clone, necessary for a whole other swath of my songs. All going into a dirty amp.
Yes. It's a great video. Yes, more of this tech-ey type stuff. The various stages of dirt boxes in general & how to read a schem along w/ it is fun. I know you've covered both of those - but maybe you'd present it differently than you would have as you're presentation is ever- evolving. ... Maybe have the Pelican Noise guys on a zoom call to explain the Pelitaur as well.
Euphorya for little crunch always on and one proco or triple wreck .....I made this pedals with Ero, Phillips, silver mica, wima caps..... Sounds great. Wampler has excellent design....
The Velvet Fuzz is my favorite, of course! I play it through a clean amp. The Fuzz Face is more diverse than a Big Muff, imo. Sounds good clean and melds with amp gain well. I tend to prefer Big Muffs in a clean amp.
I've been playing into a ever so slightly dirty amp pairing the Velvet Fuzz and Greer Lightspeed Overdrive together,,, It's just pure sonic magic .... Note: my Ibanez AZ pickups probably plays a big role... But for the Creamy lead tone players that don't want to lose the lead notes in the mudd ... it's well worth a try
Requirement for good tone with fuzz (and all dirt pedals really): 1. Full tube amp 2. Cranked master volume. Sims/Solid States don't take these pedals well. They need power tube saturation for their magic to happen
i dont know about that put a mini fuzz face with my marshall DSL sounds good.Put it into my my tonemaster twin reverb which is solid state sounded way better,
One thing that don't be discussed much is, lower output pickups sound better with most fuzz pedals . there is usually just too much low end with hotter pickups .
I find even lowering the pickups can make a big difference, so can tone caps and pio caps work better with fuzz than something like a orange drop. With pio I can mix the sound with the dirt channel better than with a orange drop type IDK why, value is the same. Orange drop types tend too make the amp fart out sooner. IMO.
Fuzzes are fun! I've never used them in any of the bands I've been in, but on my own, I've had fun with them. because like you say, with Fuzz, you kind of Play the pedal, and interact with it. and that's really fun. I've also experimented wit mixing Fuzz and Distortion in parallel. Here, the possibilities are almost endless, because of all the different types of fuzz and types Distortion. so the combinations are almost endless.
I like some fuzzes in some applications (as you noted in the video, this is key). The Velvet Fuzz is far and away my favorite. I need to save up and get one.
Whaaaattt???? Some poeple hate fuzz?? Whats wrong with them? My current favorite is the green russian reissue big muff pi, sounds amazing...on bass of course!! ;))
Yes! I’m mainly a bassist and I only have 3 pedals in my board, GR muff was my first pick in that board (the others are SD and the Micro Amp). I’m thinking of buying another one for my guitar board and maybe another one just because... reasons? Best fuzz I’ve used and tried by a bit.
Was literally just thinking this! How can you NOT love the sound of fuzz?! 😂😂 Sure it's not going to get you the right tone for every occasion, especially if you're doing covers, but if I'm writing something that calls for high gain, I already know I'm putting a fuzz on it! 😋
Clean or dirty channel works for me, just a tad of gain needed if you're on the dirty channel, although I imagine that depends on the fuzz you have. Ive got a pre production North Effects 'Muthafuzza', and I really like the harmonics and overtones I randomly get. Also fuzz can be good for darkening an overly bright amp imo.
My FF circuit has s9018 in q1 and q2 also but q2 I Sziklai paired with a GT320A and I run a Triple LED clip. Blue in Q1 feedback loop green in q2 and Red hard clipping before the volume pot. All set up to flash. I have Bias and Volume as my only controls the rest are trimmers inside.. It's pretty much all I needed is Sziklai Paired NPN PNP Si-G Bazz Fuss and FF with LED clipping. The only other fuzz I use is a π with the Scoop to boost FET build I run two amps and noticed when I run a heavily biased towards that gated 2bit tones.. That the high gain amp can return all the sustain back if I want it too and I can keep the other amp closer to a clean and retain the gated edginess.
Current favorite? Two. My eternal favorite, the Swollen Pickle, mk3, I think it is. And the Cuvave Fuzz. Sick, broken glitchy fuzz sounds for 20 bucks. I like glitchy broken fuzz sounds a la QOTSA, and Whitest Stripes. And I like doomy/stonery bassy, zoned out fuzz of the Univox Super Fuzz. Don't know any artists in this genre, as I think I only like to play it, but not listen to it, like everyone else. Open to suggestions!
I doubted this even after this video but I ran a Way Huge Russian Pickle into the front of the crunch channel of my Peavey Ultra 60 and really spent time dialing in the tone and it sounds amazing
I like my Velvet Fuzz into a mostly clean amp. a dirty amp would feel different, but I practice at home so I have to be a bit careful not to give everyone at home a headache with load guitar playing.
Bc108 and mid 70s violet muffs are my favorites, into a HOT hiwatt. When the amp is too clean or not enough "pre" they lack depth... imo when I say hot, it's just starting to distort Problem is dr103 into a 2x12, to sound it's best with a fuzz, will kill the neighbors cats, dogs and take the paint off sign posts
LOVE FUZZ. Got a Analog.Man NKT 🔴. Best pedal on my board. I also feel like through a dirty amp you lose high end from the fuzz. I think the clean is better.
Fuzzes I’ve tried - Dunlop germanium Fuzz Face, Hubcap John germanium Fuzz Face clone, TL Pedals Stinger Fuzz (Ram’s Head with sweepable mids), TL Pedals Z-Gold Fuzz (sub octave, not sure what it’s based on), Love Pedal Monkey Fist (lots of cool artifacts depending on pedal settings, position on the neck, and guitar controls... octave up, sub octaves and a weird ring mod sort of sound), Visual Sound Angry Fuzz (octave up Fuzz with variable octave control).
Hey Brian! Big fan of the channel, the pedals and the podcast. Thanks for all the content. Question: is there a pedal that gives you a fuzz-face-with-the-volume-rolled-off sound? If not, why? Not doable, maybe...? Cheers
I used to hate fuzz tones, since I'm getting to know them through the bands I've been discovering (stoner doom sludge metal mainly) and the multitude of ways one can use a fuzz, I now love them! Bought a DOD Carcosa and been experimenting with it with an overdrive pedal (OCD clone) I've been getting sweet tones from classic Hendrix like rock up to the monstrous avalanche of square wave distortions that excel in Stoner Doom Metal. Great video! I've enjoyed it very much! Do you have a video on types of distortions interaction with each other (fuzz --> overdrive/distortion)?
I had a Keeley Dark Side and liked it but it's kind of one of those things where you have to mess with it quite a bit and can't just change sounds easily on the fly. I wound up trading it straight up for a Texan Twang Pedal Pawn from Chris King Robinson and I'm happy with the trade. Pedal Pawn actually makes a sweet fuzz pedal as well. Check out Eric Gales and Chris Buck doing a demo of it.
My favorite fuzz is the Function(fx) Clusterfuzz, but I never hear about anyone else playing one, I think my finger is never on the pulse of what the people like.
I like the Fuzz creamy with a dirty amp, but the problem is understanding the right Gain of the amp and the right Gain of the fuzz, otherwise the sound is muddled, there is little information on this
here's another example , overdrives vs clean and dirty amps - i am from back when you slammed the front of a dirty amp with an over drive pedal. nowadays there are a lot of overdrives that sound great through a clean amp and crappy on a dirty amp we need to figure out what pedal is right for each situation
Thank you for the vid! An excellent demo. I confess to a love-hate relationship with fuzz. I like the sound into my cranked amps, but not with the guitar vol. flat out. To me, fuzz is good up to about 90-95% of the travel on the vol. pot. But that last little bit: it just seems to lose all top end and definition. Telecaster, Les Paul, PRS: same thing. Tonebender Mk2, Mk 1.5 or Fuzzface, same thing. That last few % of vol. is just useless.
Totally unrelated but I bought my 1st Wampler pedal this week, the Dracarys. I love it! On topic, I always run my fuzz into a slightly breaking up amp,
Another video, that gave me gas for Fuzz face ... damn. Great video, liked Fuzzface and Velvet fuzz for clean and dirty, the others more with dirty amp. PS: will you have Santa Claus full beard, if you let it grow?
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Comment below: Do you like fuzz pedals? If yes, what’s your current favorite?
If no, which ones have you tried?
Heck yeah fuzz is awesome! Favorite fuzz, well for me, I love my Velvet Fuzz. It is so versatile and usable. Great job on that one Brian!
I have 3 fuzzes on my board. My favorite is definitely the Keeley Darkside, the "full" setting on the fuzz really fixes what i never liked about the Big Muff and gives me back my mids. Second would be the Fuzz on the Morley Tel-Ray Power Wah Fuzz. It's just a completely different kind of fuzz sound and looking at then schematic i have no idea if its based on something or an original circuit and it runs on 120vAC. It has a very gated sound unless you turn your volume almost off to where it becomes a nice smooth fuzz, It seems like the gain is always on full and the Intensity knob almost works as a blend. When only the fuzz is engaged the treadle controls the amount of wet signal you get from it, unless you turn on the wah in which case the treadle is a wah. I love the way you can blend the fuzz and dry signal as i typically run my amps on the edge of breakup and i can get both the fuzz and natual overdrive of the amp at the same time.
thanks for this. i had always avoided fuzz, and have just recently started to play with them. i have grabbed a handful of different ones, currently been enjoying the sputnik 3 by spaceman
It’s a struggle. I want a clear fuzz and an octave fuzz..
Rx Experience, pre LED, I just keep going back to it, it cleans up for me, rides that edge of break up, and gores way the F over with a epi lp. When the octave is on, I like it stacked into a rat octave and then/or into a muff. The stacked, two dissimilar dirt octaves seem fun.
Fuzz has always been one of those effects that when I hear someone else playing through it, I think: "Man that sounds great!" The second I plug into one, I find my self saying: "Is this the same pedal? It doesn't sound right."
Man i hear ya. I keep persisting .. currently a fuzzface mini, but yeah i just can't get it to work and sound good whenever i kick it in. Other people do the exact same thing as me and i go, yeah that sounds cool
Was going to write almost the same thing. I’m assuming it’s a setup issue for me. I have heard that on some Pedals, they work best on certain places in the neck, so that Might be part of it too, not fully understanding its limitations.
I also tend to like mid range guitar tones. And I’m not sure that mixes as well with fuzzes.
Some really good tips in this video.
Play with yr volume on guitar
As Brian says in the vid, you've got to play with the fuzz. It's interactive, note by note. That said, I still have that problem sometimes with Muff-based fuzzes, so if what you've been playing is Muffs, try something else. DOD Carcosa is an inexpensive pedal that's more compelling in real life than in demos. Very versatile and responsive.
What I’ve found works best for me on fuzz is have it first in the chain followed by a buffer, set fuzz pedal volume at about unity, maybe a bit higher, and fuzz all the way up, then get everything setup so I can roll back the volume on the guitar to 5/6 to clean up the fuzz, then I can roll the volume up until I like the amount of fuzz.
Brian, You’re not just a gear head. I’ve noticed you’re actually a great musician as well.
Thanks so much :-)
And get the tumnus regular and the pantheon and u will have a rig of a lifetime
Guitarists: "You can hear the creaminess"
Regular people: "Sorry what?"
“It’s falling apart perfectly”
@@Seriouslycantplayguitar Like, I want it to sound like there's a 1 and 3/16" tear going diagonally just under the magnet... nothing more, nothing less. Oh crap, I played one bar through it, now I'll never get that sound again.
Guitarists: which sounds better, this one or that one?
Regular people: they sound exactly the same.
I hear the creaminess. Lovely
I must be a regular person....
Fuckin' 'ell Brian... This channel is SUCH a cool little authentic corner of tonal deliberation, on this RUclips thing.
Love ya, man - best regards from the UK!
Just bought the Fuzztration. As someone who loves the sounds other people are getting from their fuzzes while being pathetically incapable of getting good sounds out of a fuzz myself, I do appreciate the 3-band EQ and the way that it helps me sculpt a fuzz sound that I can work with. And the independent Octave is awesome. I can now have octave on any drive sound I want. Well done, guys.
I definitely prefer fuzz into a dirty amp. At least needs to be edge of breakup with the Fuzz pushing the amp into overdrive and Fuzz to taste. Also worth noting that fuzzes with a very scooped sound, will likely sound harsher and even get lost in the mix with an amp that is voiced scooped like a Fender or many modern high gain amps. I find the scooped sounding pedals work best into an amp that is very mid focused like a Marshall or Vox.
THANK YOU for the timeline breakdown!
Bought a Fuzztration and I couldn't be happier. Great addition to my fuzz family. Thank you, sir. Great video.
Fuzz is my favorite effect. In an ideal world I would have 2 overdrives, reverb, delay, and about 9 different fuzz types to choose from on my board.
I've always wondered if using a wireless system would interfere with the ability to make glassy tones from a fuzz. You specifically addressed that in the video. Thanks for keeping some cash in my pocket!
I've found putting my fuzz pedal (various big muffs) in my amps effects loop changes the characteristics of it dramatically, and often for the better. It behaves well by itself on the clean channel, and gets really "the amp is melting" on the drive channel if you let it. Cleans up well too; have tried it on a variety of valve and SS amps. Food for thought!
My older ears caught on to that scarab "sound" right off. Love your description of how tone should expand out from under your fingers. The right fuzz got Geddy Lee to go with a Fender Bass set up after cutting his teeth with Rickenbacker. BITD so many trying to "get it right" playing guitar through bass amps etc. Now, too many options making it too ...?? Thanks for the video.
I love fuzz pedals. The ones I have kept are a germanium mini Fuzz Face, a silicon mini Fuzz Face, an old Russian Big Muff Pi (BLACK NOT GREEN), and the one I use most of the time now is a Keeley Fuzz Bender.
For a “traditional” fuzz tone, I go with the mini silicon Fuzz Face over the others.
For whacky stuff, I go with the Fuzz Bender.
The black Russian Big Muff I use for more “Black Sabbathy” stuff, and some old Santana licks if you can believe that!
Also, on the topic of into clean or dirty, I go into clean amps. Further on that topic, I’m a huge fan of stacking pedals, but RARELY use a fuzz with another effect (except a uní-vibe type thing on occasion) and almost never with another “dirt” pedal.
Just throwing this out... there’s something really cool about that “sizzle” that you get with putting a buffer before a fuzz face. Once I accidentally once put a buffer before my germ fuzz face (I was using the Voodoo Lab Pedal Switcher and was accidentally plugged into the buffer input) and I was pleasantly shocked. I quickly figured out what was going on, but I dug the extra craziness and now keep a true bypass buffer boost before my fuzz face when I want the effect. Easy magic. Thanks for the video!
Love IT!!! Here in Brasil the price is really high, so usually we can`t make collections, but a have a couple os Fuzz pedals. Love them all. even the cheap Chinese ones. My peronal favorite is a clone of Zvex Fuzz Factory. (Got no money for a original one).
Great explanation on that "you have to feel your fuzz"... it's not overdrive or distortion... It's kinda a one note only thing. You pick up a heavy fuzz and play it, with a little bend on the note and you can achieve different harmonics with different fuzzes. It is indeed a "instrument on their own"
I love all of the fuzz. Silicon Fuzz Face. Germanium Fuzz Face. Tonebenders I, I.5, II, III. All of the Big Muffs. Bee Baa. All of the variations people have created. It's so much fun to explore and so easy to radically change your tone.
Current favorite: Keeley Black Glass OC 75. Rock n roll in a box.
Yes! Outstanding video........I’ve had this topic on my mind as I’ve been trying to decide on what Fuzz pedal
would work best for my personal setup. Getting great results from Fuzz can be a tricky/frustrating/expensive journey.......
Thanks Brian
One of my fav of your videos so far, thank you! I’ve not cracked the secret of fuzzes yet, and your sharing your experimenting with us is so so useful. I learned tons.
I like EHX Green Big Muff овердрайв when I want to play a tune...and Wampler Velvet Fuzz when I want to play a fuzz pedal, haha. The EHX seems to give me something coherent to work with. But on very rare occasion I sit down and just relax, I can can plug into Velvet Fuzz pedal, and just give it something to eat. It IS the instrument...I could chill for hours with Velvet Fuzz pedal and headphones...it's hypnotic to me...as someone who is mostly still into 80's high gain metal. I've purchased several fuzz pedals in 30+ years...hated them all and gave them away. Now, I have the EHX овердрайв and Wampler Velvet Fuzz...love them...they're all I need for this type of sounds. Thank you, Wampler!
I often run a fuzz (Way Huge Havalinea, Tone Bender style) into a booster or overdrive, usually my Spark Booster (set up more like a very light OD) when I want a sound of a Fuzz into an overdriving amp - and it's great! It's very different types of sound and works wonders - and the Havalina can sound absolutely MASSIVE with the right overdrive.
Probably the most concise and comprehensive Fuzz video I have seen. Excellent! Thank you. 👍
I can spend a lot of time messing with my fuzz pedals to get a decent sound. When I think I finally got it, I realize it’s starting to sound like my Overdrives, and then I put the fuzzes away. But this is very helpful, Brian. Thank you.
I didn't used to like fuzz pedals but in the last couple of months I have become a fan. I scratch built a silicon Fuzz Face because I had parts here from a couple of other projects and had gotten one of those $20 Azor 303 Fuzzes (Big Muff Pi clone) as that circuit is a lot more involved than a FF and the parts were going to run more than the completed pedal (but I'd have enough parts for a dozen pedals of the same thing, lol). Because there must be two thousand fuzz designs sold ... perhaps a follow up video is breaking down a family tree of all the types out there. I'm sure you have most of the fuzzes made for benchmarking purposes so you can pop the backs off and identify what each is. Make a white board chart of "these are all a FF with a extra mids or bass knobs", "this is a BMP style with a distortion pedal added", "this is like a single knob RAT", and so on. You might identify new product holes in the market this way too ;)
I like to blend two fuzzes in my mix of two amps to get that sweet wall of noise that I love. Russian muff in one side, and a modified fuzz face on the other. It's amazing
The cranked amp with the Pelitaur sounded really good
Dirty all the way for me. Clean with fuzz feels a bit harsh.
This proves fuzz faces and let's say big muff fuzzes for starters are simply different things. Many fuzzes are. It's not just overdrive, distortion and "the fuzzes". Every fuzz type is a chapter on its own. When you go deeper into it, you'll find not so much people hate fuzz, but only some fuzzes. life is complicated. :)
Dirty or clean partly depends on how much you love fuzz. If you really love fuzz, why would you want it obscured by other dirt? Muffs sound better with clean amps. Gated and velcro fuzzes sound better with clean amps, or just a tiny bit of hair. Octave fuzzes sometimes like just a bit of dirt. Fuzz Face-derived pedals sound better with dirt, usually. Of my 5 or 6 fuzz pedals, only one of them really sounds better with a dirty amp.
Fuzz Face style fuzzes sound better through slightly dirty amps. Big Muff style fuzzes sound better through completely clean amps.
I wish fuzz face circuits can sound better on clean amps.. because i like from totally clean to turn totally fuzzy
The swollen pickle is the granddaddy big muff to me, when it’s not pumping a clean twin it’s pumping a DS1 into that twin. Or maybe if I’m far enough away from the Marshall I’ll route the fuzz there LOL
Now that.......is some valuable information👍......thank you. Would you say that is the rule for lower gain Fuzz pedals in general?
I've always struggled with finding uses for the fuzz tones in my playing. I really like rolling back the volume but have found that to be finicky with most fuzzes. Plus the impedance issues with where you place it the chain and having buffers before or after are a bit of a headache. For me they end up being more trouble than they are worth. I absolutely love the sounds that others get with them though.
Yes, I love fuzz pedals, especially my current one, the Keeley FuzzHead. It reacts with the guitar volume controls and your picking dynamics, I use mine into a 100 watt tube half stack, set at the threshold of clipping. Great show as always!
Love that pedal, bet your rig is LOUD!
I have several fuzz pedals Fuzzlord Drone Master is my number 1 but also enjoy EQD Hoof Reaper, Blammo, EQD Life Pedal v2 and Dongemac germanium with Range Master boost. Your Tele and rig sound amazing!!
I play with a replica of the Roland BeeBaa that my friend helped me build for myself. It's really great but it doesn't clean up like the typical fuzz face. I hope to build myself another fuzz that will do that in the future as I think that's a really cool feature.
I do prefer fuzz into a distorted amp or ahead of an overdrive pedal instead of a clean amp.
Another great video! This fuzz glutton approves!
I adore the, “Boost,” channel of my Triple Wreck; gets nice and fuzzy!
These days, I run a Pantheon into a Hoof; goes into a souped up MIG-50.
Doom for days.
I see a video about fuzz pedals, I click the like button!
We’ve been waiting a lifetime for this . Thank you🙏
First & foremost, that Tele is awesome!
Okay now to the video. I'm a dirt pedal junkie, mainly OD pedals (currently running a Chicago Stompworks TS808 clone), but recently bought my first Fuzz (Green Russian Big Muff clone) but have been disappointed because i haven"t been able to get that Fuzz tone out of it. I like running my dirt into a dirty (Tube) amp. After watching this video, I think I've learned my problem, the volume on my guitar is too low. Thanks for the info.
P.S.- I'm a Single-coil/P-90 player.
Nice! Definitely enjoy the sound of a fuzz into an overdriven amp. Gives it a smoother sound to my ears.
I sure love the sound of a fuzz pedal, and in the right hands they sound amazing. My favorite is the Analogman NKT 275 red dot. I haven't had a chance to try a Wampler fuzz yet, but the fuzztration with octave sounds fun. Also love the Clean tones when a fuzz face style circuit has the volume rolled back.
Hi Wampler pedals! Rockweller from Singapore here! Great tonal explanation!
I've never enjoyed for myself when I play fuzz into a clean amp. I find it too brittle for my tastes. Into a crunchy or dirty amp, I find it's warmer, spongier, and smoother, more conducive to my playing style. I love the recent op-amp Big Muff and Outlaw Effect Five O'clock fuzz
I’ve only really in the last year started getting into fuzz. It hadn’t really intrigued me before. But now I love it. I’ve tried various fuzz faces and similar devices. I’ve tried 1 tonebender clone and a few muff style circuits. So far I definitely lean towards the fuzz face/tonebender camp. But I’m open try try out a bunch!! Fuzz seems so interestingly me now due to the very instrument like nature to them.
i might be wrong, but i think most modern fuzz circuits are ok being placed after a buffer. My DOD Carcosa doesn't seem to mind it at least.
It's pretty 50/50 in my experience. What sounds ok is also subjective though so there really isn't a right or wrong answer. Usually if there's germanium transistors, I don't like how it sounds after a buffer. I've got roughly 40 fuzz pedals and prefer nearly all of them first but they aren't necessarily bad otherwise. It's insane how much impedence can change sound, even on clean tones. If you ever have a chance to use an HX stomp/helix, dial in any tone, clean or dirty and then just go through all the different input impedences. I just suggest that since you rarely will have a way to accurately control it otherwise. With a clean tone, it can go from sounding like a bassy jazz chorus to a biting vox just by going to lowest to highest. It's not exactly the same as this but it's a really good way to hear it and understand it.
Easy problem to solve. All you need is a transformer pickup simulator.
Michael Scott when you have long cables or a lot of pedals between the guitar and amp you build capacitance which causes signal loss and changes the tone of the guitar. A buffer helps to counteract that signal loss, and a lot of people will put either a buffer pedal or a pedal with a buffered bypass as the first pedal in their chain. An example of a popular pedal with a buffered bypass are boss pedals. Some fuzz pedals, such as a fuzz face, don’t react well to being behind a buffer so you’d want the buffer behind the fuzz instead of in front of it.
as someone who records and mixes guitar in rock tracks, I can see taking the tone of the fuzz through a dirty amp and having to spend a ton of time eq'ing it just to get a little bit of clarity from the notes. That said, I wouldn't be surprised to be surprised.
I really love fuzz sounds, but my biggest problem is I just fool around and make noises more than I play anything that sounds like music, but it's fun! I am quite fond of my Velvet, but I think the sweetest I ever tried was the Black Arts Pharaoh Fuzz in the germanium setting. Sadly, I did never buy that one... My oddest one is probably the Black Cat OD/Fuzz combo with Si/Ge selection. It's very versatile, but maybe a bit much for me, I'm simple.
Yeah, I tend to just mess around I've I turn the fuzz on too. It's cool though - run it through reverse reverb and stop every 7 or so minutes and you'll soon have a killer shoegaze record.
@@mikeroberts817 I guess I have to record my stuff then! :)
Little Big Muff into clean amp, after a TS9 for tightening a bit, when required.
I have an original Mike Fuller 69 Pedal. Aside from a Fuzz Face it’s the only one I’ve ever owned. It’s versatile and has an amazing range via the guitar’s volume control. I’m powering it with a GigRig 9 volt battery simulator that sits in the pedal like a regular battery. That makes a difference in natural sound compared to a standard 9V adapter cable. It’s an odd pedal because of the negative pin on the adapter port.
Eric Johnson with FuzzFace in His Rig
It sounds Like He's Getting Violin-ish Tone's that are really sweet..
Fuzz Can sometimes be Construed as a Crude Distortion Then again
Like Brian say's Some are really Creamy…. Those I like
The swollen pickle I found works well for creamy stuff, but it’s the only fuzz I have besides the boss one.
Love the different fuzz flavors! I have EQD hoof reaper which has muff circuit and tone bender. Great options both. Loved the Fuzztration in this video too.
Love your explanations man! I usually play through a clean amp and prefer a fuzz that will clean up with my volume knob so I don’t have to turn it off and on so much. Then if I want something a little extra I’ll stack an mild overdrive pedal behind it. 🎸🎼✌🏻
Do you call the Wampler office the "Wamp Lair?" Just wondering (probably heard that one before)... I like how the volume knob on a tele style guitar is an extension of the effects chain. If you have the volume set at about half, the possibilities are amazing. In particular TS style overdrive sounds ring true for me. Not a big Fuzz player. Maybe I need to try it...
It works like that on all guitars' volume knobs not just tele style ones
Try a fuzz face, super sensitive to volume knob. Silicon if you want a brighter tone, germanium if you want a darker tone.
@@theccarbiter Certainly. Good catch. Always love to reach for... just a little bit more Overdrive! I am a single coil performer and have been digging into my tele more lately. Sorry for the confusion.
@@wharman1 All good
What's weird is: When you're in a position where enough people are familiar with your tone, to want to emulate it, you're also suffering permanent hearing damage. Then those kids who copied your shitty tone...some of them hit the big time, tour for years, fuck up their hearing, and keep twiddling the knobs so it sounds the way it used to, until, eventually, their fucked up tone influences another generation.
Joking aside: Great tone doesn't make great music. Great music makes great tone. If you make the next big rock classic, using a tone that's considered shitty today, it won't be considered shitty tomorrow, that's for sure.
So people should prolly chill out about the tone thing, and just write more music
Man, you wrote two very true and wise things here. Both quite sad truths somehow but stilll
Fuzz class thanks I needed this , I know nothing about fuzz or even how to use it 15 minutes ago !
I am loving the fuzzstration! Thank you
I've got the EHX Big Muff Pi, EHX Cock Fight and surprisingly the Joyo Voodoo Octave (Octave Fuzz) is good too. And yes you can hear the creaminess and extra sustain with the driven amp.
Absolutely love fuzz pedals. A little too much. Have the large Dunlop Hendrix silicon bc108 (like it a lot), the Dunlop large and small BOG fuzz-ish one (love it), the Dunlop Gypsy Fuzz, 2 Octavios (small and cheese wedge), Arbiter late ‘90s reissue with NKT275 red dot germanium, Analogman Sun Face with BC183, Wren & Caprid Your Face 70s silicon with bias, low cut and buffer adapter mods, Wren & Caprid Your Face 70s silicon BC183 with bias, and low cut mods, the Basic Audio Scarab Deluxe, and a few more. If we’re including Big Muffs and clones, I won’t even go into all that I have. And, for good measure, I have my RAT2 that I got in ‘89. Clearly I need to sell a few pedals and get on of yours! I like them all, but my favorites are as follows. The BOG has a very specific use in some of my songs - love it. I do really like the Arbiter reissue - I like it so much, I got rid of my other germanium fuzzes. Really like the Dunlop Hendrix big round blue BC108, but I find the W&C 70s Your Face give me more options for switching between single coils and humbuckers. The Analogman BC183 is amazing. My biggest issue is that I like to run my Wah in front of fuzz. If I had to choose, I’d have to choose 3 - one of the Gypsys (probably the Gypsy fuzz for the tone control), the W&C 70s BC108, and my Scarab Deluxe. The Scarab is fantastic, and being a tone bender derived clone, necessary for a whole other swath of my songs. All going into a dirty amp.
Yes. It's a great video. Yes, more of this tech-ey type stuff. The various stages of dirt boxes in general & how to read a schem along w/ it is fun. I know you've covered both of those - but maybe you'd present it differently than you would have as you're presentation is ever- evolving. ... Maybe have the Pelican Noise guys on a zoom call to explain the Pelitaur as well.
Euphorya for little crunch always on and one proco or triple wreck .....I made this pedals with Ero, Phillips, silver mica, wima caps..... Sounds great. Wampler has excellent design....
The Velvet Fuzz is my favorite, of course! I play it through a clean amp. The Fuzz Face is more diverse than a Big Muff, imo. Sounds good clean and melds with amp gain well. I tend to prefer Big Muffs in a clean amp.
I've been playing into a ever so slightly dirty amp pairing the Velvet Fuzz and Greer Lightspeed Overdrive together,,, It's just pure sonic magic .... Note: my Ibanez AZ pickups probably plays a big role... But for the Creamy lead tone players that don't want to lose the lead notes in the mudd ... it's well worth a try
Requirement for good tone with fuzz (and all dirt pedals really): 1. Full tube amp 2. Cranked master volume. Sims/Solid States don't take these pedals well. They need power tube saturation for their magic to happen
i dont know about that put a mini fuzz face with my marshall DSL sounds good.Put it into my my tonemaster twin reverb which is solid state sounded way better,
One thing that don't be discussed much is, lower output pickups sound better with most fuzz pedals . there is usually just too much low end with hotter pickups .
I find even lowering the pickups can make a big difference, so can tone caps and pio caps work better with fuzz than something like a orange drop. With pio I can mix the sound with the dirt channel better than with a orange drop type IDK why, value is the same. Orange drop types tend too make the amp fart out sooner. IMO.
Fuzzes are fun! I've never used them in any of the bands I've been in, but on my own, I've had fun with them. because like you say, with Fuzz, you kind of Play the pedal, and interact with it. and that's really fun. I've also experimented wit mixing Fuzz and Distortion in parallel. Here, the possibilities are almost endless, because of all the different types of fuzz and types Distortion. so the combinations are almost endless.
I like some fuzzes in some applications (as you noted in the video, this is key). The Velvet Fuzz is far and away my favorite. I need to save up and get one.
Whaaaattt???? Some poeple hate fuzz?? Whats wrong with them? My current favorite is the green russian reissue big muff pi, sounds amazing...on bass of course!! ;))
The GR reissue just rules so much. I'm a bass player too and love mine.
Yes! I’m mainly a bassist and I only have 3 pedals in my board, GR muff was my first pick in that board (the others are SD and the Micro Amp). I’m thinking of buying another one for my guitar board and maybe another one just because... reasons? Best fuzz I’ve used and tried by a bit.
Was literally just thinking this! How can you NOT love the sound of fuzz?! 😂😂 Sure it's not going to get you the right tone for every occasion, especially if you're doing covers, but if I'm writing something that calls for high gain, I already know I'm putting a fuzz on it! 😋
Man, that new camera is awesome!
Clean or dirty channel works for me, just a tad of gain needed if you're on the dirty channel, although I imagine that depends on the fuzz you have. Ive got a pre production North Effects 'Muthafuzza', and I really like the harmonics and overtones I randomly get. Also fuzz can be good for darkening an overly bright amp imo.
My FF circuit has s9018 in q1 and q2 also but q2 I Sziklai paired with a GT320A and I run a Triple LED clip. Blue in Q1 feedback loop green in q2 and Red hard clipping before the volume pot. All set up to flash. I have Bias and Volume as my only controls the rest are trimmers inside..
It's pretty much all I needed is Sziklai Paired NPN PNP Si-G Bazz Fuss and FF with LED clipping. The only other fuzz I use is a π with the Scoop to boost FET build
I run two amps and noticed when I run a heavily biased towards that gated 2bit tones.. That the high gain amp can return all the sustain back if I want it too and I can keep the other amp closer to a clean and retain the gated edginess.
Good video, thanks. I like the Germanium Fuzz Face
Would have been nice to hear you A/B the fuzzes between the clean and dirty amps.
Current favorite? Two. My eternal favorite, the Swollen Pickle, mk3, I think it is. And the Cuvave Fuzz. Sick, broken glitchy fuzz sounds for 20 bucks.
I like glitchy broken fuzz sounds a la QOTSA, and Whitest Stripes. And I like doomy/stonery bassy, zoned out fuzz of the Univox Super Fuzz. Don't know any artists in this genre, as I think I only like to play it, but not listen to it, like everyone else. Open to suggestions!
I doubted this even after this video but I ran a Way Huge Russian Pickle into the front of the crunch channel of my Peavey Ultra 60 and really spent time dialing in the tone and it sounds amazing
Nothing beats the velvet fuzz. Its killer
I am loving the Hawaii Pizza from Caroline Guitar Corporation and the Loaf by Big Ear Pedal. Very differ, but very awesome.
I like my Velvet Fuzz into a mostly clean amp. a dirty amp would feel different, but I practice at home so I have to be a bit careful not to give everyone at home a headache with load guitar playing.
Bc108 and mid 70s violet muffs are my favorites, into a HOT hiwatt. When the amp is too clean or not enough "pre" they lack depth... imo when I say hot, it's just starting to distort
Problem is dr103 into a 2x12, to sound it's best with a fuzz, will kill the neighbors cats, dogs and take the paint off sign posts
LOVE FUZZ. Got a Analog.Man NKT 🔴. Best pedal on my board. I also feel like through a dirty amp you lose high end from the fuzz. I think the clean is better.
Personally for me they work best on a breaking up tone as it colours the sound really well. In a clean channel it’s just too much all or nothing.
Fuzzes I’ve tried - Dunlop germanium Fuzz Face, Hubcap John germanium Fuzz Face clone, TL Pedals Stinger Fuzz (Ram’s Head with sweepable mids), TL Pedals Z-Gold Fuzz (sub octave, not sure what it’s based on), Love Pedal Monkey Fist (lots of cool artifacts depending on pedal settings, position on the neck, and guitar controls... octave up, sub octaves and a weird ring mod sort of sound), Visual Sound Angry Fuzz (octave up Fuzz with variable octave control).
Hey Brian! Big fan of the channel, the pedals and the podcast. Thanks for all the content. Question: is there a pedal that gives you a fuzz-face-with-the-volume-rolled-off sound? If not, why? Not doable, maybe...?
Cheers
Keep them coming like this one!!
That's another type of video that I like!!!!! You know, besides the geeky stuff :P
I used to hate fuzz tones, since I'm getting to know them through the bands I've been discovering (stoner doom sludge metal mainly) and the multitude of ways one can use a fuzz, I now love them! Bought a DOD Carcosa and been experimenting with it with an overdrive pedal (OCD clone) I've been getting sweet tones from classic Hendrix like rock up to the monstrous avalanche of square wave distortions that excel in Stoner Doom Metal. Great video! I've enjoyed it very much! Do you have a video on types of distortions interaction with each other (fuzz --> overdrive/distortion)?
The Wamp rocks!
I had a Keeley Dark Side and liked it but it's kind of one of those things where you have to mess with it quite a bit and can't just change sounds easily on the fly. I wound up trading it straight up for a Texan Twang Pedal Pawn from Chris King Robinson and I'm happy with the trade. Pedal Pawn actually makes a sweet fuzz pedal as well. Check out Eric Gales and Chris Buck doing a demo of it.
Hi there from Australia. I love FUZZ. I am a 'jazz' player but i find a place for soft fuzz. I WILL sus out a Fuzztration and a Velvet Fuzz.
I like that you're playing a guitar that's tuned to E. (I don't like down and up-tuning my guitar with a floating tremolo.)
My favorite fuzz is the Function(fx) Clusterfuzz, but I never hear about anyone else playing one, I think my finger is never on the pulse of what the people like.
I like the Fuzz creamy with a dirty amp, but the problem is understanding the right Gain of the amp and the right Gain of the fuzz, otherwise the sound is muddled, there is little information on this
here's another example , overdrives vs clean and dirty amps - i am from back when you slammed the front of a dirty amp with an over drive pedal. nowadays there are a lot of overdrives that sound great through a clean amp and crappy on a dirty amp we need to figure out what pedal is right for each situation
Thank you for the vid! An excellent demo. I confess to a love-hate relationship with fuzz. I like the sound into my cranked amps, but not with the guitar vol. flat out. To me, fuzz is good up to about 90-95% of the travel on the vol. pot. But that last little bit: it just seems to lose all top end and definition. Telecaster, Les Paul, PRS: same thing. Tonebender Mk2, Mk 1.5 or Fuzzface, same thing. That last few % of vol. is just useless.
Love that tele!
My fuzz collection: Conquistador, Hoof and Velvet Fuzz. That’s all I have to say about that.
Totally unrelated but I bought my 1st Wampler pedal this week, the Dracarys. I love it! On topic, I always run my fuzz into a slightly breaking up amp,
I've had a Sovereign on my board for years. Really versatile pedal.
Love fuzz. Currently using a custom built muff circuit with switchable octavia. Great on it's own but magical into a driven amp or OD pedal.
Another video, that gave me gas for Fuzz face ... damn. Great video, liked Fuzzface and Velvet fuzz for clean and dirty, the others more with dirty amp.
PS: will you have Santa Claus full beard, if you let it grow?
loved all the tones.
Fuzz is life, life is fuzz.