The Offficial Fuzz Box Thread.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Telephant
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I never got into fuzz pedals until recently. My bass player hooked me up with an Addrock Electric Smile and that thing is killer. It does that high, ring modulating thing very well and if you turn down th intensity, it's a cool, Fu Manchu kinda sound.

I'm also waiting on the arrival of a Lovetone Big Cheese clone. Should be cool as well.
 
I have one of the black Russian Muffs, and I agree with it being very dark! I bought a fuzz for Pink Floyd/Trower type tones, but my Muff sounds very dark and aggressive compared to the smooth "violin-like"fuzz I was searching for. I dig the tones I can get with it, though, even if they aren't what I was looking for....


Serendipity, I guess......
 
Right now I have an MJM Foxey Fuzz, which was pretty much exactly what I wanted (a Big Muff but better). My friend and I went shopping for fuzzes a couple of weeks ago, and he settled on the MJM London Fuzz (Ge).....but the Peach Fuzz was also super nice.

I also have a Lovepedal Karl Fuzz on the way (should be here early in the week) that I'm itching to try. It's super unique sounding from all the clips I've heard.

I'm also really interested in picking up a Skreddy Mayo, but some things I've read compare it quite well to the Foxey Fuzz.
 
Yeah those Skreddy pedals peaked my interest as well.

At the moment, I want to try and find another fuzz face clone, but maybe with silicon transistors are opposed to germanium. I like the fuzz faces, but I want something with a bit more gain and treble. My Sunface is a bit on the dark side...
 
Telephant":13d55 said:
Yeah those Skreddy pedals peaked my interest as well.

At the moment, I want to try and find another fuzz face clone, but maybe with silicon transistors are opposed to germanium. I like the fuzz faces, but I want something with a bit more gain and treble. My Sunface is a bit on the dark side...
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I'd really like to try out a lot of pedals, but it's annoying because you have to purchase most of them direct and I have to pay customs fees living in Canada. That's one thing stopping me from getting a Skreddy, also the bigass price tag.

You should definitely try out an MJM London Fuzz II, that's the one with silicon transistors in it. The germanium London Fuzz is an amazing sounding pedal, the LF II is similar but it had more gain and treble. It was definitely tighter sounding, but I liked the germanium personally.
 
Im currently gassing for the FoxRox Hot Silicon. From the specs it looks like it would be damn near perfect for me.....
 
I got my Karl Fuzz a little while ago, and it's a really crazy pedal. It's a two knob fuzz, but you can get all sorts of different sounds by twisting those knobs. It's got a really unique swell to the end of notes, which Lovepedal says is Ring Mod like. You can also get this nasty crackling decay on the notes if you roll the volume on your guitar down. The clips on the Lovepedal page pretty much show all the stuff I described as well.
 
I compared the Hot Silicon with the Sunface NKT 275 yesterday.

I was expecting the Hot Silicon to have quite a bit more gain than the Sunface NKT. It didnt. It has just a bit more, but not much. It does have a different top end sizzle to it - it has more teeth - if you will.

I also expected it to be quite a bit brighter. Its really not. I wanted it to be though, because my Superbass can be a bit dark at lower volumes.

They sound very, very similar IMO. I havent had a chance to use it a full volume with a band yet, but I will this weekend. Hopefully it will brighten up at loud volumes.


It definitely looks cool though.


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For my uses, it's all about the Demeter Fuzzulator. I got this thing a little bit ago and it is killer. It doesn't really do that "squish" thing that so many fuzz pedals do. It also sounds great with bass!!
 
Picked this up together with a HAO Rumble Mod early August and forgot to post here :?

The Screamer Fuzz is a fuzz and TS-style pedal in 1, they have their own drive/gain control and there's a Level control as well. With the Fuzz control at 0, the pedal acts as a TS, with the Scream down, it's a fuzz, the genius is the combination of both which gets you everything from light boost to thick fat hairy fuzz. I absolutely loved this pedal from the first time I plugged in but the real kicker was the fact that it works behind a buffer!

I recorded a clip to show some different settings on the pedal, used my Haar strat with Suhr pickups into the Masotti on the crunch channel. The settings on each part are below.



0:00-0:11 Pedal off, crunch channel Masotti
0:12-0:32 Level 5-Fuzz 0-Scream 5
0:33-1:00 Level 5-Fuzz 0-Scream 10
1:01-1:30 Level 10-Fuzz 0-Scream 5
1:32-1:54 Level 5-Fuzz 5-Scream 0
1:55-2:19 Level 5-Fuzz 10-Scream 0
2:21-2:45 Level 10-Fuzz 5-Scream 0
2:46-end Level 4-Fuzz 4- Scream 4

The last one is my favorite setting, it´s fuzz when you play lightly and gets a TS-character when you dig in, sounds very good imho.

I have done 9 gigs in August and the Cusack came into play more and more, it´s just awesome being able to rely on the volume control for anything from your crunch tone, to a slight boost up to all out fuzziness. Works great for classic rock.

Here´s a short video where I´m using the same as above except I´m using my humbucker tele, I just turn the volume control for the lead and it totally sings.

http://lordriffenstein.netfirms.com/CoverUp/Extra/Video4.avi
 
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Telephant":46823 said:
I compared the Hot Silicon with the Sunface NKT 275 yesterday.

I was expecting the Hot Silicon to have quite a bit more gain than the Sunface NKT. It didnt. It has just a bit more, but not much. It does have a different top end sizzle to it - it has more teeth - if you will.

I also expected it to be quite a bit brighter. Its really not. I wanted it to be though, because my Superbass can be a bit dark at lower volumes.

They sound very, very similar IMO. I havent had a chance to use it a full volume with a band yet, but I will this weekend. Hopefully it will brighten up at loud volumes.


It definitely looks cool though.


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Man, while it might not be good for you, Im glad to hear that the Hot Silicon isnt too bright. My VH4 through V30s can be a bit spikey as it is.

Btw, I read that running an OD into the Hot Silicon is supposed to be the fricking shizzle. Did you get a chance to try that out and if so, what does it do?
 
That last post brings up a good question. How do you run a fuzz pedal? Into a clean channel? Into a overdriven channel? I haven't seemed to get good results doing either.

I am looking for the smooth, violin EJ type sustain.
 
I am CERTAINLY no pro when it comes to pedals because I am just getting into them, but from the reading that I have done people seem to say that Marshalls provide a great base tone for pedals when someone wants a heavier sound. The is supported by the fact that I have read that Channel 2(the classic rock marshall channel) of the VH4 really likes pedals.

I combine that with the reviews I read about fuzzes and everyone seems to point to running overdrives into fuzzes because it makes them sound good. So I just assumed that I would run my fuzz either directly into a slightly overdriven channel 2 by itself or into channel 2 with an overdrive in front of it.

But again, I am curious as to what others with actual experience recommend.
 
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