Fuzz & Dirt - "Fender" vs. "Marshall"

[MrShake]

I've always been a "clean amp" player and leaned on the pedals to do the heavy lifting to color the sound. Jazzmaster into pedalboard into Bassman Ten, clean as a whistle, warm, and with lots of headroom.

I've recently spent my first extended experience with a "Marshall-styled" amp -- an ADA MP-1. I'm trying to build a self-contained, pedal-free rack rig, but haven't been able to resist trying out some of my pedal collection with it, and it's had some eye-opening results, especially on fuzz and dirt pedals.

(I totally realize that there are great crunchy Fender tones and lots of clean or lightly-driven Marshall tones, but speaking in broad generalizations, I'm sort of applying a "Fender = clean" / "Marshall = distorted" overlay for simplicity)

I'm finally "getting" why some people love Marshalls and the attendant use of fuzz pedals, be it at high-gain or medium grit levels. Previously, an extreme fuzz (in the "upper echelon" of nastiness) has completely taken over my sound and been useful as a noise machine with lots of dynamic lurch when engaged. While I get a less dramatic explosion playing the same pedals through the ADA with its lower headroom, they "nasty up" the tone but keep it all capped by the tube compression, saturation, and overall output level. They color UNDER the tone that's already there, rather than entirely changing your overall EQ with every change -- a reason I liked to use multiple Rats and duplicate reverbs on my pedalboard. That way I can shift density without changing overall timbre, which I can now largely do with the ADA.

The one that's most delighting me is the DBA Supersonic Fuzz Gun. I liked it for blowing everything all to hell through a clean amp, but it always felt a little thin and buzzy. However, through a gained-up Marshall-style setup, it turns a tight and warm grit to a throaty roar. But now it's way more controllable and playable. I'm a lousy guitarist, but I'm feeling like a rock star with these new super-stacked fuzz/gain tones. Same pedals, just a different amp strain.

Several others had similar results. The BYOC Dist+ that always underwhelmed me was now a nice bit of "oomph" added to high or mid-gain amp settings. A DS-1 went from Cobain Grind to a much less nasal, much richer and fuller effect. Rats were nice, but due to the timbral similarity between the ADA gain and the Rat gain, was pretty similar to stacking the Rats on my board. Which is no complaint. And the Fender Blender... well, the Fender Blender has always sounded like total meltdown. But now it's a little bit smoother and way more controllable. Riding the wave rather than just unleashing it.

Even with all that, there are some that I still prefer on my clean Fender. A Superfuzz sounds great with both, but I like the way the clean amp enhances all the weird crispiness on the scooped mode. The Companion Fuzz also sounds good with both, but the clean amp lets its horrible nastiness through like a chainsaw. A Big Muff's bite and woof benefit from my not further compressing them with the hot tubes. The Torn's Peaker gets so noisy, it doesn't need any more crunch on top of it, though it's not a bad thing.

And I've always felt like my Fuzz Face wasn't being done justice by my clean amp. I'm betting I'm right.

What about you? Which fuzz/dist/dirt pedals (not so much tube-pushing overdrives) sound specifically better to you with one family of amp or another?

[MechaBulletBill]

You can replicate the compression effect that overdriving valves have on a fuzz face with a good amp-voiced od set conservatively. Fuzz faces in particular really need some kind of gritty compression to function properly, otherwise it's just boomy and undefined.

I find things like a fuzzrite, while they sound great loud, they get TOO mushy/saggy with extra compression later in the signal chain. They're saggy enough as is.

[bubba899]

Love my tonebender with a fender amp with break up. Have the same settings with a Vox, and it sounds awful. Marshals and big muffs are glorious too.