What (budget / used) fuzz do I want?

[Ceepers]

Hey all

Longtime lurker, infrequent poster!

Looking for some fuzz suggestions. Currently I’ve got a Rat and a Big muff pi on my board.

I’m looking for a different flavour of fuzz that’s not stupid money. I recently bought a Mooer Grey faze which is a copy of a germanium fuzzface I think.

I’ve been a bit underwhelmed. It sounds pretty Wooly and hasn’t got much sustain. It does the sparkly clean up with the volume rolled back but then you lose most of the gain ( it’s not a very gainy pedal)

I don’t want to duplicate the muff and I know that there are a few different “types” of fuzz out there but Im not sure I know what they are.

Education and suggestions welcome!

[Shadoweclipse13]

I'm not the fuzz expert around here, but I always felt that fuzz faces needed a decent amount of amp volume to get really good sounds out of. And if the amp is a little bit overdriven, even better.

What flavor of fuzz are you interested in? Classic sounds? Modern and high gain? Crazy fuzz? Velcro-ish?

[Ceepers]

I guess I want someone to school me on the types! I feel like I don’t know what’s out there but I don’t think the germanium fuzz face clone is what I’m looking for.

For reference I’m on single coils (jm and jag) through a vox which is generally on the edge of breakup.

I like the muff which I guess is almost on the distortion side of fuzz so I want something with a different character to that. The muff is very all or nothing.

more raw and less smooth, capable of lower gain but with more crunch than woolliness if that makes sense?

Sorry that’s a bit rambling!!

[Shadoweclipse13]

No no, I think I know what you mean. It sounds to me like you might like a fuzz based on a classic circuit, but with modern upgrades and variations. Again, I'm not the fuzz expert, but these are two really good videos about different types (for your "school me" comment) that might help!

That Pedal Show - Classic Fuzz Tones: Where To Begin?

That Pedal Show - Moving On From Vintage Fuzz with ZVEX, Thorpy, ProAnalog Devices And Wampler

[stevejamsecono]

I'm in a similar sonic boat (vox, fenders) and I recently got and rather like the MXR Super Badass Variac Fuzz. From my understanding it's a silicon Band of Gypsies (Octavio w/o the octave) fuzz face-style with a tone control and Variac knob which lets you both starve the battery as well as up the voltage for more of a "Fuzzy overdrive" kind of sound.

This demo was what sold me on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoQVR-hN0PU

I haven't had a chance to really crank it yet, but so far it's got a lot of cool sounds in it and I vastly prefer it to the Ram's Head RI that I picked up at the same time as far as fuzz sounds. YMMV of course. Got them both for around 80 bucks apiece on Reverb.

[s_mcsleazy]

honestly. start with a big muff imho. if you can find a used one, get the big muff with tone wicker. more gain than you'll ever realistically need and is a good starting point.

avoid starting with fuzz faces because you need to get them LOUD before they start sounding good imho.

[jvin248]

.

I have an Azor 303 Fuzz, it's a Big Muff Pi clone, so not a help for you. It's the gray Azor fuzz and a lot better than the yellow one in the video below.l


60 cycle hum youtube channel has several fuzz videos. poke around in there.

The Pedal Show guys, referenced in an earlier post, are great pedal reviewers but don't really know how to use Fuzz pedals nor offsets while the 60 Cycle Hum guy does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgaCCEf219I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB0s8SKBTxE

.

[marqueemoon]

Silicon and germanium Fuzz Faces are very different animals. Silicon sounds like what you want. It’s going to be brighter and edgier. Still has that honkiness, but is less spitty.

I went with a Euthymia Crucible which is BC109C. It has more gain on tap than a standard silicon FF. With gain at max it does have that Muffy all-or-nothing thing, but dial the gain back and it’s more complex.

There are a zillion silicon Fuzz Faces out there. The cheapest way to go is buy someone’s used kit/DIY project.

[fuzzjunkie]

The Germanium Fuzz Face is a lower gain woolly fuzz but that’s why it cleans up so well. The Big Muff is a high gain silicon fuzz and takes over your tone in a wall of fuzz kind of way.

There’s a lot in between.

The silicon Fuzz Face (as mentioned) is slightly brighter and has more gain than the germanium, but sacrifices some clean up.

Fuzzrite- Catalinbread made a good clone of this. More buzz than a Fuzz Face. Classic 60s tone. Inagaddadavida sound.

Tonebender- there are several versions, all completely different.
Version One is the hardest to source and not cheap, but it’s a big, ripping, primitive fuzz. The Yardbirds sound.
Version 1.5 is what the Fuzz Face is modeled after.
Version 2 is has a lot more gain than a Fuzz Face. Thick mids. The Zeppelin 1+2 sound.
Version 3 + 4 adds a tone knob - early Genesis or Knights in White Satin sound.
Version 5 + 6 - modded Big Muffs with one less gain stage.
Vox Tonebenders - Incense and Peppermints or the Doors.

Octave fuzz - Univox Superfuzz and Foxx Fuzztone - big gnarly fuzz with octave overtones

There are plenty of others. The Burns Buzzaround is another good choice midway between the Fuzz Face and Big Muff

[mackerelmint]

Well, our friend here already has a muff, so it seems like expanding on that topic isn't all that helpful.

The Shin-ei companion might be a good circuit to take a look at. It's nicely separate, sonically, from what you already have, OP.

[Ceepers]

Thanks for the help so far!

The variac looks interesting but might be out of my budget unless I can scoop one secondhand.

I’ll head down the YouTube pedal demo wormhole and see what I can find out!

[Zork]

If you already have a muff, a rat and a fuzz face, how about some octave fuzz action? Some variant of the Foxx Tone Machine would be my suggestion. The Orange Fur Coat is very cool and you can not only switch the ovtave in and out, it even has a level control for it.

[Bradley-Jazz]

Do you solder? (!)

Fuzzes are typically very simple circuits and it can be really cheap way to experiment. A couple of options:

http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com

https://shop.pedalparts.co.uk/Fuzz/cat8 ... 65698.aspx]

https://www.jedspeds.co.uk/pedal-kits

[stevejamsecono]

If you already have a muff, a rat and a fuzz face, how about some octave fuzz action? Some variant of the Foxx Tone Machine would be my suggestion. The Orange Fur Coat is very cool and you can not only switch the ovtave in and out, it even has a level control for it.

Foxx Tone Machine is a cool one. MXR makes a few variations on those too. I've had the La Machine and the Sub Machine and both were really fun, but just didn't fit into my setup at the time. The Sub lets you blend in a lower octave as well as switch in/off the high octave. I'm pretty sure the new Foxx copy from Warm Audio has the two switch setup too.

[Ftoronado]

Hi there,

Different flavor, lots of sounds, on a Vox type amp, I guess you can try the Digitech Carcosa fuzz.
It requieres some knob tweaking, but could work well for you.

https://www.thomann.de/fr/digitech_dod_carcosa_fuzz.htm

For a strong, acid, fuzz, why not a copy of the Superfuzz, like the cheap but good Behringer SF300.
https://www.thomann.de/fr/behringer_sf300.htm

For a different flavour of "fuzz", in the tonebender family, you can try the Big Muff Pi Germanium 4 (don't be fooled by the name, this ISN'T a muff).
https://www.musik-produktiv.fr/electro- ... ff-pi.html

For something in the middle of what you already have, and can also be used as a boost, I propose a non-fuzz pedal : the Boss BD-2.
Yes, it's an overdrive. But can get very warm and fuzzy on heavy gain settings. It sounds quite good on tube amps.
I wish I tried this before some lots of other pedals I didn't keep.
https://www.thomann.de/fr/boss_bd2_blues_driver.htm

For something very strong and "modern" sounding, I can't recommand enough the Fuzzhugger Algal Bloom.
You can find them more or less cheap on aftersale market, and they're a steal.