the best fuzz pedals?

Re: the best fuzz pedals?

Hey MRF....

The best depends on what you want (of course). The '69 is a great, well-mannered fuzz face. It goes well with the Tele. The Soulbender is an excellent Tonebender MK III... really smooth but gutsy.

MJM: Excellent tones. The London Fuzz II is silicon and it rips.
http://www.mjmguitarfx.com/index.html

Analog Man Sunface: A lot of people love them. To me they sound a bit too airy and grainy, but to each his own.
http://www.analogman.com/

Proanalog: Scary Face (fuzzface clone) and MK II. These are supposed to be the best going. Scotty only uses NOS Mullard transistors, and biases them stage by stage so that resistors are not used much. I am expecting a MK II any day now, and will tell you what is really up with them. This one will have 3 NOS Mullard OC81d transistors. The Tonebender MK II is crunchier than the MK III, and was used on some Led Zeppelin stuff like Heartbreaker. Goes great with a Tele.
http://www.proanalog.com/

Love Pedal: COT 50 and Karl. Sean is brilliant. The COT 50 is a different type of overdrive, not at all like a tubescreamer. He is sending me a Karl fuzz, and I am really digging the mp3s. Its a silicon box that sound darker like a tonebender, but has a swirl/vibe sound that is dialed in or out with a bias pot. Very unique. Check it out.
http://www.lovepedal.com/

Pedalworx also gets good reviews for the McFuzz. I'm sure there are others out there as well.

peace and great tone,

Randy
 
Re: the best fuzz pedals?

Hello- Hello--
All of Page's Yardbirds and early Led Zep [when he used the Telecaster] was the Tonebender MK II [ 3 trannys and 2 knobs]. These sound great with a Fender Telecaster [if they are biased properly..] ! A lot of the current re-makes are WAY too expensive and are not accurate sound-wise. Way too much hype for a simple copy of the old Fuzz Face and Tonebender circuits....
If you really want to nail the Hendrix '69 - '70 tone [Isle of Wight. Band of Gypsies, etc,] the Mayer Axis Fuzz is the circuit to use. This circuit was installed into Hendrix' silicon Fuzz Face shells.
Brian.
 
Re: the best fuzz pedals?

Either the BOSS FZ-2 Hyper Fuzz (never tried the plain FZ-3 Fuzz), or the old DOD FX series pumpkin coloured fuzz (I forget to number) those are the only two I tried that sounded musical (well mode II on the hyper fuzz, mode I is a little to gritty hard harmonically). Other than that the boutique guys.
 
Re: the best fuzz pedals?

brianwenz said:
Hello- Hello--
All of Page's Yardbirds and early Led Zep [when he used the Telecaster] was the Tonebender MK II [ 3 trannys and 2 knobs]. These sound great with a Fender Telecaster [if they are biased properly..] ! A lot of the current re-makes are WAY too expensive and are not accurate sound-wise. Way too much hype for a simple copy of the old Fuzz Face and Tonebender circuits....
If you really want to nail the Hendrix '69 - '70 tone [Isle of Wight. Band of Gypsies, etc,] the Mayer Axis Fuzz is the circuit to use. This circuit was installed into Hendrix' silicon Fuzz Face shells.
Brian.
Click to expand...


What type of trannys in the Axis you build? How much to buy it?
 
Re: the best fuzz pedals?

Hello Hello--
I don't know where there are clips of the Axis.......maybe Roger Mayers site ??
The Axis sounds best when played through a Marshall or Vox-type [EL-34 or EL-84 power tubes] when it's turned up a bit or with a good master volume. [I don't think it sounds all that great when played through a Twin Reverb on a "clean" setting....]
There are only two knobs on this pedal, but they do quite alot and you have to "tailor" the response to your guitar and amp.
Brian.
 
Re: the best fuzz pedals?

The Mayer mp3s sound terrible. Anyone aspiring to build fx should put good mp3s out there, done by good players. Anyway, based on what I heard, I wouldn't want one of the Mayer Axis units. Anyone got some good clips?
 
Re: the best fuzz pedals?

Roger Mayer fuzzes sounds great with some extra boost into them, maybe even with a treblebooster.
Fuzzes are notorious difficult to get right.
Have tried some old Fuzzfaces, they all had very different sounds, and if they get warm....forget it dead sound!
Those old Germanium transistors are fickle:D
 
Re: the best fuzz pedals?

nevermnid.i found some clips and they sound real good to me????.....hmmmmm. what clips are you hearing mcfar?
 
Re: the best fuzz pedals?

I really like the Fulltone Soul-Bender - It always sounds great, and can do all different kinds of fuzz. Not that Hendrixy though (and I play a Strat) more of a Page/Beck kind of sound.

The 69 and 70 are very different animals - they have a lot less gain and a more subtle sound - better for a Hendrix type of thing.

The Voodoo Lab Superfuzz is good for over-the-top stooges type of stuff. Mine picked up the radio pretty well, but I only used it for a couple of songs a night and felt that the radio added to the vibe.
 
Re: the best fuzz pedals?

ive used the 69 pedal and think its really cool but it doesnt have much buzz to it, thats why i like the superfuzz, play hard and its got some chainsaw bite, play softer and it smooths up nicely. very dynamic pedal but not for those who want the ease of a tube screamer and not something for ever tune, but great to have on the board
 
Re: the best fuzz pedals?

flank said:
nevermnid.i found some clips and they sound real good to me????.....hmmmmm. what clips are you hearing mcfar?
Click to expand...


It was some European website... can't remember the one. Can you post the link you found?
 
Re: the best fuzz pedals?

hey thanks guys, this is a lot of information but it seems like a lot of you guys like fulltones stuff. I will be checking out the 69 and the soul bender for sure. I think someone mentioned the zvex pedal too. I think i would like to take a closer look at that one too. If you guys can think of any more please add them to my list of pedals to check out. Thanks again guys
 
Re: the best fuzz pedals?

Hello guys,
it's great reading of all that vintage and vintage-style fuzz boxes, but may I point to one oddball here?

Two actually. The first is the DOD FX-33 Buzz Box: a discontinued model that's been described like this (by Marc Ribot): "The store I got mine from only sold two of them. One guy brought his back because he thought his was broken, and the other one was mine". I've heard it's a pretty extreme pedal, but I was unable to obtain one (one of the forum members found a source for me but I got broke so the transaction never happened).

The other is the Zoom Ultra Fuzz UF-01. It's from a Zoom line that was soon discontinued as it was not that successful among the players. In terms of fuzz, I think it's better than the Boss FZ-3, but it can also make some pretty scary sounds that. With a proper setting it oscillates: it emits a tone the pitch of which you can control with your guitar's volume knob. But it must be wired at the very beginning of your signal path (right after the guitar) to enable the crazy sounds.
I am a happy owner of one of these.
 
Re: the best fuzz pedals?

The '69 is a great fuzz. Try it with these settings:

volume @ noon
bias @ 9 o'clock
contour @ noon
fuzz @ 4 o'clock

That should give you a great overdrive-type of sound.

OR

volume @ noon
bias @ full
contour @ 3 o'clock
fuzz @ full up

That should give you a fat & screaming Hendrix-type fuzz tone.

The internal trimmer might need to be adjusted. Mine was adjusted back slightly after getting the Bogner Metropolis. I guess that cathode biased amps are a little more sensitive to the internal bias setting. This helped to make it more natural, and less "pushed" sounding.

Also, I love the sound when the volume is backed off. It sounds slighty "greezy", and actually a little better than just plain clean (unit off). Nothing so far cleans up as well as the '69. Very versatile and quite cool.

Randy
 
Re: the best fuzz pedals?

I'm surprised that in a "name your favorite fuzz" thread, that so few are posting clips.

My little Yamaha FX-500 does a reasonably decent job. (Although, not a pedal per se.)

yamaha_fx_500.gif


Fuzz Chords

Fuzz Notes
 
Re: the best fuzz pedals?

Old thread, hmmm.

I also stuck to OD pedals for a long time, but have recently been getting into fuzzes. The Buzz Box is crazy. I received one as a present in like 1995. I only remember it has knobs labelled "Butt" and "Face." It's named after King Buzzo of the Melivins, whaddaya expect?

My personal favorite fuzzes are the Univox/Shin Ei Superfuzz, the Foxx Tone Machine, and the AM Sunface. All very different, and all cool.

The Univox is hands down the loudest, nastiest fuzz I've heard. It's also a huge pedal, I mean the switch plate itself is literally the size of a kid's bike pedal. Not good for pedalboards if you want to populate them densely. Or if you're cool with it being, like, one fifth of the real estate, go for it. I love it, it just nails a retro/modern, splatty but grind-y, over the top killzone kind of sound.

The Tone Machine has been reissued, some guys bought the rights to teh Foxx name, and it's pretty darn close to the original, of which I have only played one. There's a toggle that selects between a very cool warm fuzz and a more insane/piercing fuzz with a very nice octave-up, especially on higher frets.

The Sunface is darker and woodier to me, and I dig it. Very swampy, less Brit. AM offers a wide variety of silicon and germanium transistors in this pedal, as well as an LED (which he discourages), a DC jack (which he discourages), and side or top-mounted jacks.
 
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