Guitar
I've been fearing writing this article, because having this built for me turned into a bit of a nightmare; the builder, who will remain nameless in this piece, took four months to box a ready made circuit and did a last ditch, half-assed finish on the boxing so as to deliver the fuzz two days before I left on tour. In the end we agreed that the compromises were significant enough that this stomper was given to me gratis.
I know this sounds unbelievably lame and hippie, but I really do worry about the karmic ramifications of all this. Even a Fuzz Factory will be employed to create beauty (albeit a special kind of beauty), and I can feel the builders frustration in every nook and cranny of the product.
On a more immediately worrying front, the AC jack is radically cross-threaded and I have not been able to free the nut without putting considerable strain on the wiring. There is an abundance of electrical tape preventing shorts, and little bits of styrofoam holding the circuit in place. The builder's decision to place the battery side-up resulted in a brutal bit of dremeling. Altogether, not a confidence inspiring build, and limits this clone to studio duties - would you trust this thing on the road?
For those of you who are not acquainted with the Fuzz Factory, it is the brainchild of Zachary Vex, and is a bit like a germanium Fuzz Face wired backwards, with potentiometers in place of what are usually set component values. This allows the Fuzz Factory to generate everything from traditional Fuzz Face textures to otherworldy, self-oscillating, broken-pedal madness.
For all it's shortcomings, this clone does an excellent job of conjuring up the Fuzz Factory's wide-ranging sonics with it's NOS germanium transistors. Input, output and AC jacks are located to the rear of the device, which is laid out sidelong in the smallish Hammond box. The controls are laid out in the same manner as Z. Vex's legit models, with volume, gate, comp, drive and stab knobs. The volume knob unleashes an ungodly amount of juice - unity gain happens around nine o'clock and gets absolutely hairy from there. Approach with caution and respect. The gate knob does what it claims to, nuking excessive buzzing from the circuit. At maximum it pretty much nukes your sound altogether. Comp allows the circuit more compression, and it too will provide almost total destruction to your signal at extreme settings (check out the intro to the demo for a sample of the crumbling, busted fuzz sounds on tap). The drive knob ranges from lots of dirt to more dirt, but really this pedal isn't as wildly distorted as one might think. The real insanity happens with the stab knob (as in stability); with genuine Z. Vex products, stability is achieved at full clockwise, and the self-oscillating madness occurs fully CCW. This knob is wired backwards in my build, so in my initial attempts to taste-test some common Fuzz Factory settings, I was greeted with out-of-control squealing. I quickly figured out this quirk, and I think I prefer it this way, if just to simplify the five knob beast - my most common setting is volume at 9 o'clock, gate around 11 o'clock and everything else at minimum, a very easy setting to grab on the fly and the most Fuzz Face-like setting I've found. I haven't gone in for any Nels Cline style oscillation-tweaking excursions on the demo, but your volume and tone knobs can be used to tune the note produced by the Fuzz Factory, as well as the drive, comp and stab knobs on the unit.
Perhaps the most surprising quality of this pedal is it's ability to clean up and provide almost Rangemaster-like clean boost and vintage crunch distortion - I'm getting some magic late-sixties, cranked Marshall-and-treble-booster tones at the politest of living room volumes. Of course, full fuzz saturation is only a little knob-twist away, so some performers could leave this pedal on all night. The pedal's voice is classic, soft-edged germanium fuzz when your volume knob is maxed, at least at the pedal's more conservative settings. Strangely, I found the circuit a bit unresponsive to tone-knob tweaks, which paired with the absence of any tone control on the unit, results in a pretty consistent voice regardless of how conservative or extreme you set the pedal.
I put a fairly weak carbon-zinc battery in this pedal - it only draws 3 millivolts, so batteries last a very long time. I did compare the battery sound with the pedal running off my One Spot power supply; surprisingly, there wasn't a significant difference in sound or feel, certainly not enough to obsess over (unlessin' your Eric Johnson).
For the video demo, I ended up choosing the Sonic's iconic, hard-rockin' take on 'Louie, Louie' for the track, and imagined someone like Fred 'Sonic' Smith or Hendrix jamming with the Seattle primitives. I used my Garnet stencil head and Carvin 4x10 cabinet for amplification. All the instruments were run through the fuzz: a Squier Jazz bass, a Kay Speed Demon, and Univox Effector less paul and my prized ES335. I used a Modtone Atomic Phaser on the lead guitar track in addition to the FF. Hope you enjoy it! Dig the broken-fuzz sounds on the intro! Sick!
- Pedal Time! 1967 Vox Tone Bender
guitarz.blogspot.com Another great vintage fuzz pedal (yes, I'm quite into pedals lately, and mostly in fuzz boxes), the Vox Tone Bender. Even more than in the field of early electric guitars, the dawn of effect pedal is both full of myths...
- Huge Lot Of Hand Wired Custom Guitar Pedals In Oshkosh Wi Area - At Good $
This seller has been building some nice pedals and he is offering them for a pretty good price. Note that he doesn't do any screening on the pedals so the knobs are not marked and there are no logos - still he's got some cool DIY pedals...
- The Danelectro French Toast Octave Fuzz - Sick Things Come In Small Packages.
Danelectro French Toast Octave Distortion - Muffy fuzz with a strong and consistent octave up. In my last post I discussed coming across a new-in-boxed-set of millennium-era Dano diner-series pedals. The real standouts in the collection are...
- Dunlop Jh-2 Jimi Hendrix Fuzz, Revisited.
Much maligned and misunderstood, the Dunlop JH-2 just needs a little patience and understanding.... The first gear review and video I ever put together was to do with the Dunlop JH-2 Jimi Hendrix fuzz, which you can read here. I pointed out...
- Big Muff Pi With Tone Wicker- A Review
First off, I'd like to thank my good friend Big Joe Burke for lending me this sick little puppy. The Electro Harmonix Big Muff is considered to be one of the classic fuzz tones, and countless players have embraced the thick wooly...
Guitar
My ,uh, funky Fuzz Factory clone.
 |
| Fuzz Factory clone: note the radically cross-threaded DC jack...oh, dear. |
I've been fearing writing this article, because having this built for me turned into a bit of a nightmare; the builder, who will remain nameless in this piece, took four months to box a ready made circuit and did a last ditch, half-assed finish on the boxing so as to deliver the fuzz two days before I left on tour. In the end we agreed that the compromises were significant enough that this stomper was given to me gratis.
I know this sounds unbelievably lame and hippie, but I really do worry about the karmic ramifications of all this. Even a Fuzz Factory will be employed to create beauty (albeit a special kind of beauty), and I can feel the builders frustration in every nook and cranny of the product.
On a more immediately worrying front, the AC jack is radically cross-threaded and I have not been able to free the nut without putting considerable strain on the wiring. There is an abundance of electrical tape preventing shorts, and little bits of styrofoam holding the circuit in place. The builder's decision to place the battery side-up resulted in a brutal bit of dremeling. Altogether, not a confidence inspiring build, and limits this clone to studio duties - would you trust this thing on the road?
 |
| Loads of electrical tape to avoid shorting, wacky Dremel job on the battery cavity and foam holding the pc board in place. Studio use only, I'm afraid... |
 |
| At least the Alpha pots inspire some confidence. |
For all it's shortcomings, this clone does an excellent job of conjuring up the Fuzz Factory's wide-ranging sonics with it's NOS germanium transistors. Input, output and AC jacks are located to the rear of the device, which is laid out sidelong in the smallish Hammond box. The controls are laid out in the same manner as Z. Vex's legit models, with volume, gate, comp, drive and stab knobs. The volume knob unleashes an ungodly amount of juice - unity gain happens around nine o'clock and gets absolutely hairy from there. Approach with caution and respect. The gate knob does what it claims to, nuking excessive buzzing from the circuit. At maximum it pretty much nukes your sound altogether. Comp allows the circuit more compression, and it too will provide almost total destruction to your signal at extreme settings (check out the intro to the demo for a sample of the crumbling, busted fuzz sounds on tap). The drive knob ranges from lots of dirt to more dirt, but really this pedal isn't as wildly distorted as one might think. The real insanity happens with the stab knob (as in stability); with genuine Z. Vex products, stability is achieved at full clockwise, and the self-oscillating madness occurs fully CCW. This knob is wired backwards in my build, so in my initial attempts to taste-test some common Fuzz Factory settings, I was greeted with out-of-control squealing. I quickly figured out this quirk, and I think I prefer it this way, if just to simplify the five knob beast - my most common setting is volume at 9 o'clock, gate around 11 o'clock and everything else at minimum, a very easy setting to grab on the fly and the most Fuzz Face-like setting I've found. I haven't gone in for any Nels Cline style oscillation-tweaking excursions on the demo, but your volume and tone knobs can be used to tune the note produced by the Fuzz Factory, as well as the drive, comp and stab knobs on the unit.
 |
| A bit of the old in, out me droogies. |
Perhaps the most surprising quality of this pedal is it's ability to clean up and provide almost Rangemaster-like clean boost and vintage crunch distortion - I'm getting some magic late-sixties, cranked Marshall-and-treble-booster tones at the politest of living room volumes. Of course, full fuzz saturation is only a little knob-twist away, so some performers could leave this pedal on all night. The pedal's voice is classic, soft-edged germanium fuzz when your volume knob is maxed, at least at the pedal's more conservative settings. Strangely, I found the circuit a bit unresponsive to tone-knob tweaks, which paired with the absence of any tone control on the unit, results in a pretty consistent voice regardless of how conservative or extreme you set the pedal.
I put a fairly weak carbon-zinc battery in this pedal - it only draws 3 millivolts, so batteries last a very long time. I did compare the battery sound with the pedal running off my One Spot power supply; surprisingly, there wasn't a significant difference in sound or feel, certainly not enough to obsess over (unlessin' your Eric Johnson).
For the video demo, I ended up choosing the Sonic's iconic, hard-rockin' take on 'Louie, Louie' for the track, and imagined someone like Fred 'Sonic' Smith or Hendrix jamming with the Seattle primitives. I used my Garnet stencil head and Carvin 4x10 cabinet for amplification. All the instruments were run through the fuzz: a Squier Jazz bass, a Kay Speed Demon, and Univox Effector less paul and my prized ES335. I used a Modtone Atomic Phaser on the lead guitar track in addition to the FF. Hope you enjoy it! Dig the broken-fuzz sounds on the intro! Sick!
- Pedal Time! 1967 Vox Tone Bender
guitarz.blogspot.com Another great vintage fuzz pedal (yes, I'm quite into pedals lately, and mostly in fuzz boxes), the Vox Tone Bender. Even more than in the field of early electric guitars, the dawn of effect pedal is both full of myths...
- Huge Lot Of Hand Wired Custom Guitar Pedals In Oshkosh Wi Area - At Good $
This seller has been building some nice pedals and he is offering them for a pretty good price. Note that he doesn't do any screening on the pedals so the knobs are not marked and there are no logos - still he's got some cool DIY pedals...
- The Danelectro French Toast Octave Fuzz - Sick Things Come In Small Packages.
Danelectro French Toast Octave Distortion - Muffy fuzz with a strong and consistent octave up. In my last post I discussed coming across a new-in-boxed-set of millennium-era Dano diner-series pedals. The real standouts in the collection are...
- Dunlop Jh-2 Jimi Hendrix Fuzz, Revisited.
Much maligned and misunderstood, the Dunlop JH-2 just needs a little patience and understanding.... The first gear review and video I ever put together was to do with the Dunlop JH-2 Jimi Hendrix fuzz, which you can read here. I pointed out...
- Big Muff Pi With Tone Wicker- A Review
First off, I'd like to thank my good friend Big Joe Burke for lending me this sick little puppy. The Electro Harmonix Big Muff is considered to be one of the classic fuzz tones, and countless players have embraced the thick wooly...