FUZZ- UNDER THE RADAR ...some of the very best for the very least!

 THE TRUTH IS NOT FUZZY

The first few years in the 60's the Fuzz went from a novelty and near gimmick effect to a must have pedal thanx to the Brits with a Fuzz fed into a Marshall Stack.

The thing is in this day and age we expect to pay a fair bit of coin for our Smartphones so if we see a Fuzz at $300.00 USD or more we think it pricey but not insane!!!

Now read this carefully .....Those magic antique Fuzz pedals from the 60's usually had between 7 to 10 parts on their circuit board! Yes I know the price and value are two different things. I am the first in line to over pay for any pedal if I love it.

THEREFORE THE OBVIOUS

My point is simple it is possible to build a killer Fuzz cheap and therefore possible to sell 

a killer Fuzz at a very reasonable price

THE NOT SO OBVIOUS.

A Fuzz is all about getting creative with basic square wave distortion. 

It is not like a modern Overdrive trying to clone what is happening to make a pedal sound 

exactly like a specific amp like a Marshall Plexi or JCM 800 where it may take up to 12 stages 

of cascading gain to keep the tone accurate because we want all that extra sustain without 

F.ing up the sound. This needs months of R&D and dozens of parts.

...this pic is f@cking annoying!!!

BASIC NEED TO KNOW

The first Fuzz pedals used germanium transistors. By letting the first overdrive the second etc. created their sound. Why germanium transistors? Because it was the only choice readily available and used for all consumer applications. By the 70's along came the new improved Silicon transistors followed near the end of the decade with Op-Amp chips.

Germanium transistors 

...sound damn cool but they are notoriously unreliable. They can leak then die. When pushed too hard they send the signal backwards into the incoming signal causing an extreme break up. This breakup creates spitting sputtering and eventually drop outs either sporadically or permanently by causing overheating. Last but not least anything but your guitar put straight into them and the sound either gets destroyed or the whole fuzz takes a F. off pill! If a big effort is made to control this it can be used musically. On the other hand try playing EVH's Eruption with a crude germanium Fuzz just ain't gonna happen!!! LOL 

Silicon transistors 

...only downside is they do not sound like germanium. Do they sound worse? 

Totally subjective??? 

With a little creative design messing with the BIAS you can add spit and sputter 

back into the circuit and do a deceptive fake of a germanium circuit.

A really easy way to tell that the pedal is using silicon transistors is when the pedal does nothing what so ever to pizz you off ...count on it having silicon transistors.

OpAmp chips

...the first use of an OpAmp for dirt was the Pro-Co Rat pedal followed by the Tube Screamer just a few months later. It is now been concluded that these designs are the first Overdrive designs and not Fuzz circuits. The Rat was marketed as a Fuzz since there wasn't any new category to label it with. The King of dirt at the time was the Big Muff  but they lost a lot of sales to the Rat so they simply brought out a new Big Muff Version 4 which is now referred to as the OpAmp Big Muff. So it begs the question to be asked "When is a Muff not a Muff but a Rat." :-)

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PRO BUT CHEAP FUZZ PEDALS

MOSKY BC108 FUZZ

A clone of the  classic Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face pedal 

used by Hendrix in all it's forms including it's last 

model with a BC108 silicon transistor. The original 

had 2 knobs . The pedal did squat if you did not 

dime the volume so Mosky just eliminated it.

$25.00 USD

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BEHRINGER SUPER FUZZ FS300

Plastic junk? The switch is ...the casing takes a lot of effort

to smash up. Yes throw it in box where mic stands are tossed on

top of it at break down after a gig and it might soon go bye bye.

BIG BUT...zip wrong with the circuit board or parts. It is a clone 

of a Boss FC-2 Hyper Fuzz which is a Boss take on the 

original octave Fuzz a Shin-ei Super Fuzz.

$30.00 USD

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ROWIN FRENZY FUZZ

A rebranded Joyo Ironman JF320 Purple storm. A brilliant take on 

using all the every cool Brit Fuzz pedal sounds from the 60's and 

melting into one tiny, tiny nano pedal. 

An idea which should have totally failed. 

BUT!!!! ....WTF they pulled it off.

Definitely killer!

$30.00 USD

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MOEN FUZZ MOO

Once upon a time long, long ago there was no such thing as  

Chinese companies making cheap copies of pedals from the West

to be sold right back to the West. ...BIG BUT! With a population in 

China in the billions ... billions Get that in your head ..billions!!! 

There was a market for a made in China pedal company to sell 

to Chinese rock guitarists.

So up popped Moen who did what most new companies did in the 

West. Have a peak in the boxes that are out there. Shake your 

head and say."We can do better than that!" So they brought out 

the Moo out even before the word vegetation was the only 

politically correct description of your diet.

The Fuzz Moo is it's own thing. Not strangely different but it's own thing.

It is roughly Big Muffish but only because the Muff was the first silicon

Fuzz ever made. It has a lot more mids with a breadth to the sound.

$40.00 USD

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ELECTRO-HARMONIX 

OpAmp BIG MUFF

This is a pedal that at one time EH wanted to just forget! It is the critics 

favorite of Fuzz pedals to sh@t on!!! Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins 

put it on the map. Even that was an accident because he bought it used

thinking all Big Muffs were the same pedal. He did not know version 4

was anything different.

The bottom line it is a killer sounding pedal. If it had NOT called it the 

Big Muff I think it would have over time been a MUST have fuzz. 

The pedal in the pic is a reissue. But as luck would have it 

the differences between it and the original are less than consequential

so even Ol' Billy uses one. Add to that there are several gourmet alternatives

that are expensive and DO NOT sound as good. Stomp Under Foot has re-released their Pumpkin Pi it is at least as good but it's $190.00 USD!

At $80 it is a bit pricey for this roundup but it is unusually such great value for money.

$80.00 USD

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CONCLUSION

All these pedals I own, or have owned and are totally Pro. 

How Pro? 

My former band Tallis opened for Rush. 

Geddy came to our dressing room to praise the band 

before Rush went on. These pedals would have cut it for

that gig.