What's the most versatile fuzz pedal you've ever used?

[DWBH]

What's the simple, most versatile fuzz pedal you've ever played with?

[frequencycentral]

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=71050.0

[mojotron]

If you have a Strat and like to control everything with your volume and tone knobs this is it:

Simple old FuzzFace:
http://fuzzcentral.ssguitar.com/fuzzface.php

[frankz00]

Seymour Duncan Tweak Fuzz but alot of people don't like it for some reason.  I like it alot.

[John Lyons]

Joe Gagan's skyripper... oh wait, you said simple.

The tweak fuzz is pretty much just a silicon fuzz face with switchable input caps.
You can go a long way with just a variable input cap fuzz face.

john

[bumblebee]

A fuzz i came up with (stole ideas from traditional circuits.lol) its cross between a fuzz face and a big muff, love it and theres nothing like it on the market as far as I'm aware of. Its basically a heavily modified silicon fuzz face with high gain trannies and a BMP tonestack with modified values after it. Just a volume and tone control, with a switch to bypass the tone and scoop the mids.

[DougH]

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=71050.0

That sounds pretty cool.

Probably due to a "happy accident", but your omission of the coupling cap going into the BMP tone control is probably what is giving it the "synthey" sound. As you vary the tone control you are changing the bias on the fuzz stage.

[snap]

to me it looks like keeping the "load" at 194k, though.

[DougH]

 

Yeah, you are right. The dc resistance doesn't change, does it?

Cool sounding pedal! I like synthey sounding stuff.

[frequencycentral]

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=71050.0

That sounds pretty cool.

Probably due to a "happy accident", but your omission of the coupling cap going into the BMP tone control is probably what is giving it the "synthey" sound. As you vary the tone control you are changing the bias on the fuzz stage.

Thanks Doug. Yeah, I was wondering about that 'happy accident'. I have to say that when Gus mentioned it I realised it should be there and was tempted to add it in - but then I thought "If it aint broke, don't fix it", so it stayed without the coupling cap. I'm not hearing any badness by the omission of that cap either. Another example of bad engineering = great tone? Your insight into it changing the bias answers a few questions too! I adore that pedal, I'm still thinking about making the tone pot into a wah type thing, or using a couple of LDRs in place of it to make the tone voltage controlled. It's probably worth mentioning that I run it a 12 volts too - all my pedals are designed for 12 volts because most of them are tube designs.

[DougH]

Well, check my last post ( ). Leaving out the coupling cap changes the bias, but the setting of the tone pot won't. I wonder how it would change the sound if you did stick a coupling cap in there?

[frequencycentral]

Well, check my last post ( ). Leaving out the coupling cap changes the bias, but the setting of the tone pot won't. I wonder how it would change the sound if you did stick a coupling cap in there?

My breadboard is full of voltage controlled filters, envelope generators and envelope followers at the moment - when I free it up I'll breadboard that circuit again and add the cap and see what happens.