A Guitar And Gear Support Forum

Staycation time! It's the use it or lose it time of year. I was so bored yesterday that I cleaned the coffee maker after raking the leaves.

I am intrigued by fuzz pedals but 1) not sure if I need one and 2) trying to pare-down my pedal board.

Would this sound better with a fuzz? This morning I kinda captured lightning in a bottle (for me, anyway) on the first take which was especially rewarding because I had just separated the puppy and kittens' wrestling match five feet away (always with the wrestling!).

Anyway, let me know if this heavy overdrive approximates a fuzz or if a fuzz would sound better.

Bumpity.

You were definitely in the zone on this one. Love it.

I think the guitar tone you already have is very fitting for the tune, but it doesn't really sound like a fuzz to me. However, I do think a fuzz would sound great on this track.

Decisions, decisions.

It comes down to:

* Did you "print" an inspired and unrepeatable performance by putting a mic in front of a real amp pedal chain and that's what you now have?

Or . . .

* Did you use a digital modeler that captures the clean signal and allows you to change the simulated "amp" and "pedal chain" in post? It's an easy fix in this case and you can insert a fuzz in the signal path with a couple clicks.

That being said, I think a real tube amp and a real fuzz pedal with one of them Raytheon T59248 germanium transistors in it will always sound better than a digital modeler.

These questions make me think about how Don Landee and Ted Templeton would record Eddie Van Halen's dirty/effected amp tone while simultaneously sending a second direct feed to the board. After Ed left the building they could re-amp the clean capture from the board and play around with various tonal possibilities at their leisure.

When you consider the things these guys had to do back in the day to achieve their objectives it makes one feel spoiled by comparison given the technology at our disposal. One of the negative side effects of all the freedom this technology affords us is the dreaded "option paralysis."

It sounds good as is with the grit size.
I once found an old Maestro Fuzz with the big dials on each side for 25$.
I'd say wait till you see a great deal on something.

Hmmm... Contact me for fuzz pedal options, I have 4 or 5 or 6 different ones I make. Ac/ battery/ npn/pnp/ germanium/silicon/ 1 knob/ 4 knobs. Latest prototype dual clone pedal with a npn germanium fuzz and a top gear(rare) fuzz sustain. You can use either 1 or both and switch the order if you have both on. Messy wiring on the prototype.

Sounds great Tommy! It does not sound like a fuzz pedal to me but overdrive/distortion. I am not a big fan of fuzz but my current band mate uses one quite effectively on a few songs and I like what he is doing with it. I tried one a long time ago when I was on a kick to get as much saturation as I could. I finally decided I preferred an nice warm overdrive.

I just want to note that the licks you are playing on that track are very tasty, melodic and fitting, good job!

@tonebender : That's quite a compliment. Thank you.

@toomanycats Thank you for your input. I had heared that story about EHV. Post is a wonderful thing.

The one-off quicky was made with a Quilter Superblock US and a quick delay from a Joyo peddle running through mic'd speaker. It sounds much better than the Direct Out option. I contacted @mozz . I'm sure that he'll have some good suggestions.




BTW: I love every tone on this song. I believe that he rolls his volume on and off to control the effect.

Yes, a good fuzz you need to work your volume control. All the way on 10 you should have a good heavy fuzz with lots of sustain. Turn it down a bit and you should have some snarl when you dig in. Down a bit more it will really clean up while actually appearing to get louder. This is with single coils, humbuckers or hot singles will clean up just lower on the volume knob. If you run audio taper pots fuzzes really shine.

If you go to analog man's website he has really good descriptions and a few videos.