The Fuzz Thread

Sascha Franck said:
Sure. Already on my "this should be among the first to try" list.
I was just completely blown away by Posen's tone yesterday (and what a player, really, should've recorded the last 2 minutes of the last tune - that was just an incredible blast of him and the band. Preferred to rather just enjoy, though...), that was quite the benchmark for me.
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Glad you enjoyed yourself. I know of him but only in passing videos, I should listen some more though. I did look up something posted on his tour schedule page, a video clip. I feel like the Carcosa can cover that tone he was using. Although fuzz is a personal taste thing for sure and totally amp dependent.
 
Sascha Franck said:
Well, I'd be fine running it as the first thing in the chain at home, but for live usage, it had to be in a loop (not gonna sacrifice switching comfort).
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Why? If it's first in the chain, when off it should not impact anything downstream (if true bypass) and when on, well that's what you want. The only issue is you will have to step on it, it can't be programmed. Is that too big of a deal for your workflow?
 
Sascha Franck said:
Sure. Already on my "this should be among the first to try" list.
I was just completely blown away by Posen's tone yesterday (and what a player, really, should've recorded the last 2 minutes of the last tune - that was just an incredible blast of him and the band. Preferred to rather just enjoy, though...), that was quite the benchmark for me.
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Regarding a Kingtone alternative, you could reach out to JDM, if he's in Berlin shipping is a breeze. He's got quite the array and will even do custom at reasonable prices.
 
Chocol8 said:
Why? If it's first in the chain, when off it should not impact anything downstream (if true bypass) and when on, well that's what you want. The only issue is you will have to step on it, it can't be programmed. Is that too big of a deal for your workflow?
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Yes. Because I actually want a wah and a boost in front of anything dirt.
 
A FuzzFace is very different from a Muff. I have several of each. Muffs work great down chain and near the end after certain effects. FuzzFaces want to see low out/low impedance pickups with nothing between the guitar and the fuzzface except the cable.
 
FuzzyAce said:
Glad you enjoyed yourself. I know of him but only in passing videos, I should listen some more though. I did look up something posted on his tour schedule page, a video clip. I feel like the Carcosa can cover that tone he was using. Although fuzz is a personal taste thing for sure and totally amp dependent.
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Having had both (carcossa and tone king mini) I wouldn’t try to sound like the latter with the former. Carcossa can’t get anywhere close to as creamy sounding.

Ariel Posen is constantly adjusting his volume knob with the fuzz, which is why it sounds so dynamic. To the extent any of those transformer-based things work to make a fuzz face kinda work after a buffer, there is no way it can allow you to do what Posen does with the fuzz face + volume knob.

Saw him last fall and was also blown away. Bass player is IN.credible.
 
Boudoir Guitar said:
Having had both (carcossa and tone king mini) I wouldn’t try to sound like the latter with the former. Carcossa can’t get anywhere close to as creamy sounding.

Ariel Posen is constantly adjusting his volume knob with the fuzz, which is why it sounds so dynamic. To the extent any of those transformer-based things work to make a fuzz face kinda work after a buffer, there is no way it can allow you to do what Posen does with the fuzz face + volume knob.

Saw him last fall and was also blown away. Bass player is IN.credible.
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I agree the Carcosa is no FF, but I was referencing the clip on his tour page. I think you can get close enough to that tone with the Carcosa. Amp is a big part of it too. A FF or Carcosa can sound like poop through the wrong amp.
 
Boudoir Guitar said:
Bass player is IN.credible.
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Absolutely. But the entire band is.

---

As far as the fuzz-after-buffer thing goes: As said, I'd be willing to sacrifice some goodness live and would run straight into it at home.
In case I'd feel fancy one day, I might even slap it in front of my live rig, but I don't need to think about that for now.

Guess I need to order a Carcosa just to try it out one day. And then see whether it might be fine already.

Fwiw, for my "getting kinda close to fuzzy territory", I really love the TC Magus. It just cleans up very differently. In fact, it cleans up incredibly well, but there's some mid focus lost or so.
 
@DrewJD82 I took another run at the Eric Johnson FF this afternoon and you were right, it's actually really good. There must have been something wrong with my original build because it was very dark with very little definition.

I'm still feeling pretty rough from covid tbh but, I am feeling well enough (plus I'm bored) to throw a quick vero build together. It looks pretty jenky but works just fine.

1000177825.jpg


I'm going to muck about with transistors and then might order up a pcb to box it up properly. I've got some Fairchild BC183s like the original but also have some Texas Instruments and Motorola bc183's from the 1980s when they used to paint shit on the back of them.

1000177824.jpg
 
SillyOctpuss said:
@DrewJD82 I took another run at the Eric Johnson FF this afternoon and you were right, it's actually really good. There must have been something wrong with my original build because it was very dark with very little definition.

I'm still feeling pretty rough from covid tbh but, I am feeling well enough (plus I'm bored) to throw a quick vero build together. It looks pretty jenky but works just fine.

View attachment 59497

I'm going to muck about with transistors and then might order up a pcb to box it up properly. I've got some Fairchild BC183s like the original but also have some Texas Instruments and Motorola bc183's from the 1980s when they used to paint shit on the back of them.

View attachment 59498
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Funnily, I just came into my studio to plug in my Hendrix FF as I haven't actually used it as much as I have compared it to the EJ. I definitely haven't dialed in a tone specifically for it yet.

There a lot of variance between the 183's?
 
DrewJD82 said:
There a lot of variance between the 183's?
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Not really, mainly different bias and sounds from the different transistors hfe in each position. The fairchild and motorola bc183s sound pretty much the same, so do a bunch of different bc184s I tried too.

The texas instruments, however, do sound quite different. I've left a set of fairchilds which match the originals Dunlop use for now while I compare it to my JHF1, sun face and Tacit Blue clones. After comparing I'll decide whether I'm going to box one up or not.
 
SillyOctpuss said:
I'd like to try one myself
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I think you'd like it... wish I'd tried one much sooner tbh. Seeing you like building fuzzes, it's got a few interesting things going on that set it apart you'd probably appreciate. I don't know exactly what those are but it could be a dual circuit with a 250 mixed in there? Maybe Tom Cram explained it before somewhere.
It does well into modeling too, if you happen to go that route sometimes. I'll run it into a bf bassman or marshall variant with great results.
 
FuzzyAce said:
I think you'd like it... wish I'd tried one much sooner tbh. Seeing you like building fuzzes, it's got a few interesting things going on that set it apart you'd probably appreciate. I don't know exactly what those are but it could be a dual circuit with a 250 mixed in there? Maybe Tom Cram explained it before somewhere.
It does well into modeling too, if you happen to go that route sometimes. I'll run it into a bf bassman or marshall variant with great results.
Click to expand...

Looks like Robert at pedalpcb has traced it. I'll order a board and build one.
 
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