# FUZZ into a dirty amp - Suggestions, favourites, experiences?



## KV242 (Jan 6, 2013)

I want to add some fuzz into my rig, but I don't have a lot of experience with fuzz pedals, especially with my current rig. I've had a Big Muff, Fuzz Facotry, and a Fulltone 60 in the past, but none of it was with my current rig, and I no longer have any fuzz pedals. I'd prefer not to buy and try a dozen different pedals to figure it out. I'm not that patient, and would prefer not spend the time and money. I'm hoping I can tap into the experience and knowledge of the good people here to help narrow things down.

My tone as it is, is dirty and well driven (Les Paul into hot Marshall JMP) with no other drive/distortion effects. I want to add some fuzz to this tone. Something I can just kick on for a few songs that will fit/work with with my already existing tone. Nothing over the top, but another degree of dirt and grit. Also nothing that will require me to adjust amp settings to keep things under control. Through the research I've done so far, what I've determined as far as what fuzz works good into a dirty amp, is a Fuzz Face style is the way to go, versus Muff style, which is apparently better into a clean amp. 

So with all that said, what is your favourite fuzz pedal that works well kicking into an already screaming, driven and dirty amp?

Thanks in advance to everyone who shares their experiences/opinions/recommendations!
K


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## zdogma (Mar 21, 2006)

Sunface. If you like it dark and fat get the germanium, if you want bright and crackly get the bc108. I also really like the early tone benders (Mk1.5) into dirty Marshall amps.


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## Judas68fr (Feb 5, 2013)

well, Fuzz Face into cranked Marshall is legendary for a reason! 

I personally love Fuzz Faces because of the clean up too.


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## fretzel (Aug 8, 2014)

I don't know if I be of any help or not. I started ye fuzz quest about a year or so ago myself. Give you a little idea of what I have tried. 
First fuzz I got was a Joyo Ultimate Octave. Only good thing was switchable octave up. Very harsh pedal. 
I bought it because I heard some dude was hooping them up and reprinting them and hocking them as "booteek". 
I think next I grabbed the boss FZ5. What is good about this is you have 3 different style fuzz. FF, Maestro and Octave. I think it sounds pretty good for what it is. FF mode is probably the best. You can make it sound like the battery is dying. Wish it had a tone knob. 
VS Angry Fuzz. This is a good fuzz. I just sold it to a friend. Shortly after I bought this I picked up a FF. Can't remember which, but took it back as I like the VS better. Similar but had more gain and Angry mode(oct up). 
Fulltone 69, good fuzz just not enough of what I wanted. 
Keeley Fuzz Head. Doesn't get much simpler 2 knobs and a switch for silicon/germanium modes. I have talked to quite a few people that are quite happy to have this little box on their board. 
For a couple of weeks I had a Skreddy Lunar Module. Nice pedal. A little more work to find your sound with 6 knobs but there are good tones their. 
Danelectro French Toast. Got this on the cheap in another attempt to get my Jimi on. Not bad pedal with octave up. A little noisy. Mhammer mentioned that it's a clone of a foxrox pedal in another thread. 
Keeler Push Fuzz. Very good with a contour(bias) knob. I really liked it but preferred at low volume. 

Now in an effort to find 'my' fuzz tone I am still somewhat at it. I had the FuzzHead on my board when I last jammed with my band in June before summer break. I have a Wampler Velvet fuzz and a MojoHandFx Iron Bell. When getting my board back together for our first get together last week I stacked them against each other. The Fuzz Head stayed put. I think someplace between the fuzz head and the Velvet/iron bell lies my perfect fuzz. 
Also tried a Wampler 57 which is tweedy but in linked mode gets quite gainy. 
Finally a couple of suggestions. 
Soul food clean boost fuzzish. 
Rat, can be had for cheap and is quite a good pedal with a wide range of tones. 

Good luck.


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

How about a treble booster, a la Iommi... Tony Iommi: Tone tips


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## isoneedacoffee (Oct 31, 2014)

Fuzz of course is very personal. But it seems to also be a bit finicky when it comes to single coil vs hbs. You got the clean vs dirty amp right. But don't forget the pickups. I'm going hbs to a dirty Marshall like amp and am currently very satisfied using a clone of an ibanez standard fuzz for over the top dirty fuzz. I also use a scarab deluxe. It's incredibly versatile but perhaps a bit too expensive. What's your budget?


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

Empress has a couple of fuzz pedals and they're made in Ottawa - worth a look.

I have only dabbled in fuzz to see if it could replace the micro amp on my board - it did not.


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## amagras (Apr 22, 2015)

The closest thing I have to a Fuzz is my Maxon SD9 and it works great with dirty amps. I want to incorporate a real fuzz in my right though and I've been trying different boxes that mhammer builds but so far haven't decided which type I like best.


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## KV242 (Jan 6, 2013)

zdogma said:


> Sunface. If you like it dark and fat get the germanium, if you want bright and crackly get the bc108. I also really like the early tone benders (Mk1.5) into dirty Marshall amps.


Looked into the Analog Man stuff quite a bit. I like the germanium stuff, but can't find anything available that is used. I'm leaning towards the Sun Face TI/UK at the moment, although I'd have to order one, and with shipping it's over US$300, so haven't made a final decision on that yet.



fretzel said:


> I don't know if I be of any help or not. I started ye fuzz quest about a year or so ago myself. Give you a little idea of what I have tried.
> First fuzz I got was a Joyo Ultimate Octave. Only good thing was switchable octave up. Very harsh pedal.
> I bought it because I heard some dude was hooping them up and reprinting them and hocking them as "booteek".
> I think next I grabbed the boss FZ5. What is good about this is you have 3 different style fuzz. FF, Maestro and Octave. I think it sounds pretty good for what it is. FF mode is probably the best. You can make it sound like the battery is dying. Wish it had a tone knob.
> ...


Thanks for the info. I once had the Fulltone 69, shortly after the small box versions first came out. I really liked it, but I didn't have much use for it at the time. I've since regretted selling it. Agree with you that it is a little tame, but it might work for what I'm looking for now. I will look into the others you mention, check so demos and see if they are in my ballpark.



isoneedacoffee said:


> Fuzz of course is very personal. But it seems to also be a bit finicky when it comes to single coil vs hbs. You got the clean vs dirty amp right. But don't forget the pickups. I'm going hbs to a dirty Marshall like amp and am currently very satisfied using a clone of an ibanez standard fuzz for over the top dirty fuzz. I also use a scarab deluxe. It's incredibly versatile but perhaps a bit too expensive. What's your budget?


I'm playing Les Paul's into Marshall's, so your setup sounds interesting. I'm not looking for anything over the top, as I already drive the amp pretty hard. I just want to thicken and fuzz up my tone for a few songs. Nothing to hairy or out of control. What's the clone you are using? I don't really have a set budget, just looking to get the job done best way possible with greatest value and least hassle. 



Budda said:


> Empress has a couple of fuzz pedals and they're made in Ottawa - worth a look.
> 
> I have only dabbled in fuzz to see if it could replace the micro amp on my board - it did not.


I had some Empress stuff in the past, and was quite pleased. I used the Multi Drive for a while, although I can't quite recall details of the fuzz tone. But I will look into their Fuzz offerings as well.



sulphur said:


> How about a treble booster, a la Iommi... Tony Iommi: Tone tips


I've somewhat experimented with boosting to get what I'm looking for, but couldn't achieve what I was after. I have a Timmy and experimented with various gain and EQ'ing combinations, but wasn't quite what I wanted. The article mentions the Dallas Rangemaster, of which I had a killer clone. I miss that pedal. I wasn't using it much at the time and had like 5 boost pedals, so sold it with the others, keeping only the Timmy.


All in all, thanks for the suggestions and recommendations. I'll do some more research over the weekend and see if I can narrow my search down. I'm welcome any more thoughts and suggestions.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

Not a fuzz, but try a micro amp into your dirty pedal or amp.


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## KV242 (Jan 6, 2013)

After much research and deliberation, I decided on an Analogman Sunface. Was having a tough time finding one used, so was ready to order one new. Was a little torn between the Mullard CV7005 transistors for their lower gain and NTK white dot characteristics, and the TI/UK transistors with a little more gain, but also a little brighter, which isn't a bad thing. Before placing the order on the Analogman webiste, I decide to take one more look here for a used Sunface. only to find KoskineN selling a TI/UK version! Timing couldn't be better. Excited to receive the pedal!


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## fretzel (Aug 8, 2014)

Have fun!


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## KoskineN (Apr 19, 2007)

The Ti/UK worked very well with my LP, so it surely will with yours!


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## Moosehead (Jan 6, 2011)

I'm interested to hear how you like the TI/UK. I have a 2SB sun face and while I like it a lot it's a bit dark. I have my big box 69 going into my jcm800 right now but you don't get a very pronounced fuzz sound with the pre past noon. Don't get me wrong it's there and I notice it, just not in your face as much. 

The sun face is higher gain and sounds great boosting a distorted tone for a nice smooth lead sound. I do prefer the lower gain of the nkt's in the 69 into a dirty amp though. The sun face doesn't have the gain up very far or it gets too fuzzy. Unless playing in a low input..., but this is about dirty amps with fuzz...


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## KV242 (Jan 6, 2013)

Sorry for the slow response. I've been trying to use the pedal with my band to see how the it works in the mix, but my drummer sustained an injury and we haven't been able to jam. So at this point I can only tell you about the pedal from noodling on my own. Once I get the chance to use it in the band, I can let you how it works out. 

I have spent a fair bit of time playing through the pedal, using various settings and tweaks. It's not what I'd call a plug and play pedal, as it does take some time to find the sweet spot. It can easily get too dark and muddy if everything is dimed. The TI/UK is probably higher gain than what I'd prefer or need, but I do get some incredible and very usable tone from it. I've used the pedal with 2 different amps, a small practice amp - Blackstar HT5 and my main rig a 1978 Marshall JMP 2204, playing Les Paul's with vintage output pickups. 

Due to the nature of the HT5's design and tone stack (there's a lot going on with the gain stages and tone stack in this thing), the TI/UK is not ideal and the top end can quickly get lost. I played a lot with internal gain pot and then combinations of volume and fuzz. My goal, remember, was to be able to kick on the fuzz and not have to make any other adjustments to guitar or amp. Well with this pedal and a Les Paul, I don't think that's possible. After much tweaking, I settled with the internal gain set down to about 40%, fuzz at about 10:30. At unity gain and guitar volume dimed, the tone was very fat, dark with a loss of the top end. I rolled back the guitar volume to 8 or 9 and that brought back the top end lessened the darkness and muddiness of the tone. After rolling back the guitar volume, the output of the pedal dropped a bit so I bumped up the volume some to about 2:30 and that opened up the tone further, brought back more of the top end and produced a fairly well rounded, fat tone with decent highs and a good amount of fuzz. Overall I was satisfied with this tone.

With the pedal setup as described above, I plugged it into my main rig, the JMP 2204 with preamp volume dimed, and quickly discovered the Sun Face was made for this amp! There actually wasn't enough gain or fuzz with the current settings, so I went back to tweaking the pedal again. Still, the TI/UK has more gain than I need, but I found I could dump as much as the pedal has into the JMP without much trouble. I ended up adjusting the internal gain pot to about 70%, set the fuzz at about 3:30, found unity gain with the volume on the pedal and then gave it a slight bump to about 12:00 to bring the top end out a little more. I still have to roll back the volume on the guitar to about 8/8.5 to prevent the tone from getting too fat, too muddy, and losing the highs. But with things set here, I get a tone that's a little thicker and fatter (than without the pedal kicked on), as much fuzz that I need (and more if I desired), without loosing too much of the details or the top end. I could dime the fuzz on the pedal, and as long as I rolled back the volume on the guitar a little, the amp could handle it all day without getting too dark, fat or muddy. Again, I haven't had the chance to try it in the mix with the band, but my perception of the fuzz tone leads me to believe it will not be lost in the mix and sing out clearly. 

If I had my choice, I'd probably go for a lower gain Sun Face, like the NKTs or the current CV7005. But either way, the TI/UK definitely kicks ass and gets me the tone that I'm after. You just need to put the time in to find the sweet spot with your rig. I had a small box 69 and I regretted selling it. I didn't have the JMP at the time so I can't speak on how the two worked together, but I found the same as you in that the 69 didn't have quite enough fuzz.


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## KapnKrunch (Jul 13, 2016)

Tried a lot of solid state pedals. Liked them all in some way. 

Finally bit the bullet and bought Mark Stephenson's STAGE HOG. 

I know it is expensive, but that was --

The end.


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## pstratman (Jan 26, 2012)

This is one works great! I run it into my Marshall. Not exactly a Fuzz but you need to listen to the clips...you will see what I mean- gets Fuzzy but cuts- cleans up great with volume. 
The Catalinbread Naga Viper is our take on the classic Dallas Rangemaster Treble Booster with added features allowing users to dial it in with any amplifier.


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## pstratman (Jan 26, 2012)




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## fretzel (Aug 8, 2014)

Sounds pretty good. Love the drumming. But I gotta say, every vid I see with a Princeton makes me want one.


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## pstratman (Jan 26, 2012)

I was looking for a fuzz that I liked as well- most were too much and sounded good with a single coil in the bridge position or with the volume rolled back on my guitar- this one works great- have you seen the videos with the Naga into the princeton- wow!


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