Fuzzrite: Buyer beware

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zak
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Re: Fuzzrite: Buyer beware

Postby zak » Tue Aug 19, 2008 8:12 am

dubtrub wrote:I know you don't seek recognition or atta boy's

Haha I'd rather be remembered as a guitar player than a guy with lots of Fuzzrite photos. I'm happy to share. When I got into Fuzzrites about 10 years ago there was virtually no info about 'em anywhere. As I said on the first page of this thread, the schematics I've seen online haven't been accurate, either. I hope the circuit board shots are helpful to anyone building a repro Fuzzrite.

MWaldorf wrote:Are all the old fuzz pedals really sensative to AC adapters vs a 9V battery?

Not all...but most of the older fuzzes are sensitive to what is powering them. In some pedals you'll hear a noticeable difference between carbon and alkaline batteries. In others, no difference whatsoever. I haven't noticed any noise issues with the Ashbass, and I've used it with a battery and with an adapter. It is pretty consistent, and not noisy at all (for a fuzz). The adapter you use may have some effect on the sound/noise. Most pedals require 200ma to 300ma from the power supply. I daisy-chain two pedals with a single 600ma power supply, haven't had any noise issues yet.
The Sanner, on the other hand, is quite temperamental and often picks up the radio (this only happens with the guitar volume turned down).

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Re: Fuzzrite: Buyer beware

Postby Mr. Bill » Wed Aug 20, 2008 2:11 pm

This thread is really amazing.

In it I have learned that there have been at least 4 different versions of the original germanium Fuzzrites. I try and check out all of the eBay listing photos, and over the years I had seen most of these, but not all in one place.

I know there were at least two silicon versions made, one with a phenolic board very similar to the Sanner re-issue, and the other with the couplate (encapsulated circuit).

Here's a little information that I know concerning Red Rhodes. He was a steel guitar player/amp repairman/builder in the Nashville area. Back in the 70's he opened up shop in the Western suburbs of Chicago and among other things, began building a replacement pick-up line called "The Velvet Hammer". There was a humbucker and a Strat version available and maybe a few more. This only lasted for a few years and these pick-ups are really rare. I had one of the humbuckers back in the day, sorta like a DiMarzio Super Distortion. It was covered in a soft wax. In the Summertime, if your hand got too close and touched it, it would leave a sticky spot.

Around this same time, he was also selling off old Foxx pedals. I think that these were the remnants left when Ridinger went out of business. I don't know if he owned the rights to the name or anything like that, but he did have a whole lot of dead circuit boards, etc.

After he closed up shop in Chicago, he moved back to the Nashville area. This is when he began making and selling repros of the original Boss-Tone fuzz.

Later, he went to work for Aspen Pittman at Groove Tubes, where he designed some of the amp lines there. I understand that he passed away maybe 10 years ago.

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Re: Fuzzrite: Buyer beware

Postby dubtrub » Wed Aug 20, 2008 9:02 pm

Nice piece of information about Red Rhodes, Mr. Bill. BTW. welcome to the forum. Glad to have you join us.

Well, Zak, you got my interest up with this topic and a Fuzzbrite just popped up on eBay with a buy it now price for $75, so I grabbed it. Don't really need it as I don't use much effects when I play, plus I have the one I scratch built that I don't use. But, I thought for $75, I could try it and compare it to the scratch build and if it is a vast improvement I'll sell the one I made. If not I'll resell it on eBay for $85. :lol:
Danny Ellison

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zak
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Re: Fuzzrite: Buyer beware

Postby zak » Wed Aug 20, 2008 9:40 pm

dubtrub wrote:Don't really need it as I don't use much effects when I play, plus I have the one I scratch built that I don't use.

Perfect time to learn some of the Ventures' fuzz tunes. Should be a breeze getting that exact tone with the Fuzzbrite.

dubtrub wrote:But, I thought for $75, I could try it and compare it to the scratch build and if it is a vast improvement I'll sell the one I made.

Be prepared to spend some time dialing it in. Just like the original Fuzzrite, it behaves oddly and not every sound is really usable. Since you already made one you already know that the "fuzz depth" control pans between fuzz + clean signal and pure fuzz. So at the bottom of the control's range, you get a pretty thumpy, boxy sound. Somewhere near the middle, there's a slight volume drop as the two sides of the control cancel each other out. Then the fuzz gets progressively buzzier and treblier. Past 8 or so on the fuzz control, you get full "swarm of bees riding motorcycles and armed with chainsaws colliding with a wood chipper" tone. The fuzz also becomes progressively more unstable, causing notes to "crap out" in surprising and unexpected ways, anything from abrupt fizzy fades to amusing sequences of frying bacon noises.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the fuzz will sound different through different amps and at different volume levels. It'll sound much more extreme and buzzy through a totally clean amp, but through an amp that's turned up to the verge of breakup, it interacts with the amp to produce a less abrasive sound and becomes more horn-like. So experiment with the amp as well as the fuzz before you get frustrated with it and write it off as a horrible sounding box!

Even Davie Allan, a name synonymous with "Mosrite Fuzzrite" more than any other, surprised me by expressing frustration with the Fuzzrite's tonal extremes. When I interviewed him 9 years ago he said "No, I never used it on stage. I never liked the way it's worked for me. It needed to be recorded properly and live, I just couldn't get into it. I don't know if it's when you turn up the attack the treble gets crazy...I had a tone control put in and that didn't really help it."

One thing I've noticed is that taken out of context, great fuzz sounds can sound ugly and harsh. Thick, rich, smooth tones don't cut through a band as well as trebly buzzy compressed sickening fuzz does!

dubtrub wrote:If not I'll resell it on eBay for $85.

Shouldn't have any trouble doing that - I see used Fuzzbrites sell for that much before.

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Re: Fuzzrite: Buyer beware

Postby MWaldorf » Wed Aug 20, 2008 9:45 pm

I just got a chance to run through some Ventures tunes with my new Fuzzbrite - I didn't find it too hard to dial in, but of course, playing solo quietly is different from a band situation which will likely require fine-tuning.
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Re: Fuzzrite: Buyer beware

Postby zak » Wed Aug 20, 2008 9:55 pm

MWaldorf wrote:playing solo quietly is different from a band situation which will likely require fine-tuning.

I've noticed that with any fuzz, in a live setting it is something of a struggle getting a tone that is both not painfully shrill and doesn't get swallowed up in some registers. Very often you get a glorious bass string fuzz, but wander up to the G and B strings and you get swallowed up by the band...or vice versa.
All the Ventures stuff sounds like it was recorded at very low volumes with the fuzz at moderate settings, unlike Davie Allan's 60s material where the fuzz is cranked and the guitars are multi-tracked so thickly they start to sound like a horn section. One thing I've learned is that all the great fuzz sounds on record are very difficult to duplicate live unless you're playing very very quietly. As soon as you're running the fuzz into an amp that's already compressing and rounding off odd-order harmonics, you effectively "tame" the fuzz and smooth out all the odd-order harmonics that make it sound so chainsaw-like in the first place. And as you get louder, it becomes progressively harder to keep the fuzz from sounding more like Hendrix than Davie Allan or 60s Nokie Edwards. This is one of the very few instances where blackface Fender amps fare better than brownface. Also, for recording purposes, you can get some great results with small crappy solid-state amps.
I've also had some great results combining the fuzz with a treble booster (like a Rangemaster). To get the fuzz to easily cut through a full band (and as you know, Mel, we're loud and our arrangements tend to be "wall of sound") I sometimes run it into an overdrive set for zero gain and full volume boost and tone set roughly 2/3 of the way up. It sacrifices some of the abrasiveness for a very even string-to-string volume level in a band context.

Out of curiosity, what Ventures fuzz tunes are you doing?

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Re: Fuzzrite: Buyer beware

Postby MWaldorf » Wed Aug 20, 2008 10:08 pm

As a band, we're not doing any fuzz songs - yet. I just get a kick out of playing Flight of Fancy and 2000 Pound Bee. To me, that's the test of a fuzz, the way 96 Tears is the test of a combo organ.

I agree about the 60s Ventures studio stuff having been recorded quietly. I like that quality, it's also noticable on the Astronauts and Trashmen records. Like you, playing in a five piece band with another guitar and a combo organ can drown out the lead so I try to be mindful of registers and tone. Granted we don't play as aggressively as the Treblemakers, but it gets pretty lively and often loud!
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Re: Fuzzrite: Buyer beware

Postby Mr. Bill » Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:46 pm

The silicon transistor version of the FuzzRite is a two stage circuit with the first gain stage cascading into the second stage.

Each stage is exactly the same and as was pointed out earlier here, the FUZZ control is actually a balance control that selects the output from either the first stage or the second stage. This doesn't work perfectly as the "dirty" signal will generally always be heard mixed in with the "clean" first stage signal. When you set the FUZZ control so that you can hear a distinct mix of the "clean" and "dirty" signals, you can get a sound similar to what you hear on Hendrix's Crosstown Traffic, which sounds almost like a kazoo doubling the guitar line.

Because each stage is set up as an inverter (the input is 180 degrees out of phase with the output), when the two stages are mixed together you will get a certain amount of phase cancellation which helps to create the typical bright FuzzRite sound.

What's also possible is when the two signals "clean" and "dirty" are mixed together in equal amounts, you get what can be termed "balanced modulation", or what is better known as the Octavia, octave doubling sound. This works best when the signal input is a sine wave, so that means use the neck pick-up and play above the 10th fret. In this mode, you can also get a sitar like sound if you play down on the lower end of the neck with the bridge pick-up, while picking very close to the bridge.

Bill

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Re: Fuzzrite: Buyer beware

Postby Bushers » Tue Aug 26, 2008 6:15 pm

This seems as good a place as any to post this, one just gone up on ebay, thoughts?

Fuzzrite - BIN $350
Jason (Bushers)
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Re: Fuzzrite: Buyer beware

Postby zak » Tue Aug 26, 2008 7:35 pm

Bushers wrote:thoughts?

Yes:

Ask yourself if the music you're playing requires an effect so utterly lacking in subtlety.

If you're looking for the most extreme treble-happy chainsaw fuzz and it is indeed the right sound for you, ask yourself how important it is that you own the original (complete with the flawed battery on/off switch) as opposed to a repro at 1/3 the price.


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