Tyme for some High Octave Fuzz

Ever since I have been reading and listening to various type fuzz circuits I was always intimidated a bit to build  an octave fuzz, mainly 'cause I don't really care to much for octave pedals. Sure they are interesting pedals to play with and toy around, and some great guitarists have made some great solos using octavers, both up and down, but it's not what I am usually after in my sound. Anyway what I'm trying to say is...boy...was I wrong.

My first attempt at an Octave fuzz pedal was made by tampering with a Jordan BossTone fuzz which had a pot for battery starving effect (a tip from freestompboxes.com). This yielded an Octave Down effect with a lot of buzzing which sounds a bit like the Motorcycle effect done by Brian May. Pretty cool, hu? but I'll post this one later on.

Then I read an interesting story about Hendrix playing the Purple Haze solo through the mysterious Octavia fuzz made by Roger Mayer. It is told that one of these pedals was stolen, and reappeared after Hendrix's death under the Tycobrahe brand. After listening to more tracks allegedly played through this Octavia pedal I realized that this pedal has a lot to do with what I call the Hendrix sound. Although he used the Maestro FuzzTone and various Fuzz Faces quite a bit, he also used a pedal called the Axis Fuzz and the Octavia. Both of these pedals sound fantastic and very versatile so I could n't sit still, of course, knowing that they are both in one medium difficulty circuit.

Wondering the web for circuits I ended up using the GGG circuit which had some new features like negative ground, PREGAIN knob, polarity protection and also featured the Octave On/Off switch, so that it's actually two pedals in one. The first part of the circuit is actually the highly acclaimed Roger Mayer Axis Fuzz and the second part is the Octave-up which used a coil transformer for frequency conversion. Mind you that the later Roger Mayer Octave Fuzz is a different circuit and does not have the transformer for the octave up thing. From what I understand the original pedal did include a transformer for the frequency doubling.

I ordered some parts from SmallBear and Mammoth, breadboarded the sucker and when I saw that it was all good I boxed it and called the pedal the "High Tyme" fuzz and for a very good reason. As soon as I plugged my guitar in I was back in Psychedelic Ladyland. This pedal is so sweet you wanna eat it. The Axis-fuzz circuit is musical, smooth and rich. It actually sounds much better and more defined than your usual Fuzz Face, and more vintage sounding than any BigMuff if you wanna go 60's. You can play around with the INTENSITY knob but it really sounds good anywhere on the clock. Once you engage the Octave everything goes berserk. You can roll off the guitar knob or use the PREGAIN and as you roll it down you can get a cleaner octave which can sound very interesting on the high notes on the neck pickup. What I love even more is the sound of the pedal on Bass. I spent an entire night playing bass using the pedal with a phaser right after it. The sound was so inspiring that I couldn't stop. It can get really nasty and quirky on the higher settings. Btw, for the Octave on/off switch just cut the transformer's primary channel diode from the ground and hook it on a SPST switch. Yes, it's that simple as shown here.

I don't know if this circuit is the exact circuit Hendrix played through but it is definitely out there. It's probably the closest I got so far to really reaching my goal on this quest. Lately I've heard of a band called T2 which released one album "It'll All Work Out In Boomland" in 1970 and boom they split. On the new CD release there is a bonus track called "Questions and Answers". 17 years old guitarist, Keith Cross, plays 3 amazing solos on this track which climb up the fuzzy scale throughout the track. The fuzz he uses has got to be the Octave Fuzz 'cause no other fuzz sounds quite like it. you can listen to it using this link. You won't regret it. If you wanna build it.and you need the schematic...here is the magical recipe for this Psycho potion.

  

A Factory of Fuzz

When I first sett of to the journey for the soundscapes of Fuzz territory I didn't really know what I was about to find. I thought that I would build two or three circuits and then box them and go on with my life. As soon as I build the first one I realized that the journey has just begun. From the song list of the previous post you can collect maybe 20 or so fuzz variations which really sound different and probably hundreds of sounds if you go into the details. When I stumbled on the Z. Vex Fuzz Factory video I thought "Man, this is a cool little bastard". It was a Germanium fuzz face (YAFF - Yet Another Fuzz Face) with a buffer input stage and a negative voltage which is an unusual design for PNP trannys. More appealing were the pots located on areas of the schematics which gave the fuzz some really deep control over GATING, COMPRESSION, oscillation STABILITY and, of course, DRIVE.

As I had a few AC128 lying around which I tested for gain and leakage, I thought it could be a simple build and I may find my ultimate sound bank of fuzz versatility. As soon as I finished it I took it to a rehearsal. It was a dense jungle of wires and pots on the studio carpet and... it tore the place down. 

It's a very fun piece of gear with some neat tricks. It will get you close to a straight over the top Fuzz Face, it  reacts well to guitar roll-off and the interaction between the DRIVE and STAB can get you deep into heavy psych-land. The most cool sound I got from this circuit is what Z. Vex call the Velcro effect which is a heavily gated nasal tone that sounds a little like the Mike Ratledge organ fuzz sound on Soft Machine. Like a vintage analog synth or something.

My settings didn't sound exactly like the sounds described on the preset list with hte knobs at the specified locations but a little tweaking here and there and I got the sounds it's supposed to produce.

It's a really versatile unit but I couldn't make it my go-to box because each sound was good but not perfect, except for that sweet sticky Velcro sound and the weird oscillations which are always good when you just wanna go plain crazy. Not a complete winner but definitely worth a shot if you want to scorch some guitar asphalt. Again, I owe you some sound samples and if you comment, I will post them. If you want to build this one, use the verified schematic shown here.

130 greatest fuzz songs of all times

You can never have too many fuzz pedals

After writing and reading so much about the various Fuzz pedals, schematics and the history around them, I thought it would be a good idea to build the ultimate playlist of songs which incorporate the Fuzz, The Ultimate Fuzz Playlist -

130 all time greatest fuzz songs

While some songs are very well known others are quite obscure and even rare. Nevertheless, they all present the fuzz effect in one way or another, mostly on electric guitar but also on bass and even keyboards (Mike Ratledge of Soft Machine). 

These kind of lists are always partial, of course, but the scope of material here is both wide and deep. I gathered a lot of smaller lists from all around the web and added some of my own. You are welcome to comment, correct or add your own ideas so that we can further lengthen the list.

Rating | song | artist | Year

I believe that most of the songs on the list can be found on Youtube or GrooveShark if you want to listen. I'll try to turn this list into a YouTube playlist in the future for better convenience.

If you are new to the world of fuzz listen to the first 10 songs and you'll get the idea. If you are well acquainted and consider yourself a fuzz master check out some of the really rare stuff here. There are some beautiful gems hidden down the track.

Some viewers complained that this list is mostly 60's and 70's and doesn't reflect the fuzz era of the 90's and the 21st century. Well, it is true that the 60's and 70's saw the emergence of fuzz pedals and exploited this sound to great extent and thus the fuzz purists would say that the 1st fuzz era is the real deal. Nevertheless, I did add a lot of newer stuff which, I believe, do justice to the fuzz idea, like Smashing Pumpkins, Jesus and the Mary Chain and other bands who really used fuzz pedals to the extreme).

Enjoy!

|1|Blue's Theme|Davie Allan & The Arrows|1968|

|2|(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction|The Rolling Stones|1965|

|3|Spirit in the Sky|Norman Greenbaum|1969|

|4|Incense And Peppermints|Strawberry Alarm Clock|1967|

|5|The 2000 Pound Bee (Part 1&2)|The Ventures|1962|

|6|Pushin' Too Hard|The Seeds|1966|

|7|Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass|Buck Owens|1969|

|8|Mr. Soul|Buffalo Springfield|1967|

|9|Dark Eyed Woman (Album Version)|Spirit|1969|

|10|Think For Yourself|The Beatles|1965|

|11|Over Under Sideways Down|Yardbirds|1967|

|12|The devil's rumble|Davie Allan & The Arrows|1965|

|13|In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida|Iron Butterfly|1968|

|14|You're A Better Man Than I|Yardbirds|1967|

|15|You Don't Remember|Twentieth Century Zoo|1996|

|16|I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night|The Electric Prunes|1967|

|17|High|Truth|1969|

|18|Heart Full Of Soul|Yardbirds|1967|

|19|Easy Money|King Crimson|1973|

|20|Rocket|Smashing Pumpkins|1993|

|21|Think About It|Yardbirds|1967|

|22|Evil Hoodoo|The Seeds|1966|

|23|Yekermo Sew|Mulatu Astatke|1970|

|24|Moonage Daydream|David Bowie|1972|

|25|Bluebird|Buffalo Springfield|1967|

|26|Shapes Of Things|Yardbirds|1967|

|27|The Pusher|Steppenwolf|1976|

|28|Iron Man|Black Sabbath|1970|

|29|Death Of An Electric Citizen|Edgar Broughton Band|1969|

|30|American Woman|Guess Who|1970|

|31|To Cry You A Song|Jethro Tull|1970|

|32|Diddy Wah Diddy|Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band|1965|

|33|Nothing To Say|Jethro Tull|1970|

|34|Purple Haze|Jimi Hendrix Experience|1967|

|35|Psychotic Reaction|Count Five|1968|

|36|Dropout Boogie|Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band|1967|

|37|Dole Song|Fresh Maggots|1971|

|38|Cherub Rock|Smashing Pumpkins|1993|

|39|Mayonaise|Smashing Pumpkins|1993|

|40|Journey to the Center of the Mind|The Amboy Dukes|1968|

|41|Sexo Galactico|Piel De Pueblo|1972|

|42|Let's Spend the Night Together|Muddy Waters|1968|

|43|21st Century Schizoid Man|King Crimson|1969|

|44|Sioux City Blues|Majic Ship|1969|

|45|The Nile Song|Pink Floyd|1971|

|46|Search Your Soul|The Shadows Of Time|1996|

|47|How Many More Times|Led Zeppelin|1969|

|48|Bad Little Woman|Shadows of Knight|1968|

|49|Just Like Honey|The Jesus and Mary Chain|1985|

|50|Sunshine Of Your Love|Cream|1967|

|51|Paranoid|Black Sabbath|1970|

|52|Action Woman|Litter|1968|

|53|Balloon Song|Fresh Maggots|1971|

|54|Driving South|Jimi Hendrix|1998|

|55|Cinnamon Girl|Neil Young|1969|

|56|Civilization Machine|The Plastic Cloud|1968|

|57|Tomorrow Is Plastic|Freeman Sounds & Friends|1970|

|58|Jammin|The Savage Resurrection|1968|

|59|Earthquake (Remastered)|13th Floor Elevators|1967|

|60|Thing in E|The Savage Resurrection|1968|

|61|Deadweight|Beck|1997|

|62|Ramble Tamble|Creedence Clearwater Revival|1970|

|63|Surf-Ari|The Challengers|1966|

|64|I'm A Man|Q65|1965|

|65|Shake|Shadows of Knight|1968|

|66|Nobody But Me|Various Artists|1968|

|67|Mary, Mary So Contrary|Can|1969|

|68|I Think I'm Down|Harbinger Complex|1968|

|69|Fault Line|Deep Purple|1969|

|70|Communication Breakdown|Led Zeppelin|1969|

|71|Tom Cat|Muddy Waters|1968|

|72|The Width Of A Circle|David Bowie|1971|

|73|Almost Cut My Hair|Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young|1970|

|74|Futilist's Lament|High Tide|1969|

|75|The Gift|The Velvet Underground|1968|

|76|SWLABR|Cream|1967|

|77|My Ancestors|Chrissy Zebby Tembo & Ngozi Family|1974|

|78|Moonage Daydream|David Bowie|1972|

|79|Father Cannot Yell|Can|1969|

|80|Nitrus|Dick Dale|1970|

|81|White Light/White Heat|The Velvet Underground|1968|

|82|I Won't Leave My Wooden Wife For You, Sugar|The United States Of America|1967|

|83|Coming Down|The United States Of America|1967|

|84|Daddy's Blazin' BBQ|Pepe Deluxe|2003|

|85|I Wanna Be Your Dog|The Stooges|1969|

|86|Split [Part Two]|Groundhogs|1971|

|87|Evil|Aguaturbia|1969|

|88|Hibou, Anemone and Bear|Soft Machine|1969|

|89|Garden|Groundhogs|1971|

|90|Hello, I love You|The Doors|1968|

|91|Fisherman|Chrissy Zebby Tembo & Ngozi Family|1974|

|92|The Musical Box|Genesis|1971|

|93|Pictures Of Matchstick Man|Status Quo|1968|

|94|Down by the River|Neil Young|1969|

|95|Pushed, But Not Forgotten|High Tide|1969|

|96|Soul Typecast|The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion|1993|

|97|Silver Rains|Ivory|1973|

|98|Revolution|The Head Shop|1969|

|99|Coast Road|Gravy Train|1970|

|100|Starless|King Crimson|1974

|101|machine Gun|Jimi Hendrix Band of Gypsys|1970

|102|Questions and Answers|T2|1970

|103|Rama|Cold Sun|1969 (any song on this great album)

|104|Bat Macumba|Os Mutantes|1968

|105|Explosive Corrosive Joseph|John Schroeder|1969

|106|Man With the Harmonica|Ennio Morricone|1968

|107|Don't Worry|Marty Robbins|1960

|108|Time (Solo)|Pink Floyd|1973

|109|Only Shallow|My Bloody Valentine|1991

|110|Polar Bear|Ride|1990

|111|Who was in my room last night?|Butthole Surfers|1993

|112|Train to Nowhere|Rare Earth|1969

|113|Sleepy Son|Sleepy Sun|2008

|114|Mother Sky|Can|1970

|115|Fu Manchu|Godzilla|1997

|116|Touch Me I'm Sick|Mudhoney|1988

|117|Voytek|The Heavy Eyes|2011

|118|Walkabout (Solo)|RHCP|1995

|119|Are You Gonna Go My Way|Lenny Kravitz|1993

|120|Fool in the End|Graveyard|2007

|121|Dragonaout|Sleep|1993

|122|I Don't Know Anything|Mad Season|1995

|123|Get Ready|Rare Earth|1969

|124|There's No Satisfaction|Vampires' Sound Incorporation|1970

|125|Sonic Youth|Starfield Road|1994

|126|Sonic Youth|100%|1992

|127|A Girl Like You|Edwyn Collins|1995

|128|Dead Meadow|Sleepy Silver Door|2000

|129|The Monks|Pretty Suzanne|1966

|130|My Bloody Valentine|Slow|1987

|131|Witch|Seer|2006

will soon add:

Beck ?? 

White Stripes ?? 

The Mars Volta ??

Pavement ??

The Flaming Lips ??

Ween ??

Fern Knight

Have fuzz !!

A No Fuss Tone from the Above and Beyond

My FuzzQuest started off with the goal of getting that elusive sound of the mid-sixties Fuzz like the Maestro FZ-1 or the FZ-1A. But getting the Schematic and actually building one turned out to be quite a challange, so I started with simpler designs. Over the course of a year I truly fell in love with each pedal I built and I started to really understand what's going on in this world. 

The world of Fuzz is all about getting the right tone for the job. Some fuzz boxes sound like a reed instrument giving you a buzzy effect while some sound like a plain old loud distortion. Over the years the trend changed, from the buzzy Maestro and the scratchy Mosrite to the singing sustain of the FuzzFace and Tone Bender. After that you got the Octave Fuzz and the Super saturated BigMuffs. While some fuzzes are great for solo playing they can be difficult to control in a band structure and can really be hard to mix. This post is about a fuzz which sits just right in the mix.

The Astro-Tone was a simple fuzz designed for the Sam Ash Musical Instruments shop which sold it during the late sixties and early seventies. The fuzz is known for it's soft and creamy tone which, at the time, was the opposite of the out-of-control Fuzz Face character.

So once I built a few Fuzz Faces I was interested to see what this fuzz is all about. The thing that really turned me on was a live show by Jazz-prog band "Sweet Smoke" from 1974 where the lead guitarist Marvin Kaminovitz plays a Les Paul through this Sam Ash unit and it just sounds sooo....sweet and juicy. 

The build is quite simple, I used a couple of cheap BC109 and 2N3904 NPNs, and the results were awesome.... the unit is a winner. It has a very smooth drive that sound super fluid with chords, unlike the heavy Fuzz Face, and the TONE control is very effective. No matter what the setting was I could always get pleasing results and it sounds equally well with Humbuckies and Single coils.

What more could I ask for? well there is another little thing I love about the unit. Roll off the volume knob on your guitar and baaammm, you get a biting sparkly Hendrix-like tone with smooth edges that is just to die for.

The unit really deserved a different touch on the exterior so I gave it a kidney shaped metallic candy box and painted it to give the right Astro-mood. It's a no-fuss Fuzz. As always, I'll post some riffs played with this unit, but you gotta ask for it and put in some comments as I am still null on the comments page. You can get the schematic here.

Now here's a long audio clip which shows the different colors of the pedal all around the FUZZ and TONE knobs with the new addition of a larger cap on the input which gives a much stronger bass response than the original designers have intended. Cool! Listen closely to the areas where the guitar's volume knob is rolled off a bit. The sound is very edgy and Hendrix like. Super Cool!

Astro Tone clone demo ES335+AC30 by Doron Barness on Mixcloud

From darkest night to brightest light

Before moving on to more distorted sounds created by fuzz boxes and overdrives, I'd like to share with you a great circuit that has become a crucial part of my pedal board. Playing around with all sorts of amps, guitars and pickups, I realized that I could definitely use some clean tone shaping capabilities.

I started looking for a nice tone stack (EQ) schematic that would give me more voicing flexibility, a clean boost/volume control and a good buffer design. By voicing I mean the characteristic tone of an amp. My Zebra Humbuckers often need a bit more treble to get that shine. A clean boost or volume is very helpful when you place the pedal first in the chain. You can really shape your pickups for more MIDs or less BASS whenever necessary. The buffer compensates for tone sucking when working with many pedals in the chain which are not engaged (OFF position). So after some looking around I realized that the wonderful guys at runoffgroove have done all the hard work already and designed the perfect guitar tone stack in a simple circuit named the Tone Mender. It's a dual stage operational amp with a tone stack between the two stages which gives clean and tunable boost. 

Once I breadboarded this design I knew it was love at first site. Placing the unit between the guitar and a fuzz (not all of them) gave my the freedom to really change the fuzz behavior because you control the BASS content. Fuzz pedals react strongly to the bass content coming in (more bass = stronger harmonics = more fuzz). The MID is like a volume control so you can control the fuzz amount by just lowering signal going in. When placing it after one of the amp emulation pedals you can really achieve different voicings by tweaking the knobs, but it doesn't end there. You can get scooped mids or roll off the bass for less mud. It even has a MID SHIFT switch to choose between the MID control at 400Hz and 700Hz. Cranking the TREBLE knob at the end of the chain gives you extra clarity which is always needed. From darkest night to brightest light. It's all there.

Wow... what a great addition. This pedal just blew me away...mainly because it gives you so many options no matter where you place it. Because it was such a jungle of sounds I decided to paint it tropically and name it The EQUATOR. If you are in need of some tone shaping don't miss out on this one, its simple and super flexible. BTW I ended up using the NE5532 dual op-amp and it sounds great. You can get the schematic and details here.  

The Rite Fuzz for Buzz

The Green Spirit FuzzRite clone

So after a few circuits on the breadboard and a lot of listening and reading I started realizing what the Fuzz is all about....what it is.....and what is should never be!

Fuzz is all about clipping. Not soft clipping like a tube amp or like what we call today 'Overdrive'. Fuzz is about hard clipping. The saturation is immediate and pushed so hard that you get a lot of sustain due to over compression into saturation. The effect of feedbacking a  2nd transistor back into a 1st gain transistor drives the circuit into this hard clipping. Si vs. Ge, architecture and design are all important factors.

When I first heard Garage bands like Strawberry Alarm Clocks,  The Seeds (Evil Hoodoo and Pushing Too Hard) and The Sonics, I didn't really know what was so special about their guitar sound. But when I heard Norman Greenbaum's Spirits in the Sky, The Venture's 2000 pound Bee and Buffalo Springfield's Mr Soul, I realized what to look for. It's that BUUUUZZZZZ. It's a sound that sounds so rotten and crushed that it can be nothing but a fuzz. It really sounds like a bad mixer channel or like the speakers were slashed (that's how they first did it).

The Green Spirit is a super usefull FuzzRite workhorse

Once you start listening to the sound of the Fuzz you start hearing the little differences and before you know it you want 10 different kind of pedals. But the problem isn't the pedals, it's the fact that building them takes a lot of time and for a while you really just plan on playing music but you never do 'cause you are always after the next elusive pedal.

The Mosrite Fuzzrite was a classic buzz maker after the success of the first Maestro Fuzz-Tone. The pedal was heavily used between 1966 and 1969 before Fuzz Faces and Big Muffs took over. It's harshness cannot be mistaken and it sounds close to the previously discussed Orpheum. I looked for a Fuzzrite version which would be easy to build and mod, versatile and authentic sounding. The RNFR Green Bomb seemed like a good choice and once I chopped the first chord I knew what to call it. I added a switch to change four caps simultaneously and get that very thin fuzz but other than that it's really the Green Bomb. The buzz is superb and really gives you that Spirits in the Sky effect. I really love this pedal and the sound takes just me back every time. Good with a Vox or a Fender sounding amp pedal just after it. A real candidate for the FuzzQuest all time favorite. You can find the schematic by RNFR here.

The Ranger and the Boost

Having read so much about the British amps and the way guitarists circumvented their darker sound with a Treble Booster I thought it would be interesting to follow this path. Apparently the Treble Booster schematics appear a lot as fuzz schematics and it's no surprise as the main point of this simple circuit is too boost the signal going into the tube amps so that the amp can be saturated easier and get the warm fuzzy tone without having to crank the GAIN to 11. But not only that it tilts the spectrum so that you get higher gain with increasing frequency, it also adds some harmonics to the sound which really gives the sound a lot of character. At first I looked at the original Germanium versions of Dallas rangemaster and the Hornby Skewes. It seems like these little gadgets really did magic for a lot of legendary rock guitarists. Brian May used one driving a wall of VOX AC30 amps. Ritchie Blackmore, Tony Iommi, Martin Barre, Gilmour in his early days and Clapton in his Gibson days, all (so I've heard) used this booster as part of their signature sound using British amps. So what was I waiting for? the secret weapon of the late  60s sound? But I wanted a little more. Turns out that there are boosters which are used to drive amps and also fuzz pedals to even dirtier fuzz and grit but are not treble boosters. These are just plain old full boosters affecting the entire spectrum range. Now What? two pedals?

This is where I found again that the amazing Runoffgroove team had it all. The "Omega". Silicon and negative ground are a comfortable pair and the ability to tweak the RANGE from Treble to Full boost with a separate BOOST knob was all I needed.

Maaan....this pedal has such an impact it is remarkable. It's fantastic to use it before any pedal I use.

Before the English Channel (AC30 clone) it gives you great vintage bluesy sound. Before a Germanium Fuzz Face it makes the Fuzz much more focused and bright. Before any overdrive I tried it really opened up the sound and just sounds better. I kept the OMEGA symbol but changed the name to RANGER. A definite must on my fuzz quest list although not a classic fuzz. But is can sure make a lot of amps get fuzzed out.You can get the schematic here. 

Crossing the English Channel

The reason I got into building guitar amp emulation pedals was because Fuzz pedals cannot really produce they're nasty, yet pleasant, sound without the softening effect of the amp and its speaker(s) cabinet. Getting some software simulations of speaker cabinets and connecting the Plexi (Thor) and the Princton (Prof. Tweed) pedals directly to the soundcard's preamps gave me such great results so I thought I better continue my amp overdrive builds and take it further. This time it was the VOX AC30 TOP BOOST emulation achieved by the ROG design which they named the "English Channel". This pedal Rocks!!!

The classic Vox AC amps together with Fender and Marshall form the complete triangle of great 60s amps. The Vox, in a combination with a Fender guitar produced the unique "Western" Shadows sound of Hank Marvin and was used by Vic Flick to record the first James Bond theme. Brian May, Ritchie Blackmore and Rory Gallagher used a Treble Booster pedal to get the amp to sound Fuzzy when overdriven. The bands who cherished this amp go from the Beatles and the Stones to Radiohead, REM, U2, Suede and Tom Petty. It actually has a major part in the sound of the British Invasion. American Garage, Psych and Rock bands of the late 60s loved and embraced the new kid on the block. Because it's a little dark sounding amp compared with Fender amps, the use of the Arbiter Rangemaster as a treble booster became the secret weapon of many players. This kind of boost pushed the tubes in the amp to a unique sound and thus put the Rangemaster treble booster on the same list with other fuzz pedals and made the combination of the two a guaranteed success. Truth is that it sounds great with a lot of fuzz pedals and a Wah just in front.

The pedal as an overdrive can drive single pickups from clean to really heavy drive. Humbuckers sound really fat and juicy and are not that clean on low settings. The tone stack is flexible although I don't find myself using the Cuttoff knob much to attenuate the highs. I improvised the enclosure and got a very good overdrive pedal with a lot of character. You can get the schematic here.

The Rocking Marshall World

The Almighty Thor

If the Fender amps are the trademark sound of the classic American Blues, Rock'n Roll and Country, the Marshall amps are the definitive sound of Rock. Jim Marshall past away a few days ago and it's a good point to bring out another great pedal from Runoffgroove named "THOR". This design aims and succeeds in recreating that vintage Marshall amp character, clean or driven.

This circuit design uses again the Tubes-to-FETs process first suggested by Doug Hammond and later enhanced by the wonderful ROG team. This pedal is inspired by early designs of the JTM and Super Lead Marshall amps. These amps showed up in the UK in the mid 60's after Jim and his son Terry (JTM) tried to design a cheaper version of the classic american Fender Bassman using military American tubes.

Thor's Hammer on

The characteristic sound of these classic Marshall amps, which is the original Plexi sound, is what this pedal is all about. You can get close to the signature sound of Hendrix, Richie Blackmore, Pete Townsend, Angus Young, early Clapton, Steve Hackett, Billy Corgan, Dave Navarro, John Fogerty, Slash, Mick Ronson and the list goes on forever. You have a BRIGHT switch which gives you extra sparkle and a BOTTOM switch giving you more body emulating a large 12X4 Marshall cabinet. The GAIN knob goes from beautiful clean to hard overdriven blues rock crunch which is great for chords or soloing. I have used this pedal for a while now in the studio and live and it's my #1 go-to pedal with a Telecaster. You can get the schematic here.

Below are two clips of a few of the sounds which the Thor has to offer. I played the first clip with HB on a HiWatt amp emulation preset and the second on a Tele with single coils. The tracks are quite lengthy but you can just wonder around and hear what it is all about. As you will hear, The Marshall is the definition of rock guitar sound from Classic Rock, Country Blues Rock, Acid Rock, British Invasion Rock and Prog Rock to Punk Rock, Grunge, Alternative and Heavy Metal, This is the sound.

Hot Cloudcasts featuring Thor Demo by K. Zustang on Mixcloud

Single Coils Tele - Thor - HiWatt amp emulation by Doron Barness on Mixcloud

Amp pedals - The ROG Professor Tweed

After trying a few fuzz designs I started investigating the gear chain of some of my favorite guitar legends and I realized that although the fuzz pedals are a critical part of the chain there are other components which are just as cardinal as the pedals. There is the brain, the heart, hands and fingers and feel of the player. There are the strings, obviously, but once the vibrations are created they are turned to electric current through the pickup coils which are the first major factor in the sound. Mostly you can hear the difference between single coil pickups and Humbuckers. After that you have the pedals, the amp, the cabinet and speakers and the room, microphones and recording gear.

It seems after building some fuzz pedals the next gain stage is the amplifier. I have to give a big credit to the RunOffGroove website from which I learned so much. The guys over at ROG have some fantastic designs of circuits utilizing solid-state FETs to emulate the behavior of driven tube gain stages. With this they designed some serious emulations of classic amps by Fender, Vox and Marshal.

As part of my Fuzz Quest I started off with the simplest design of a classic Princeton amp so I built the Professor Tweed. It sounds like a late 50s amp which can go from clean to overdrive through the input GAIN knob. This was the first time I understood the difference in voicing quality and character between an overdrive and a fuzz. A fuzz is really over-the-top distortion which changes the original sound completely. The overdriven amp stage is softer and crunchier. Although the pedals sound great together with the fuzz boosting the input of the amp pedal, you can use the amp pedal alone as a great overdrive for guitar or Harmonica and it really gives you great classic Blues and Rock'n Roll tone. I have to say that the Professor lacks some sparkle and I always keep its TONE control on max. The mo' bass switch is a nice addition too. I ended up using additional tone control pedal after it to give it more sparkle. Also it sounds better with single coils than with Humbuckers. Humbuckers tend to have higher ouput level and drive the pedal to distortion even at low gain settings. You can get the schematic here.

In the next few posts I'll dive some more into overdrives as it really is part of the story.