Help me understand types of fuzz pedals

[cnb]

Hello everybody!
I like the sound of fuzz in a lot of music (The White Stripes come to mind immediately, but also Sleep, Cream, some Black Keys songs, and Queens of the Stone Age) but I've never owned one until recently. I have a Dingotone VFZ pedal, which is a germanium fuzz face style (I suppose that's a good pedigree since it's the style Hendrix used) but no matter how I play with the settings I don't really get the kind of fuzz I like. Is this because of the circuit or am I setting it weirdly? I play a Carvin TL60 with splittable humbuckers and a Xaviere hollowbody with P90s. I have played with the drive and volume settings on the pedal and the guitar volume/tone controls.

[MEC]

What kind of amp are you using?

When I get a new fuzz I usually start with Volume and Fuzz/Gain maxed and Tone at 12 o'clock.
Then I back off the Volume to a slight boost and dial in the Tone and Fuzz to taste.

What is it that you don't like about the fuzz sound you are getting?
If you post a link to the fuzz sound you are looking for, I'm sure you'll get some accurate suggestions.

[greyscales]

The best way to play a Fuzz Face IMO is to crank the fuzz and adjust volume to taste. Use your guitar volume to change the fuzz amount, not the fuzz knob.

The sounds you like would be better had from a Big Muff of sorts. A FF isn't going to get you that type of gain or tone.

[cnb]

I have a Roland Cube 60, usually on the JC Clean setting with mild reverb. EQ usually all at noon or adjusted a bit for the room. Also a Vox AC4TV mini tube amp, which isn't a very good amp anyway so I only use it when I need something small. I sometimes run them through an Ampeg SVT15EN cabinet.
I guess the fuzz just doesn't sound as smooth as I'd like. Gritty rather than creamy. It's a cool pedal for sure, just not for me I think.

I'll listen to some big muff clips. I see that's a pedal that's been cloned and modded by a bunch of builders; is the current EHX version good or should I look at others?

[greyscales]

The current one is okay, but you can usually find way better ones from other builders. It's worth checking out a lot of different ones.

[MEC]

The current EHX Big Muff is a good starting point and should at least be able to help you decide if you like Muffs or not.

Here are a few others to consider:

Earthquaker Devices-Hoof
Blackout Effectors-Musket
Wren and Cuff-Tall Font/Tri-PI
Black Arts-Pharaoh
Dwarfcraft Devices-Baby Thundaa

[sonidero]

I guess the fuzz just doesn't sound as smooth as I'd like. Gritty rather than creamy. It's a cool pedal for sure, just not for me I think.

You want a Silicon Fuzz... Try an Algal Bloom or at least listen to some demos...

Germanium is like standing behind a truck as it speeds away down a dirt road and Silicon is like standing behind a truck as it speeds away down a sandy beach...

[cnb]

I will take a look at all those mentioned. Hopefully I'll be able to do a straight trade with mine, but who knows.

I had no idea the difference between germanium and silicon was like that! I will have to keep that in mind.

[fungalattack]

Germanium is like standing behind a truck as it speeds away down a dirt road and Silicon is like standing behind a truck as it speeds away down a sandy beach...

I like this analogy. I would totally point you into the direction of a nice ol' muff.

[Gone Fission]

Fuzz Face usually only gets smooth in conjunction with a cranked amp with a bit of gain of its own, and even then not particularly. Cream and Hendrix used them into cranked up Marshall Super Leads and the splat and grind still came through. (The Eric Johnson Fuzz Face sound goes smoother, but there is still some buzz to it. His fuzzes are biased towards a smoother rubbery sound, his picking technique is all about legato smoothness, and the delays he uses smooth things over a lot.) Silicon Fuzz Faces will up the gain, but depending on the specimen they might up edge and sound kind of brittle -- you would still want to have a cranked tube amp in the equation to smooth things out.

The others are right, you probably want a Big Muff or some flavor of clone. They get a kind of smooth buzziness going, with lots of bass grunt. Amp smoothing might finish off your sound, but is less necessary than with a Fuzz Face. The handful of Muffs I've encountered tend not to have much touch sensitivity to playing dynamics or the guitar volume control. Maybe one of the variants from EH or another maker does this better.

[fuzzmax]

EQD dream crusher is a fuzz face derivate and sound quite good. As for the muff clones, the musket comes first for me. Check out the big green pi from arc effects too.

[Officer Bukowski]

If I were to buy a Muff right now it would be the ARC Big Green Pi for sure

The green Sovtek flavor is pretty much always tasty and would be a good choice for the type of music you listed.

[cnb]

If I were to buy a Muff right now it would be the ARC Big Green Pi for sure

The green Sovtek flavor is pretty much always tasty and would be a good choice for the type of music you listed.

I'll keep that in mind, thanks

[crohny]

All the bands you mentioned require different tones. Sleep you'd need a Matamp or Laney AOR to get their tones. A muff variant will get you close to their stuff like the Black Arts Pharaoh or Earthbound Audio Supercollider. If you want a decnt all in one fuzz look into the Way Huge Swollen pickle. You can achieve Fuzz Face type tones and Muff tones and everything in between really.

[zRobertez]

I feel ya dude. When I first got into pedals, fuzzes were so confusing. There's fuzz faces, octave fuzz, synthy ones, germanium, silicon, oscillating ones, big muffs, other vintage copies. For me, I can't really get into the vintage clone/improvement ones. Stuff like fuzz faces, maestro, , tonebenders, super fuzz.
I really really like splitty stretchy almost velcroey/almost synthy fuzzes. And big muffs are fun too. Always wanted to try a fixd fuzz