Whew! I'm back after a lousy, fuzzless week. Just spent the better part of this afternoon going over the fuzzes John has shared with me, and I have some more impressions to share.
First up--a fuzz based on the fuzz portion of the old Roland AD-50 Double Beat fuzz-wah.
I've recently become somewhat unhealthily interested in the pre-Boss offerings of the Japanese company that successively changed moniker from Acetone to Roland to Boss. I've now got a couple of Bee Baa clones that I love as Muffternatives, and John's take on the AF-50 fuzz will soon become my newest acquisition and my second of what I'm sure will be many Basic Audio devices.
My take on the AD-50 from the few demos of vintage originals and one notable clone I'd heard on the 'toob was that it offered the girthy sustain of the Big Muff family with a unique attack overload in which the fuzz seemed to be cannibalizing itself and crumbling. Comfortingly, John's take brings plenty of both qualities in spades.
What it doesn't bring is a wah, or the dodgy tone selector switch which claimed to bring you square wave, sine or triangle wave fuzz tones. Lying liars from Liarton!
The original brings one type of fuzz only, with whatever EQ variations can be squeezed out of a three-way cap selector. Outside that, there is only one mode--thick, syrupy fuzzstortion. Not enough for ya? Well, trust in John. In true fuzz whisperer fashion he gets down to the secret heart of this circuit which underneath that muff party exterior has a cuddly, fuzzy heart.
The controls? Volume, Gain and Fat. Max Gain and Fat and you're in the territory of the original. But these controls, in conjunction with your guitar's volume and (yes) tone controls, will bring an insane variety of less saturated but equally righteous goodness to the table.
Where were we? Ah--crumbling fuzzstortion. The crumbling quality is very appealing in that it brings a unique texture and response to your playing but without accompanying gating effects. Far from it--there is so much sustain and such an intense level of harmonics generated that you get that feeling that your notes have air lift under them just as you do on a cranked tube amp. Between the movement on the attack and the shifting textures as you let notes and chords ring out, this is an ideal fuzz wall pedal. In fact, I found myself slowing down and listening to the different things the fuzz did to what I played instead of motorikally slamming the strings. This is also a pedal that invites legato playing because notes bloom with out the need to slam your guitar; yet it doesn't seem excessively tight or compressed. Rather, there's an overall feeling of dynamism. In addition, although the pedal puts out a full-bodied tone with adequate bass response, it is not mid-scooped, and the bass response is firm, not flabby. The primary sense is of a pedal that will travel well in many different genres. It is definitely not, as many popular fuzzstortions of late seem to be, tuned for doom, though. All, in all, with the gain control on the pedal maxed and the "Fat" control dialed in to your particular taste, this is a very likeable and likeably unique fuzzstortion in the 70s tradition dominated by the BMP.
However, once you begin adjusting the controls on your guitar and fuzz, the response characteristics seem far more reminiscent of a Fuzz Face or Tone Bender type fuzz. First of all, those of you who are put off by the idea of a funky, crumbling attack--no problem. Just roll the volume knob back on your guitar a touch and the attack normalizes without loss of the sustain and harmonics. Max the Fat, and roll the Gain back towards 7 pm and the feel of the pedal tightens up a bit, becoming more akin to an old MXR Distortion +. Roll back the volume on your guitar as much as you like--you'll get a great variety of distortion and overdrive shades without any funky ring mod textures. With the Fat maxed and the Gain rolled back, you'll stay in crunch territory throughout the range of your guitar volume knob. Roll the Fat control back, though, and you can clean up to bairly perceptible hair, with plenty of crisp, sparkly Fuzz-Face-esque overdrive textures in between. Are you the type who starts to sweat and get the shakes if your dirt pedal doesn't deliver some OTT strangeitude? That's where starving the pedal comes in--starved you can get as many flavors of ring-moddy clash and clang as your heart desires.
This is a special pedal and it needs a special name. I couldn't deliver on that front. But keep working on it, John--this one needs to be one of the marquee names for Basic Audio.
