Basic Audio Tourbox Demos, Reviews, Etc.

[Dandolin]

Election cycle hype's heatin' up. Sideshow carny banter passin' for public discourse? J-Lyon throwin' his hat in da ring?





Hmmmmmmmmm.

[Dandolin]

Can anyone help me out with the lyrics to this song @ 00:40? It's been stuck in my head for days now, but I'm not sure if I got it down right....

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W90jR6NU9P8[/youtube]

And does this all tie in somehow to Mr. Lyon's political ambitions?

[Dandolin]

I ain't accusing nobody of fascism, but sumpin' subliminal's goin' on here. I can't get the sound of the Basic Audio Zippy outta my headz.

Also:

Basic Audio:




I'm noticing a pattern here--John makes fuzzes with a strong tonal identity that is easy to dial in and exploit, but that can be altered very easily by simple adjustments to present strong alternatives.

In this case, the primary exhibit is a crushed, furry, blurred attack that evokes favorite suspects in the brass band announcing the arrival in town of your lost carny weekend. Actually, most of these tones remind me more of reed instruments--saxes, clarinets, kazoos--than the trumpets and trombones that usually get name checked with this type of fuzz. They're actually a little easier to find when you roll the pedal's gain control back just a hair from its maximum. Especially if, like me, you're working with an early version without the magic switch to flip into horn/synth mode. But they're there switch or no, and these tones constitute one helluva neat trick, rare enough to warrant interest even if it were the only trick in the box. But if there's one thing I'm discovering as I make my way through this small corner of the Basic Audio world, it's that John don't roll that way--there's always more toanz to be had if you're willing to jiggle your switchamaknobbies. (Merhumblegrumble.) In this case, rolling back the Fuzz knob and/or your guitar's volume control will tighten up the attack, presenting some nice, popping harmonic content and a fundamentally tight fuzz that fits right in with the garage fuzz fraternity. Rolling both back further get's some interestingly snotty overdrive tones that remind me of my old Silvertone and Supro small-box amps--very nice for muscular, rootsy rhythm tones. Also in this range are some light fuzzy tones with a little bit of static edge that are very reminiscent of Link Wray/Dave Davies slashed speaker "fuzz."

I've been having a lot of fun starving these Basic Audio fuzzes, but this is the first one that puts up a little resistance in this mode--there don't seem to be a lot of variations to be had in rolling back the voltage supply. To me this isn't a loss, since the signature sound of this fuzz is quite akin to the sounds I expect to find when starving a fuzz circuit. Also, on the Zippy you can take the voltage down very far without ever losing signal. The only thing you don't get is the commonly gated/truncated decay present in other fuzzes on an extreme starvation diet. This is to me a signal virtue, since in so many cases in order to get the crushed, breathy, reedy sounds available on the Zippy you have to give up sustain.

That brings me to the other rewarding aspect of this fuzz--decay. The decay on the Zippy is very variable, and always fascinating. While there are settings where you can get a relatively tight, integrated, "amp-like" decay characteristic, there are many more that afford fascinating filter sweeps and whooshes and whizzes. As Holy Schnikes so perspicaciously notes, playing with the attack and decay on the instrument itself in conjunction with these settings does, indeed, produce "some really smooth, synth like sounds that could sustain forever, just snaking note to note all weird-like." Could not have put it better, HS.

In brass-ring bonus time, blasting the front end of the Zippy with some boost and grit expands on the range of available attack and decay fun. F'rinstance, although as noted above you never really get super gated decay, by really blasting the front end you can get a super chopped square wave that, when appropriately manipulated by hand muting, sounds very SNES indeed. Blasting the front end even further will generate a volume/gain swell where the fuzz characteristic morphs subtly as each note swells in. Also, clangy intermod and sitaresque toanz creep into the ring as input gain is adjusted. But that's not all--the variety of decay characteristics expands almost exponentially depending on how much gain and clipping you feed this fuzz, and on the EQ profile, with predictably more crushed, synthy and filter-swept results as bass frequencies are accentuated in the input signal. Plus, I understand that in current production models, microclowns scramble out from under the horn mode toggle to build clown pyramid formations between the control knobs if you hit the front end with just the right mixture of gain and clipping.

Which brings me to one last comment--John, wisely I think, placed the Body control on this circuit after the clipping stage--this enables the user to significantly adjust the tonal personality of the fuzz from fat and full to tight and pinched while still maintaining the particular fuzzy, reedy, synthy or other response characteristic created by the combination of the Fuzz control and the front-end signal characteristics you've dialed in. And so, I'll leave you with that thought--and one more (p)review to come.

[kosta]

Best reviews ever, these ones right here. Was just playing a Zippy a minute ago, oddly enough... All kinds of cool sounds in this thing. I was digging it kinda low gain style with the tone wide open for some busted tube radio sounds on this sad little minor chord progression I was playing.

[John Lyons]

Check out Daniel, buckin' for a promotion. Jeszus son, Great review!

[Eric!]

As a teaser to reviews, I have one word. It's an adjective I've been using to describe most of the toanz out of these boxes:

MIGHTY.

[mordecainyc]

As a teaser to reviews, I have one word. It's an adjective I've been using to describe most of the toanz out of these boxes:

MIGHTY.

Bump for one promising word.

[Dandolin]

Hells yeah--I'm looking forward to the word on the Might and the Mastery of stentorian bass fuzzamania. But in this meantime, I've got one more little essay for yallz on a developing fuzz flava flav from the J Lyon. So suck on this and see whatcha think:


OK--this is my last post on Basic Audio fuzz goodness for a little while. This one's more of a preview than a review, since it is my impressions of one of the fuzzes John is currently developing, based on a fuzz commonly known as the Os Mutantes fuzz. A very 6Ts garage-psych fuzz, this is one iteration of what were reputedly at least 8 versions of fuzz built by Brazilian electronics whizz Claudio Cesar Dias Baptista for his brother to use in classic Tropicalia band...(wait for it) Os Mutantes. The version from which John (and many other fuzz explorers) began his mutations was a fairly straightforward affair with two BJT gain stages driving a diode pair into clipping. AS for how the original circuit might sound, take a listen to this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEpSFOibJho[/youtube]

To my ears this is a fuzz that slots very nicely in amongst the Maestro FZ-1s and Mosrite Fuzzrites of the time, but also demonstrates a surprisingly high degree of articulation; note especially when the guitar solo kicks in at about 2:40 with lots of relatively speedy notes which stand out distinctly rather than blurring under the flubby attack that can often come part and parcel with the hyper buzz of this style of fuzz.

From this base, John has built from strength to strength, adding a pre-circuit gain pot which effects the circuit in the same manner as rolling down the guitar volume, and a capacitor blend after the first gain stage, which effects the amount of bass heading into the second gain stage and thus influences the level of lower frequency saturation, allowing for more articulation to be dialed in with hotter, bassier input signals, or at higher settings of the gain control.

Also added to the circuit is a make-up gain stage at the end of the circuit to ensure plenty of output level.

The effect of these changes and additions is a fuzz that offers many shades from crushed, kazoo-like tones with slight hints of upper octave; through more classic 6Ts buzz sounds; to clangy and sitar-like tones with fuzz gain and guitar volume rolled back and low settings of the saturation control. In fact, the sitar tones in this box are my favorite, even over designs that have been marketed as sitar simulators.

Naturally, hotter pickups provide more variations on the crumbling, crushed tones as they push more gain (and also relatively more low frequency) into the transistor gain stages that are already running hot by design. Also, the pedal really likes being pushed by other gain/clipping sources--offering up yet another palate of overloaded tones with each change of settings on whatever you've got stacked into it, rather than just collapsing into 8-bit overload mode.

One of the special things John has got going on here is an audible sense of string dynamics even with higher gain and saturation settings (and even with the transgressively muddy McMudbucker in the neck position on my Tele)--in a way I've only heard matched by the Bob Moog designed Maestro MFZ-1, a late seventies op-amp and diode clipper design. And the kewl part is that the sense of string dynamics it provides is very well integrated with the primary fuzz signal--this is definitely not one of those buffered-clean-signal-mixed-with-fuzz-sammich kinda thangs--just a naturally layered and expressive tone.

Another noticeable quality is the degree of upper harmonic emphasis present even with the guitar volume on full, which increases to near treble booser levels as you roll back both the fuzz gain and guitar volume. I mused about whether a presence shelving control or output cap switch might be warranted here for players who want to be able to roll back to light overdrive level clipping characteristics without the extra treble emphasis, but John as usual knows more than one way to skin a cat, and is already contemplating a clipping control similar to the one on the Squarewave +, which should afford a greater range of smooth low gain texture and harmonic emphasis in the rolled back tone.

All in all, John has carried the mutant gauntlet forward to produce yet another unique, alternate-universe variant of the classic 6Ts fuzz tropes, affording the user easy access to the classic buzz tone at the core of the design and a whole lot more. I'll be eagerly watching for further developments on this one.

And that, my fuzzy friends, is out for me, for now.

[John Lyons]

Speechless crowd huh?
Helluva reviww Daniel!

Got the pedals back, thanks.
I'll dig around and see what else you
might like that I have lying around.

[Gunner Recall]

Os Mutantes eh? Sounds pretty rad. Nasty 60's buzz but with articulation would be

[CBGB]

From Dandolin's review, the Zippy sounds like the fuzz I've always wanted - reedy but with sustain and volume and variety and texture. It already sounded great from the clips but I'm super looking forward to trying it now. Great review, man.

[mordecainyc]

These reviews are great indeed! Thanks guys. Thanks for giving me GAS for nothing else but Basic Audio pedals.

[nieh]

Got the tour box yesterday. I had completely forgot about it so I was wondering why the hell Eric sent me a package.

First impressions: All have really unique sounds. Favorites are the Spooky Tooth and Zippy. On the Spooky Tooth my favorite setting is fuzz and texture knobs all the way up, with the fat knob at 9 o'clock. It has a crunchy overdrive fuzz sound that I absolutely love. Favorite Zippy setting is gain maxed, switch down, and body all the way to right for gated 8-bit sounds. Really want to pick up a Spooky Tooth!

[Dandolin]

Got the pedals back, thanks.
I'll dig around and see what else you
might like that I have lying around.

Glad they arrived safely!

Shouldn't be too hard to find something else I might like.

Hurry, though--I'm losing focus, starting to get obsessed with pickups (Alnico 2 P90s )

No! Must. keep. eyes. on. prize fuzz.

[Eric!]

truth: i totally GAS for a Zippy -> Spooky dual