ilovefuzz.com

Perhaps I'm a total goofball, but geez do I always roll my eyes every time I watch a fuzzbox demo and there's a good two minutes devoted to how well it "really cleans up when you turn down the volume on your guitar." I think every Muff-based fuzz demo I've watched similarly wastes my time. Zzzzzzzzz...




C

Yeah, I'm pretty well this way. I don't need clean up, I need fuzz.
I never touch my volume knob, anyway, so all I need is to hear that jank at full bore.

I do agree, however, the Bone machine/Mini-bone has made an exception. It's a horse of a different color.

Some fuzzes don't clean up at all when you roll the volume down... When I'm playing a clean part in a song, I use my volume knob instead of stomping on the pedal, so knowing that it cleans up well before purchasing a pedal online is a great boon for people like me.

elbandito wrote:Some fuzzes don't clean up at all when you roll the volume down... When I'm playing a clean part in a song, I use my volume knob instead of stomping on the pedal, so knowing that it cleans up well before purchasing a pedal online is a great boon for people like me.

This and what he said...

elbandito wrote:Some fuzzes don't clean up at all when you roll the volume down... When I'm playing a clean part in a song, I use my volume knob instead of stomping on the pedal, so knowing that it cleans up well before purchasing a pedal online is a great boon for people like me.

exactly!

The volume knob is just another potentiometer in the signal chain and it's good to know if a pedal is sensitive enough or capable of responding to changes from that... Tom makes pedals that respond very differently to volume changes and that's 'effin cool...

I prefer using the stop box... because, you know... it's what it's made for.

sonidero wrote:The volume knob is just another potentiometer in the signal chain and it's good to know if a pedal is sensitive enough or capable of responding to changes from that... Tom makes pedals that respond very differently to volume changes and that's 'effin cool...

Agreed! My Phantom Arcade and AB Synth 5k react very well with volume knob adjustments, really gives both pedals a whole new set of sounds. This is especially true when using oscillation on either pedal, one of my favorite things to do.

Running humbuckers at full bore creates some insane sounds and high pitch madness, but you can roll back volume and totally lower the pitch of the feedback along with getting really smooth, fuzzed out synth bass tones. Without this capability, some of my favorite tones from those pedals could not be achieved.

As for straight clean up on a fuzz pedal, works great live on clean parts, don't have to switch pedals off and change amp channels etc, just adjust volume which is much simpler. Really comes in handy for those with 1 channel amps, gives a little more versatility.

I have to say i love the sound of my Fuzz Factory clone on the one setting i use with volume turned down... it's so weird, yet awesome

this piercing glassy half-crunchy sound i use it in one cover song we play, that makes me cool

The Spencer Amps Subzombie does very cool things when you turn the volume knob down. Not clean up, though.

Well of course you need to fack around with the volume knob for certain effects... I have a Fuzzhugger AB-Synth 5k that shows its true colors when you start to mess with the volume knob. But that's the point!

I guess I was specifically talking about the various Muff-type pedal demos I was watching. From the Hoof to the Musket to various Skreddys... does anyone care how a Muff sounds when it's not cranked?

I actually like to turn my tone knobs all the way down when playing with my fuzzes... the US Fuzz, the Merkin, the AB-Synth. I can't think of any demos where they manipulate the tone knobs.

C

CBA713 wrote:Perhaps I'm a total goofball, but geez do I always roll my eyes every time I watch a fuzzbox demo and there's a good two minutes devoted to how well it "really cleans up when you turn down the volume on your guitar." I think every Muff-based fuzz demo I've watched similarly wastes my time. Zzzzzzzzz...




C

I agree. When you roll down the volume the pedal should start oscillating, get trashy, or sound starved. Although sometime I use my aenima with the volume rolled back for a punky clean tone. If it cleans up great, but I don't fuzzgasm over it.

It also shows how compressed the fuzz is which is hard to know in demos. I feel it's very hard to truly judge a fuzz on a video. Only when you have it live can you really hear it's nature. I find using the volume knob incredibly useful (or a volume pedal) to really control the gain. There are many more things available to you. And as much as I love the full bore settings of a fuzz, the anticipation is more than half the fun, and certainly essential in being musical.

I rarely play pure clean tones. I run through my MXR classic fuzz with my guitar volume at about 5-6/10. I find it adds so much more texture to the tone.