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I've been playing with an Octavio set for level cranked and fuzz completely down. It sounds fucking great and has a really interesting texture this way, and I get to really dig into the strings to bring out aggressive sounds, instead of having an ocean of sustain. I feel like super heavy high gain fuzz is talked about a lot but I don't know much about fuzz pedals that sound interesting at low gain. We all know to roll back the volume on a Fuzz Face and such, but what else sounds gnarly as fuck with lower gain levels?

Fuzzrite! Mine gets kinda splatty and gated at lower levels.

Oftentimes, I'll play my Basic Audio Wildcat exactly as you've described, fuzz rolled all the way off.

Harmonic Percolators are interesting like this too. Especially sandwiched between a couple of Ghost Echos.

I liked doing this with the TAFM

+1 for TAFM! You can dial in your preferred amount of gain AND your preferred amount of clean, and even adjust the amount of gain on the clean side. Get as fuzzy as you want, and as transparent as you want--most versatile fuzz I've ever played!

colossus wrote:Fuzzrite! Mine gets kinda splatty and gated at lower levels.

ya. i've played about a lot with these mainly the silicon ones.

also been experimenting a lot with the Maestro MFZ-1 and it does it golden. It's super dooper the cross between fuzz and OD.

Id probably say most germanium fuzzes could get you there
Warm fuzzy qualities at all the gain ranges

Tonebenders and Jordan Bosstone have done this for me, really digging those kinds of sounds. Now I just use my Fuck to get 'em.

I want to say Fingerprint. Feels like a low to mid-gain fuzz with some great texture, awesome for stacking.

Also on bass, it's sort of my go-to "synthier" fuzz. Quite square-wavy i'd say

Early fuzzes with a feedback resistor arrangement like the Fuzz Face and Fuzzrite tend to do cool things at lower settings or, usually better, when you back off your volume knob. Weird thing is that most Fuzz Face type pedals seem more distinct from each other with the guitar volume down.

Zoom Ultrafuzz does some very excellent and varied low gain textures, much more distinctive and useable stuff than the banshee theremin self-oscillation schtick.

Burns Buzzaround
Selmer Buzz Tone
Zonk Machine
Os Mutantes Regulus VIII

Devi GZ with the gain/texture rolled back considerably. Same for the little orange Guyatone TZ-2. I believe the Fingerprint was already mentioned. But its cousin, the fuzzprint, is pretty tasty at low gain settings. Even a Foxx Tone Machine in octave mode, with the sustain dialed back can get you some nice upper octave tones without sounding like shit's about to drop dead all around you.

DarkAxel wrote:I want to say Fingerprint. Feels like a low to mid-gain fuzz with some great texture, awesome for stacking.

Also on bass, it's sort of my go-to "synthier" fuzz. Quite square-wavy i'd say

Fingerprint's are awesome. I built a clone recently and it is so versatile. Low and Mid gain od to glitchy crazy fuzz. The sound of the decay gives me a boner. Would recommend a fingerprint to anyone looking for a versatile dirt pedal. Also been loving the demo's of the fingerprint Redux with the starve control.

EQD Tone Reaper, Devi Torn's Peaker with guitar volume rolled back, Black Russian Big Muff, and a really good low gain octavia pedal is the fuzzhugger upper.