The Steel Guitar Forum

Time for a fuzz, been searching high and low and so many choices it's mind boggling...

What do y'all use? And if you have clips, even better

Thanks

Check here..
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=194927

Thanks...yeah, I've been watching the Earth Drive for a while...

I have a drive that I do enjoy...though this is intriguing me more each day...

However, it's not really a fuzz...only a OD...

I had a friend build me a boss tone from a kit
has a leg clamp and a foot switch so you can either use it for steel or guitar
its real cool the leg clamp is a george-L product
let me know if your interested ill get the link for you Mike

I have an almost new Red Witch Fuzz God II that I would sell if you are interested. It certainly lives up to its name - you can dial in just about any fuzz sound on this pedal.

I use a couple I have made myself, here are some video clips.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MejycrFqyOI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2mI88xyXSo

The blue one is based on a Fuzz Face circuit, but I changed the cap values to suite my taste and I used point to point wiring. The red one is a prototype of a semi-original design.

very nice Frank! that "fuzzface" sounds nice...but lovin the lap for sure!

DOD Flashback Fuzz,$39.00 great fuzz.

Dunlop has a reissue of the BC108 silicon fuzz face that's getting a lot of nice reviews. It's a true fuzz, and being silicon, it's not as warm and dark as the germanium types. Also, the Frantone Peach Fuzz is considered a very nice one that uses a different approach. The secret on the street is that the cheap little orange Danelectro Cool Cat Fuzz is a clone of it, and it's only about $40. Then there's the Russian version of the Big Muff that's really a great, newly available version of the Muff. The NYC Big Muff is opamp based, and isn't quite the Muff that people tend to love. But the Russian ones are more like the classics.

I just got a very credible report that the Hartman fuzz pedal is as good as they get when it comes to a true, discrete transistor fuzz.

Brad

For pedal steel I prefer the sound of an overdriven tube amp.

Fuzzboxes make steel sound too harsh and buzzy.

I couldn't get any of my fuzzes to sound good with that Session 400 I just bought, but with my tube amp my Zendrive2 sounds great. Probably more of an overdrive than a fuzz but it gets pretty fuzzy with a steel guitar pickup.

There's different "flavors" of distortion effects, and it leads to confusion because there's different terms for what is essentially the same thing... I'll try to make it less confusing.

Here, in order from least distorted to most distorted:

"Overdrive" - A pedal designed to simulate the sound of a turned-up tube amplifier. The Ibanez "tube screamer" series of pedals is a good example of this sound.

"Distortion" - More aggressive sound than overdrive. The "crunch" guitar sound typically heard on hard rock records. The ProCo RAT and Boss DS-1 pedals are typical examples of a distortion pedal.

"Fuzz" - A fuzzy, buzzy sound that stands out for single note work, but will turn to a sonic mess with chords. Good examples of fuzz in pop music are the lead guitar in the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" and the guitar in the Yardbird's "Over, Under, Sideways, Down" songs. The "Fuzz Face" and "Big Muff" pedals are the best known, but there's many variations and clones of them as well.

The Ibanez Tubescreamer series is a well regarded pedal among 6-stringers, and it works great on PSG too. Gives a nice, singing distorted tone without sounding too harsh.

Paul,

I was called on to play lead on "I'd Love to Change the World" by Ten Years After a while back and found myself with no fuzz pedal.

I bought a Boss FZ-5 and the pedal just nailed the tone. I added a bit a reverb and it was all good.

There are sounds on the FZ-5 I will most likely never use but for the old school fuzz tone it hit the mark for a small investment.

I was blown away by the sound Dan Tyack got this weekend in his Phoenix show set. He used a Zen Drive into a Princeton amp. His Desert Rose is also a dual pickup, a 705 plus one a few inches to the left that he says is close to the P-90 sound he sought. He's happy with this setup, and it sounded really wonderful.

He didn't think it would sound as great into a solid state amp. But maybe with a Sarno Black box in the chain, it would get closer to his glowing tone.

Dan, if you see this, chime in, thanks. Your set, songs, playing were awesome!

I was going for that flying burritos brothers, sneaky pete, sound like a trombone. Creepy Finger Effects made me a modified fy-2 for that sound. Brad will make any vintage fuzz circuit you want.

The classic steel guitar fuzz:
http://www.effectsdatabase.com/model/jordan/bosstone

The ultimate crazy fuzz:
http://zvex.com/fuzz.html

Got a box full of 'em Boss Tone, Boss Overdrive, and what I use is the COSM amp modeling on Roland Cubes. The amp modeler uses two controls to set your volume/distortion combination and about 6 different types of amps from Fender Blackface (love that overdriven tube distortion sound - even in a sim and Roland COSM is top notch) A pair of these 60 watt dynamos will give you a beautiful stero effect for less than the price of one Peavey NV1000 plus you have a backup just in case

Digitec Bad Monkey. Inexpensive and very controllable.

I've been using an MXR Distortion 3 for almost a year and am pleased with it.

Here's a YouTube of it in use with a lap steel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HiPlIbvjlc
(It's the red box in front on me from 0:20 to 0:40)

I use the same device for the song or two needing distortion on PSG
Here's one of them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYKkVWYQ8fQ
(solo at 2:20 and end jam starting at about 4:00)

I finally picked up one...A Blackout Effectors Very Special Twosome...this thing is incredible! I love it with the T5 and Tele...it is really good with the PSG, just need to tweak some more. I was very close on getting a Maloney Buzztone (the boss tone clone) specifically just for the steel...perhaps in the future I'll do that...

The Mahoney Buzztone is available in either the steel version that plugs into your guitar (ala the old Dan Armstong effects boxes) or as a conventional stomp box. That fuzz has been used for years by steel and six string players from Buddy Cage to George Lynch.

+1 on the Mahoney. (Though mine is a Bosstone, purchased from him before the copyright issue.)You can get some cool, sick tones from it. We can debate up the yin-yang about preferences for tone, etc. The very cool thing is that it's right by your right hand for on/off, true bypass and the battery lasts for a long, long time. My $.02.

I can't get 'fuzz' type tones to work for me, and I've tried a bunch of overdrive style pedals (mostly Boss or mxr, etc., nothing boutique) and have decided that the distortion channel on my Webb Galaxy 250 (piggy back 1x15 that has a 614 pre plus distortion) takes it hands down for a lead tone that holds together great with big grip chords all the way down to my low B. Does mild OD to full blown hi-fi 'metal' distortion, has a great eq section, 2 gain positions and a foot switch, of course. Tom Bradshaw told me he was planning on reintroducing this circuit in future Webb amps.

I like the Guyatone TZ-2, Paul, which sounds rather like a Super Fuzz from my mis-spent youth. Here's a link with sounds...

http://www.guyatone.com/Tz2.php

I try to temper the joy I get from fooling with "sick" sounds with how annoying it really is to listen to somebody else making noises like that....