FUZZ MYTHS (TRUE OR NOT)

Myth or truth?

- Fuzz doesn't get along with humbuckers, Truth or Myth?

- Myth. It is true that there are some circuits that tend to muddy in bass with Humbuckers, the Fuzz Face, but not ALL Fuzz suffer from the same problem. Moreover, there are circuits like the Vox V828 Tone Bender (which is nothing more than a variant of the Fuzz Face circuit) or the Fuzzrite (both silicon and germanium and the infinite copies that came out of this circuit in its day Orpheum type ...) are tremendously sharp and "mosquito" Fuzz.

- Fuzzes have to be cleaned with the volume pot of the guitar. Truth or Myth?

- Myth. As before, some Fuzz (in this case we are talking about the same Fuzz, the Fuzz Face and variants of that circuit supposedly designed by Dick Denney) can clean with the volume because the input impedance of the pedal is combined with the output impedance of the pickups of our guitar, but not all fuzzes clean the same. So that we understand each other, the cleaning with the volume potentiometer of the guitar is a side effect of a "precarious" design of the circuit.

Fuzz Face

- Fuzz must always be at the beginning of the chain. Truth or Myth?

- Back to the answer from before, and the same circuit, the Fuzz Face. Early Fuzz designs did not take into account impedances or the standard imposed in the late 70's-80's that pedals should be designed with high impedance at the input and low impedance at the output. That makes many of these circuits more affected if they have a buffer in front, but not all of them. Similarly there are other pedals not only Fuzzes that impedances can play a trick on them (see for example the Univibe). Anyway, as a tip, if we do not use the volume pot to clean and we complain that the Fuzz Face with Humbuckers sounds too low, with a buffer in front we will have a very different sound in terms of treble.

- All Fuzz sound the same. Truth or Myth?

- Myth... and Truth. Although people think that basically there are only two Fuzz circuits, Fuzz Face and Big Muff, only from the mid to late 60's many other circuits came out. It would be similar to saying that there is only Tube Screamer overdrive or that Phaser only exists in the MXR Phase 90. It is true that the Fuzz, if we do not listen to music before the 80's can sound "broken" or "ugly", for these people it is normal that it seems to them that all the Fuzz are the same, it is true that for some people the Fuzz is an "acquired taste" but only among the Tone Bender there is no version that sounds like the previous-following one.

Dizzy Tone

- Germanium transistors make Fuzz sound warmer - Truth or Myth?

- Myth. Back to the usual, it depends on the circuit. A Big Muff will easily sound warmer and "fiddlier" than an MKI or an FZ-1. So it is the design that really makes the difference. Now, what is true is that germanium transistors, by their manufacture have less capacity to reproduce high frequencies, which makes them sound "warmer" compared to other silicon transistors in the same circuit. It is not magic, they are technical deficiencies.

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