FuzzFix
FuzzFix; a no-nonsense Germanium fuzz.
The inspiration for the FuzzFix came from the classic fuzz pedals of the 60s and 70s. Chewy, full-fat fuzz that elbows its way past the bass and drums without being shrill or piercing. Dynamic and responsive to both your picking and the volume control on your guitar.
A little background: When transistors first appeared they were made using Germanium instead of the Silicon that’s used nowadays. Germanium transistors were superseded for good reason though – they react to temperature changes and are capable of differing wildly in performance compared to their stated specs. So good riddance then? Not exactly. They sound fantastic in some applications, so much so that you’re happy to go through a batch, testing them until you find the good ones that give youthat sound.
We had quite a diverse stash of these new-old-stock (NOS) ‘good ones’, from developing the Spore. What to do? We designed a stripped back circuit with a volume and a simple treble-cut tone control that sounds superb with single coils, humbuckers, P90s, whatever. The ‘fuzz’ control is the volume control on your guitar – wind that back and it starts to clean up. No LED (trust us, you know if it’s on or not), no DC power socket (it’s not exactly a battery eater and the vintage transistors are finicky about sharing power with modern pedals), just a great vintage-ey fuzz box.
So we did a tentative limited run of these to see if the world wanted another fuzz pedal. The response was a resounding yes. So here we are.
Each FuzxFix is unique and meticulously voiced by ear to get the best out of the germanium transistors in the circuit. We also occasionally build one-off FuzzFixes using different transistors, which we auction on Ebay. The demo below is of the original