If you’re a fan of rock music, then you would have probably heard many riffs recorded with fuzz pedals.
Fuzz can be best described as a super-hairy, distorted and gritty-sounding effect. There are many more adjectives that could be used!
Ultimate Guide to
Fuzz Pedals
What Are Fuzz Pedals?
There is a weird blurred line between boost, overdrive, distortion and fuzz pedals. Especially for beginners, it can be difficult to sometimes distinguish them from one another. But luckily for you, we take you through all the key things about fuzz pedals, including their history, sound and what’s available out there.
Fuzz pedals have been a staple on pedalboards for decades, with guitarists loving the gritty and filthy tones that they deliver. But where did it all start?
History Of The Fuzz Pedal
Where the “fuzz” sound came from is interesting, and you’d have to go back to the early '60s for the earliest examples. The legendary Nashville session guitarist Grady Martin recorded his guitar parts on the Marty Robbins song “Don’t Worry” by playing through a faulty preamp. This generated a brash, raspy tone with a sound similar to that of a baritone sax.
The Kinks also recorded their hit track “You Really Got Me” by being equally experimental, although slightly more deliberate. Guitarist Dave Davies went to extreme measures by famously slashing his amp’s speaker cones with a razorblade, as guitar amplifiers in those days didn’t have the luxury of a distortion channel!
With these songs becoming mainstream and guitarists seeking ways to attain similar sounds, the demand for a unit that could generate this tone was high. Early experimentalists would use faulty components in a similar way to produce a “broken” and distorted sound. Modern fuzz pedals are constructed similarly, but are wired with mismatched parts to produce the same effect. The advantage of this is improved reliability and more options to control your sound.
Andertons Music Co. Fuzz Pedal Recommendations
This selection of pedals represent a great selection of classic fuzz tones that are inspired by the true classics. If you are looking for an octave style pedal, we recommend the JHS Pedals Legends of Fuzz Supreme in Black/Grey Super Fuzz Pedal, which is a replica of the 1972 Univox Super-Fuzz.
Can't decide between the Fuzz Face Germanium or the Silicon? The Jim Dunlop Fuzz Face range are great choices to get that classic fuzz face tonality.
For classic Big Muff tone, try the Electro Harmonix Big Muff PI Fuzz Pedal USA Design. This timeless piece has been defining the sound of rock guitar for the past 30 years, countless musicians have relied on its rich, creamy, violin-like sustain to define their music and wow crowds on the worlds biggest stages.
Finally, for the ultimate Tone Bender style sound, the Behringer Fuzz Bender gives you vintage 60s style fuzz, with an added custom bias mod switch for extra tonal exploration.
To make things simple, we have seperated out the very best Fuzz tones into different categories depending what classic (or new!) sound you are looking for.
Tone Bender Style Fuzz Pedals
First produced in 1965, the Tone Bender is one of the First pedals ever invented and has a very storied history. It's no exaggeration to say that the tone Bender changed the face of Rock history. Just one year earlier, the Beatles famously appeared on the Ed Sullivan show playing jangly Rickenbackers through clean Vox amps, then suddenly in '65 practically every studio in London had a Tone Bender and the gnarly, aggressive sound was scattered over almost every record.
Fuzz Face Style Pedals
When it comes to fuzz face style pedals, the warm, tone rich germanium Fuzz Face & Electro Harmonix Big Muff are the well-known titans seen on many pedalboards.
The original Fuzz Face is a distortion guitar pedal designed in London by Arbitrer Electronics Ltd in 1966. The iconic round shape of the guitar pedal was inspired from a microphone stand! The effect became very popular because Jimi Hendrix played it and there were not many distortion pedals around at that time.
Some brands have put thier own spin on the classic fuzz face and made thier own take on it such as Jim Dunlop, Boss & JHS.
Big Muff Style Pedals
The Big Muff V1, known as the Triangle Big Muff and originally designed as a sustainer pedal, was used most famously by Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour. However, later versions of the Big Muff fuzz pedals became synonymous with '90s alternative rock and shoegaze bands.
Belonging to the same family as overdrive and distortion pedals. Fuzz pedals have a grittier and more raspy tone than their close cousins, used by players who love to make their riffs sound huge!
The Smashing Pumpkins, Bush, My Bloody Valentine and Dinosaur Jr. are great examples of bands which used Big Muff pedals to craft huge walls of sound. Relying on the thick, mid-scooped and bass-heavy fuzz tones that the Big Muff offered, this sound defined rock music of the era.
Iterations of the Electro Harmonix Big Muff have always remained affordable. With most models featuring a tone knob that can take you from doomy sub-harmonic tones to searing high-end, they also boast sustain and volume controls.
Octave Fuzz Pedals
Octave fuzz pedals (also known as "octavia") are another fuzz-based effect that Jimi Hendrix popularised. Originally designed by the renowned Roger Mayer, this effect combines a gnarly fuzz sound with a reproduction of the guitar input signal – raised or lowered by an octave. This produces a thick, doubled-sound perfect for lead guitar, with the higher octave cutting through more prominently in mixes.
The most famous example of this is in the “Purple Haze” solo, and this unique effect has been heard in many recordings since, including QOTSA’s “Little Sister” and more recently in Royal Blood’s “Little Monster” among others.
Fuzz Pedal FAQS
Where Does A Fuzz Pedal Go In My Signal Chain?
Some say that there aren’t any rules when it comes to setting up your pedalboard and determining pedal order, but with fuzz pedals it’s different.
Using Buffers With Fuzz Pedals
Fuzz pedals hate buffers. Period. A buffer is a device that restores the clarity of your signal, by converting the high-impedance created through a long cable run into a low-impedance signal. This means that the sweet top-end of your guitar sound is maintained, giving you the purest and fullest tone. Most people would therefore try and place the buffer first, so that the signal is converted as soon as possible. However if you’re using a fuzz, then make sure it is placed before the buffer.
Why? Well, fuzz pedals have a low-impedance which loads the guitar signal, and the circuitry of the pedal co-operates with your guitar to sound its best. So by placing a buffer between the two, you’re essentially interrupting the way they interact and you’ll be compromising your fuzz sound.
So make sure that you place your fuzz pedal as early in the chain as you can. Most modern pedals are “true-bypass” these days, but be wary of Boss pedals and certain other brands that make buffered pedals.
Can Fuzz Pedals Work With Wah & Expression Pedals?
Despite the above advice, there is a situation where placing a buffer before a fuzz can be necessary. Using a wah pedal with a fuzz is like trying to tame two wild beasts at once – they both make a lot of noise alone and when put together things can get truly out of control!
Some people love running a wah into a fuzz, as it gives them that soaring Hendrix sound (think “Voodoo Child”), but it can just sound weird in some setups. So why not run the wah after the fuzz? Well, that can sound even worse, exaggerating the wah sound and producing a harsh, chaotic tone which will deafen your audience. This is because a wah has a fairly high output impedance, whereas a fuzz has a far lower input impedance. This means that you just can’t get the most out of your wah, as it’s range is hindered by the fuzz.
So this is where a buffer may come in handy. If you run a wah into a buffer and then that into a fuzz, this can resolve the problem and give a more natural and usable tone. Basically, the buffer will convert the high impedance signal from the wah back into a lower impedance, which the fuzz “prefers” in this context, so to speak. You can buy specialised buffer pedals for this purpose.
If you try this method then it’s important to find a way to turn off the buffer when you don’t require the wah, so that you can get the best out of the fuzz normally. A true-bypass wah with a built-in buffer that is engaged only when you turn on the pedal is one solution, although they’re hard to come by. The best solution is to run your pedals though a switching system like the Boss ES-8 or ES-5 units, where you can isolate and rearrange the order of your pedals on the fly. They’re expensive, but they make your setup more tweakable so that you can experiment and overcome signal chain problems!
Want To Learn More?
For more information about overdrive, distortion and boost pedals, check out our dedicated guides for each of them: