Fuzzz Boxx

After 30-40 some years, I'm amazed that all it needed was a nine volt battery to get it working again.  The input jacks are a little loose, but it could be my cheap-o cables not fitting in correctly.  The 3pdt switch crackles only when turning off the fuzz feature, but it's not that bad.  If you hit it quickly and straight down it minimizes how much crackling there is.  I'll try giving it some electronics cleaner to clean up that crackle. I've been playing straight into my tube amps after giving up on effect boxes for that lush overdrive ala Cream and early Zeppelin, which I have been loving very much so.  However, after using my wah the other day and this fuzz box (not together, though), I was reminded why people use them so much.  It's still a fairly basic setup, and I like my tone now.  With this fuzz box engaged it really nails the Hendrix deep fuzz tone.  I basically keep the tone knob all the way down, attack around 9:00 and volume at the same level as when it's bypassed.  It seems to respond well to my neck humbucker volume-cranked tone knob turned-off setting, which requires a good pedal to accentuate nicely.  It still has a little crackling, and it completely robs the treble and bass frequencies on low settings.  However, I'm not so sure I would want my clean guitar signal to be drastically fuzzed-up, so I like the fact that it mellows the tone before overdriving it.

Since it's not completely detrimental to my tone if I were to lose the ability to use this effect, I would gig without a backup.  Aside from the noisy switch (which isn't that bad to deal with, anyway), it is solidly built -- thick metal housing and clean, neat solders, and still kicking after 40 years (which is more a lot of most rock and blues guitarists can say).  What's not to love?

I think I lucked out with this one; upon talking about Ampeg amps with a friends' dad, he mentioned how the overdrive on them was trebly and fuzz-like.  While on the topic of fuzz-like guitar tones, he mentioned how he had this old fuzz pedal lying around in the closet ... upon retrieving it, he handed it over to me and said that it was mine if I wanted it, although he didn't guarantee any sort of working condition for the thing that was 40 years old. As far as ease of use, it has a tone knob, attack knob (amt. of fuzz) and an overall output volume.  I don't think it gets any easier than that.

Hahahahaha

Let's see.  It's 40 years old, still works well, and I see no reason to put it down for its tone.  It's relatively silent compared to other overdrive pedals I've tried, and it bypasses very cleanly.  If you see one, get it!  You won't be sorry.