Fix this common Fuzz Face mistake that is wrecking your tone
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- čas přidán 10. 03. 2020
- The Fuzz Face is one of the most iconic vintage guitar tones out there but, there's something a lot of people don't understand about it. Always remember there's really no wrong way to use a pedal but, this is how to fix a common problem I often hear when it comes to this type of fuzz.
Does your Fuzz Face pedal sound too bright or harsh to use? The Fuzz Faze family is different form just about all other fuzz pedals but also more versatile. Get this quick tip to make your fuzz tone a lot richer and warmer! It doesn't matter if you have germanium or silicon or a signature model like the Jimi Hendrix version or even high end versions like the JHS Smiley Fuzz or the Fulltone 69 MKII.
Please be aware this does not apply to other fuzz style pedals like the big muff.
Gear Used (The gear doesn't matter much with this demo)
- 1968 Fender Stratocaster w/ Custom Shop 1969 Fender Pickups
- Dunlop FFM3 Mini Jimi Hendrix Fuzz Face featuring BC108 silicon transistors.
- Bues Jr.
- Dunlop Jimi Hendrix Mini Fuzzface - Please note this applies to all the fuzz face or fuzz face copies. This does not apply to other fuzzes like the Electro Harmonix Big Muff.
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Music in this video:
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Hey everyone thanks for watching. Like many people, I'm trying to make the best of things being stuck at home unable to get our there and work during Covid19.
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Wow that sounds like good advice, and one that I have actually never heard before. I was expecting the same old "you shouldn't play it with a clean amp" line, but this is way more useful.
It also depends on the fuzz face. Some people/companies make them better than others. As well, it depends on the transistors used and the biasing of those transistors. A well made fuzz face type can also produce a nice near overdrive sound, too.
Dude that is a genius idea!
I wouldn't say "leave on all the time" is a necessity, but you definitely have to figure out how to ride the volume knob, that's the secret. I use mine almost as a channel in itself - my amp has just a little grit, then I have the option of the Fuzz Face (and all of its volume knob variations in between), or my more standard distorted tone (Tube Driver). I never mix the two pedals though.
Agree. Thinking of it like a channel is a really good way of looking it.
No, the secret is, the Dunlop fuzz pedals require other pedals to activate their TRUE sound.
Remember you're supposed to be hearing Vintage style sounds.
Not some horrible cutting modern sound.
Dunlop's OLD-FASHIONED sound.
@@dreyn7780 What pedals do you recommend to go with them to sound the best?
@@michaelcraig9449 formula b fuzz ranger is killer.
Dude this is the best fuzz face video on CZcams. Wish I saw this 3 years ago
Thanks. I made it quite a while ago so let’s blame CZcams for not showing you sooner!!!
Now, that's how you should really use a fuzz. Been using Fuzz all the time and dialing only the volume knob. Now, I'm missing my fuzz factory that I regret selling lol
News flash!
Dunlop sells a mix & match SET of pedals.
It won't activate the vintage style sound without the other Dunlop pedals.
Going for the fuzz tomorrow for sure
Such great advice, and awesome video. Thanks for this dude, definitely gonna use this technique
Great video and info. Wish I would have watched this before I spent time to figure this out! Took a few days of tweaking with my fuzz face to dial it in - I was on the verge of saying screw it and getting rid of it. Once you find out the info you provide here is when you find the sweet spots.
Beautiful, concise demonstration!
Thanks :)
AND wrong.
Great tips, dies the red germanium react the same as the silicon regarding cleanup with guitar volume. Cheers
I recently bought an Analogman Sunface BC183 to use with a Milkman The Amp 50W. After the best part of a day spent tweaking, and reading furious opinions on TGP, I still couldn't get the sound I was after, nor even the sounds I'd heard from others. Then I found your video. What an awesome piece of advice: well explained, thoughtfully presented, and incredibly effective! Thank you for making this video and sharing your wisdom 👍
Guitar Volume knob is a golden rule, but the non-100% setting on fuzz know is also very important. I'm not a fan of the "keep the fuzz all the way up" school either. Reminds of Josh (JHS) video on swapping the fuzz knob for another control.... yes .... but swap it with a trim inside to get that non-full setting. Perhaps it is a silicon thing, beacuse it tames the wild gain a bit and a slightly less tone suckking which makes for better clean up. less than 60% fuzz becomes dull, but between 60 and 90 is the magic.
News flash, Dunlop fuzz pedals require the full set of pedals before They start making their TRUE sound.
I feel like I didn't discover the volume knob on my guitar until like 5 years after I started playing.... USE IT!!! There are other levels besides '10'!!
Killer demo on how to use fuzz. Sounds great!
Wrong.
Seems all fuzz pedals require tweaking but this one has big sweet spot
Very well-made and informative video! Thanks!
Very helpful, thank you!!!
Thanks. Glad it helped!
Its wrong information.
Dunlop brand makes sets of mix & match pedals.
These sounds in the video haven't been converted into a signal the amp wants to see.
After the Dunlop fuzz pedal the Dunlop rotovibe pedal converts the signal to the signal the amp wants to see.
Thanks bro on Fuzz Face tip.....but what I'm really digg'in is your intro song...I went over to Spotify and checked out "Slow Jam"
Hey much appreciated!
Getting mine tomorrow, thanks for the advice!
How true do you think this is of alternate pedal choices that are more.s similar to a fuzz face than a big muff?
Thats what that volume knob thingy is for.🤣
Sweet! I wonder what it will sound like. Maybe you could make a second video where you play the guitar.
Never thought of using my volume knob to dial-in tone. Makes total sense. Thanks for the power tip.
Yeah, it’s a game changer!
News flash!
Dunlop sells a mix & match SET of pedals.
In theory professionals buy a SET and get looked after by the manufacturer.
None of these sounds from the video are the famous vintage style sound from the Dunlop brand.
The SET wasn't purchased.
No SET, no professional vintage style sound.
That's how I've always used my Fuzz Face, great video (:
Nice! Thanks.
This is how I use my germanium fuzz face pedal especially into an already overdriven amp
Big tease on the intro cut away before the epic bend
Thank you for the tip bro, helped me a lot ! 👍
Awesome. Glad that helped.
Thanks
The Dunlop fuzz pedal won't make its TRUE sound without the other Dunlop pedals.
Great advice!!
I've found when you roll off the tone knob from the guitar you get boost more dirty!
Very helpful. Thank you.
Thanks!
Thats the real secret of Dallas fuzz face👌
did anyone notice some radio station interferences with this pedal (hendrix mini fuzz) especially when you roll down the guitar volume? on mine i can clearly hear it! :(
Its normal on every fuzz pedal
An isolated power supply and good cables will help to minimise that, but it's old technology I'm afraid, interference CAN occur.
Don't laugh.
Excellent advice!
It was wrong information.
Buy the SET of Dunlop pedals and you'll realize you're wrong.
Great tip 👍
Great 👍🏼 explanation
Thanks!
thanks!
Great video! Thank you!
It was all wrong information.
1 Dunlop pedal won't make its TRUE vintage sound.
Only a SET of Dunlop pedals will activate the TRUE vintage sound.
Hi, what were your amp settings(on the blues jr)?
Mid, treble, bass, volume straight up (at 5) with fat switch off. Thats where I always leave it. I could probably dial it in a little better but, I like keeping something easy to remember and duplicate 😆
Then just master to control the volume.
@@BuddycatAFK ok thanks a lot!
Thank you man, big help!
Thanks!
Glad it helped.
News flash!
It was all wrong information.
Dunlop only rewards those who buy a SET.
1 pedal by itself won't make its TRUE vintage sound.
How do you deal with the volume increase when you open up your guitar? My FF is perfectly clean at 7/8 and there's a big bump in level after 9.
When the fuzz face is engaged the actual loudness shouldn’t change too much from the volume knob on your guitar. It should mostly just affect how much fuzz there is. It’s pretty normal for it to be all or nothing as you roll the volume up. It isn’t a very gradual increase but, using a little less fuzz on the pedal help. A couple tips though that may or may not be a factor for you. 1. Fuzz faces don’t work as well at low volumes. Pushing you amps tubes pretty hard is part of a good fuzz face sound. 2. They don’t work well with pedals before them. Especially something with a buffer like a boss tuner. Buffered pedals like boss really make a fuzz face fizzle out. Active pickups don’t work so well either but that’s probably a little more rare for guitar.
I noticed this too
@@BuddycatAFK The sweet spot on the Hendrix fuzz (in terms of the fuzz knob) is somewhere around 4-5 o'clock I find. It's where that harsh fizzle more or less disappears, and you can use your volume knob to go from clean to big fuzz and everything in between. But yeah, the volume knob shouldn't really change the volume level per-se.
You have to practice the feel of it it definitely takes time to get down. I put marks on my volume knob and it helped a lot when I was getting in to it
Cause you forgot to finish buying the SET of Dunlop pedals.
The professional sound is only given to the professional buyer who's loyal to Dunlop.
The FF requires the rotovibe pedal at the end of the signal path.
The regular FF also requires the Dunlop crybaby before it.
The FF wants to see a unique signal which only exits the Dunlop crybaby wah pedal.
So if you plug in all 3 pedals that problem you're having, goes away.
A vintage style sound starts to happen.
Finish buying the Dunlop set of pedals and you'll be rewarded.
Thanks 👍!! Do you have a treble bleed on your pot?
No treble bleed. Just 250k mojo pots.
It might just be the FF. I find when it cleans up it adds a bit of high sparkle to beyond what was already there.
JAMESF, How do you get those Hendrix BELL clean tone instead of that SRV glassy cleans? I'm not sure how to get that hendrix BELL clean tone
To be honest it less to do with gear and more to do with how you attack the strings. It’s really difficult to sum up but jimmy played the strings individually when he was getting the bell tone. SRV was more about hitting 3 or 4 strings at a time and letting the left hand decide (with muting) which notes came through. It’s a really advanced technique. As far as bell tone jimi is a little easier to reproduce. If you really wanna get that tone I would really suggest rolling the volume back on a fuzz face. Just keep in mind you can’t have any buffers in the chain before the he FF or it kills it. Even a boss tuner being first in the mix kills it.
@@BuddycatAFK When rolling the strats volume back with the fuzz face it gets a texas glassy SRV tone, but I'm trying to get that Hendrix BELL tones. Some fuzz face pedals when rolling down the strat volume pot it will get those hendrix BELL tones and other fuzz face pedals will get that glassy SRV clean tones, So not sure how to get those hendrix BELL tones. There must be a way to go from hendrix BELL tones to SRV glassy clean tones
Can you site an example of your favorite Hendrix bell tone? Maybe I can try to help what you’re looking for?
@@BuddycatAFK When hendrix rolls down his strat volume pot it doesn't get like SRV glassy tones, its more like a BELL rounded tone, Click here Can you see me, czcams.com/video/1K9Rf2BkZDY/video.html
@@BuddycatAFK BBC Sessions Houng Dog has that 67 hendrix Bell tone when rolling his strat volume down. Listen how its different than a glassy SRV texas tone. I'm not sure how the fuzz face gets this hendrix bell tone because mostly it will get glassy srv texas tones depending on the fuzz face. CLICK here to listen czcams.com/video/Xt4JdOankMA/video.html
And don’t forget, never wear headphones😎
When you wanna play hendrix style stuff but remember you can't buy a fuzz face because you're poor so you buy a behringer Super Fuzz and things are too heavy 😂😂
It gets even harder than you think it is.
When you buy 1 hendrix pedal, it doesn't work until you buy the whole set of JH pedals.
Seriously, you decide to buy everything JH, and eventually you'll be rewarded.
OR
You stay away from all JH signature artist brand equipment.
None of it works until you've bought the whole set.
Exactly
Wrong information.
Ahhhhhhaaaahahahaaaahahahah......IT ALL MAKES SENSE. THANK YOU GOOD SIRRRRR.
19 people are idiots. This took me ages to realise unaided. I love being able to stand anywhere on a stage and have complete control of the sound.
Or in many cases not having a pedalboard doubles the floor space available after the drummer uses 90% of the dive bar stage. 🤣
Dunlop only rewards those who buy a SET of Dunlop pedals.
The Dunlop fuzz pedal requires a strange signal which only exits the Dunlop crybaby wah pedal.
Do you understand that?
The signal which exits the Dunlop fuzz pedal isn't acceptable to the amp.
It requires further refinement and only a Dunlop rotovibe pedal can convert the signal.
Vepa cha!
In my opinion a Fuzz Face is basically a Ferrari you can only drive from the passenger seat. All the mojo is there but you're missing a good steering wheel. An external input gain pot that replaces the gain/fuzz control and an external bias pot (along with boosting the available volume level) turns the Fuzz Face circuit into a much more versatile enjoyable circuit.
Michael, the fuzz pedal requires a strange signal from the Dunlop crybaby wah pedal.
A guitar sends the wrong signal.
The Dunlop crybaby wah pedal must convert the signal.
The signal exiting the fuzz pedal requires further refinement and only a Dunlop rotovibe pedal can convert the fuzz signal.
Before you know it Dunlop has forced you to buy at least 3 pedals to get your 1 fuzz pedal to actually work.
Dunlop sells to professionals and according to professional theory, professional's will be happy to buy a SET of Dunlop pedals.
Dunlop sells a vintage style sound which DOES compete with the other brands sets of pedals.
Its NOT 1 pedal.
It belongs to a SET of pedals.
@@dreyn7780 I was actually referring to the circuit not dunlops specific version. But you are correct. I build pedals and I have built my fair share of fuzz circuits as well as every other pedal type in one form or another. The signal you were referring to is called impedance and older pedals like the Fuzz Face or the Rangemaster treble booster have impedence matching issues. But there are a few work arounds. You could run the fuzz, wah or treble booster etc first in your signal chain so it "sees" the impedance of the guitar itself or you could do a simple mod to your pedal to change its input or output impedence or both. I personally think part of the tone is lost with that mod for obvious reasons(the signal reacts differently based on the impedence at the beginning and end of the circuit/pedal). But this is exactly why I started building and modding my own pedals, guitars and to a very small degree amps (I just put a hammond choke in my DSL100HR and added a high current capable switch to select the chrome or 220ohm 5 watt resistor). So now I can control these types of things rather than being forced to use a pedal I like that has a less than ideal feature (like impedence mismatches) that doesnt work ideally in my signal chain.
Mmmmmmm, interesting
Cause its wrong information
👍👍
Can I buy your guitar?🎸🎛
I actually don’t have that one anymore or, yes you could! 😬
Help me please!!! Delay after a FF Ge... Damm.. always fuck the tone.. trebleee and harsh... A try everything.. bufffer anfter, before, between... Always destroy my fuzz tone!!! :((( I just wanna use FF Ge and Delay.... Ahhhhhhh
If you've got your fuzz face tone dialed in, a delay shouldn't make it more harsh as long as it's after the fuzz face. DO you have anything like a boss tuner before the fuzz face? Anything before a fuzz face with a buffer will destroy the fuzz face tone.
It is probably an impedance issue... have you tried another delay pedal? Preferably analog and buffered.
Maybe you have a Pedal what is bufferd.
You can try to dsiconnect the Power from each Pedal when its not activatet.
If you have no Guitar-Signal by disconnecting Power then the Pedal is buffered.
Boss Tuners or other Boss Pedals are most buffered.
In this Case the Fuzz Face should be the first Pedal after your Guitar be.
Dunlop sells a SET of mix & match pedals.
1 pedal by itself won't activate its TRUE vintage sound.
They're professional and we must be too.
Dunlop pedal into Dunlop pedal into Dunlop pedal into Dunlop pedal and you'll get their TRUE vintage sound.
Dunlop doesn't sell your concept of a SET of pedals.
Dunlop fuzz pedals require a Dunlop pedal before and after.
You Don't get to change the rules.
To get your fuzz pedal to activate, it must see a signal from the Dunlop crybaby wah pedal.
After the fuzz the signal must be converted before it enters the amp.
Only a Dunlop rotovibe pedal can convert the signal from the Dunlop fuzz pedal.
@@dreyn7780 I wouldn’t say that’s true. I have both the JHF1 and Band Of Gypsys fuzz in full size. They pair well with all my other stuff: Area 51 Clyde clone, Proctavia from Voodoo Labs and Moen Shaky Jimi vibe.
Here's a news flash for you.
You're looking at stuff from the bottom, looking up.
What you should be doing is looking from the top, down.
This pedal is part of a SET of mix & match pedals.
Professionals in theory, USE a SET of pedals.
Dunlop makes a SET of pedals designed to compete with other brands.
Your concept that jimi hendrix is stepping onstage with 1 pedal, is WRONG.
The JH fuzz pedal is designed for a SET of pedals.
The general purpose fuzz pedal is ALSO designed for a SET of pedals.
Manufacturers want to sell SETS of pedals.
You won't get the TRUE sound from just 1 pedal.
I can tell you the JH fuzz pedal won't make the 1960's sound by itself.
I can also assure you the Dunlop fuzz won't make its TRUE sound without the Dunlop rotovibe pedal converting the signal at the end of the signal path before the amp.
They're NOT your friends.
Their pedals won't activate their TRUE sound without the other pedals.
The JH fuzz pedal is useless without the other pedals from the JH set of pedals.
It will NOT turn on the 1960's sound without the JH wah pedal.
The JH wah pedal will not turn on its TRUE sound without the octavio, AND the Dunlop rotovibe pedal.
The JH octavio pedal won't activated its sound without the fuzz pedal AND the Dunlop rotovibe pedal.
So the fuzz requires 1 other pedal.
The octavio requires 2 other pedals.
The wah requires 3 other pedals.
If you buy the full set, you won't have any bad sounds.
None of the sounds in your video are the TRUE sound from those pedals.
Dunlop claims to sell a SET of pedals.
The TRUE sound will only work from the set.
You've got to view Dunlop from the position of the SET of pedals not from 1 pedal.
MXR pedals are also a SET of mix & match pedals.
The MXR full bore metal pedal won't activate its TRUE vintage sound without the MXR carbon copy pedal.
Listen to every review of the MXR full bore metal pedal and none of them actually produced the vintage MXR sound.
They all produced a modern style broken sound.
That pedal IS clearly labelled ' vintage MXR sound '.
It just produces more gain in the style of 1980's randy rhoads.
With a Gibson pickup and vintage marshall, the full bore metal pedal produces Randy rhoads sound with adjustment.