BIG FUZZ 7

The Big Fuzz 7 is the all new [REDACTED] pedal from [REDACTED] Industries*.

Using a proprietary blend of transistors and non-euclidean gain staging, the Big Fuzz 7 summons a variety of tones inconceivable to human cognition. This compact device produces dental-grade overdrive across a spectrum of frequencies normally reserved for the enforcement of maritime law. With seven discrete parameters, you’ll paint with all the colours of the wind and sing with every entry in the DSM-V. Here’s what people are saying:

“Four Teeth Out Of Five”

“100% my desert island pedal. Versatile and precise, good for any gig, rugged enough to bludgeon seabirds for food.”

“I woke up in a field. Can you call my wife?”

“I’d expect to see this in most surgical suites by the end of the decade.”

*Disclaimer: Rob W is not liable for any additional tinnitus suffered, molars loosened, or ghosts summoned/busted as a result of proper or improper use of the Big Fuzz 7. Please do not use, look at, hear, or think about the Big Fuzz 7 while driving, pregnant, or hungry. Exposure to the Big Fuzz 7 may cause spontaneous flight, increased coherence, and/or perfect knowledge. Diming the Big Fuzz 7 and “letting ‘er rip” will void all warranties within a square kilometre. Use of the Big Fuzz 7 may result in bones.

GET ONE HERE

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ABOUT

The Big Fuzz 7 is a heavily modified take on a classic fuzz circuit built on a gluttonous desire for further extremes. The top row of controls are pretty standard. ‘Volume’ controls the overall output, ‘Filter’ controls the EQ and ‘Sustain’ acts as an initial gain control. Pretty standard stuff. 

The second row of controls is where things go a bit further. ‘Clip’ allows the user to not only choose between two different clipping options, but blend between them. For ‘Shape’ and ‘Mids’ to take effect, the master filter needs to be beyond the12-’o-clock setting. ‘Mids’ can then control the amount of mid-range frequencies present in the high-pass filtering stage. ‘Shape’ adjusts the presence of the higher frequencies in the EQ. ‘Texture’ funnels the signal through a secondary clipping stage that can further condense the waveform, adding some additional grit to an already aggressive drive – at the cost of some overall volume. 

Combined, all this allows users the ability to aggressively drive some pretty shrill EQ profiles, or thump around with some dark, sludgey, muddy sounds – while still exploring everything in between. This effect was originally designed for guitar, but also works great with bass.

15 units have been built – so supply is extremely limited. 5 of the 15 units are a ‘Special Black Edition’. The Special Edition units are a slightly modified package built to deliver even more in terms of volume, drive, and sonic variability. The differences are slight, so regardless of which version you may run into, they both scratch the same itch – one just scratches a little harder than the other.

A General Note: 

For those of you that get your hands on one of these, some of ya might notice the noise floor. There’s so much gain stacking going on in this pedal that in some configurations you may get a quiet but audible hum from this pedal even with your guitar signal fully turned down. This is perfectly normal and isn’t indicative of any fault in the device or your setup.

A sacrifice any pedal designer needs to make when creating anything intentionally loud is that noise is naturally going to accompany it. I only think it’s worth mentioning because I happened to notice it. But I’m also very critical of these conditions when testing my builds. Some people may not notice it at all, and some may even seek out that kind of noise. That being said, the controls can usually be fiddled a bit to lower that noise floor. I find backing off the sustain and upping the volume control can go pretty far to balance everything out and keep that noise floor low enough to be fully unnoticeable.

Demo: