Distortion, Fuzz and Overdrive

[Lucamo]

This is how new I am...
I have trouble discerning Distortion from Fuzz, and I think I know what overdrive is... but what the fuck is Transparent overdrive?

I a distortion/fuzz-less. And I play mostly Shoegazy, noisy-pop ditty's.
I really have no idea what would be better, fuzz or distortion, and is it possible to get a moderate fuzz/dist pedal for less than 50 USD?

Any help would be grateful.

[Will]

a moderate fuzz/dist pedal for less than 50 USD?

used Big Muff. Or the Dano Cool Cat Fuzz, which is a little less gain-y.

Browsing through this channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/ProGuitarShopDemos will give you a good overview of the ranges of OD/dist/fuzz out there.

[Lucamo]

Thanks man.
I think I like the muff sound...

[jcyphe]

Ibanez FZ-5 60's Fuzz. You can find these all day for under $35 and they sound great, like a Big Muff, probably because it's a knock off.

Dod Classic Fuzz is another great one.

[VoxLove]

Check out the Fuzz Face too.. Mike makes one, looks pretty good.
http://www.madebymike.co.uk/fuzzface.shtml

[Doog]

but what the fuck is Transparent overdrive?

I guess it's meant in terms of not being too major an effect; it still maintains some elements of your bypassed sound, generally though the effect using a mix of the clean and OD sounds.

[Lucamo]

So I checked out the MadeByMike Fuzz Face and love the tonal options.
I also listened to the Fredric Effects green box Russian Muff, and love it.

These are both hand made? And both seem to be bragging about germanium transistors.
They both seem familiar... are they both Muff style?

[Mike]

Both me and Tim build pedals by hand, yes.

The Muff doesn't have Germanium Transistors in it however, it's Silicon NPN. This isn't a bad thing though, Si and Ge transistors just sound different, but no one is better or worse, they just have different signature sounds.

Equally the Muff circuit and the FuzzFace are pretty dissimilar, the Muff is build about 3 transistor amplification stages with soft clipping and a tone control with a recovery gain stage afterwards. The FuzzFace is two coupled Germanium Transistors which are themselves overdriven.

Different beasts.

[Mike]

but what the fuck is Transparent overdrive?

I guess it's meant in terms of not being too major an effect; it still maintains some elements of your bypassed sound, generally though the effect using a mix of the clean and OD sounds.

I think it's more supposed to be Overdrive laying around the basic tonality of your clean tone, so as little colouration of the frequency response as possible.

But I'm not even sure I like that as the "holy grail" of overdrive sounds, personally. I like my Overdrive/Distortion to probably have more of an aggressive sound in the midrange and bass than my cleans, which I prefer to be more spanky, spankiness which would translate into ice pick brittleness if "transparently overdriven".

[Lucamo]

GAAAH.

Mike, I love the sound of the fuzzface. IT seems to have the tonal options for either bluesy-rock solos, or Sonic youth style wave of sound.
I also really like the price point you offer, and your fuzzface wouldn't work with a regular DC adapter?

Sorry to ramble, but do you know any major brand muff or fuzz that sound similar to your pedals that I can try out at a local store and decide?

Link This demo for the The Fredric Effects Green Russian Big Muff sounds exactly what I want as well.

[Lucamo]

Okay good good

[Mike]

Try an Electro-Harmonix Little Big Muff, that's an affordable and easy to find version of the Big Muff circuit.

As for a FuzzFace, I'm actually struggling to think of a readily available one but maybe a Dunlop Reissue (big red circle) will do it.

The FuzzFace I make CAN be used with a regular DC adaptor but NOT daisy chained with other pedals. The reasoning is on my website (positive ground).

[Lucamo]

Thanks for your help mike. Ill get back to you when I check everything out.