My Bassman hates my Fuzz Face!

[Iguana]

I decided to run my Eric Johnson fuzz into my 5f6a a few days ago. Before that I had only plugged a EH Memory Boy in for a bit of subtle ambience. The fuzz sounded so bad I thought the battery must be nearly dead but no such luck. Suffice it to say I was shocked. The EJ fuzz always sounded great and the Bassman is jaw dropping good. Pair them though and it sounds like amplified beer farts! Anybody else have a similar experience?

 

[slammintone]

I decided to run my Eric Johnson fuzz into my 5f6a a few days ago. Before that I had only plugged a EH Memory Boy in for a bit of subtle ambience. The fuzz sounded so bad I thought the battery must be nearly dead but no such luck. Suffice it to say I was shocked. The EJ fuzz always sounded great and the Bassman is jaw dropping good. Pair them though and it sounds like amplified beer farts! Anybody else have a similar experience?

Yes, and the solution was have the fuzz face run first into an overdrive pedal, such as a Tubescreamer or a Fulldrive set for a lowish grind and by the time it hits a clean Bassman it’s doing like it should. I’ve found that my Roger Mayer fuzzes both work superbly into my fairly cranked Marshall Plexi clone with a Strat but yeah, plug those two into a cleaner Bassman and yuck! Gotta have some preamp drive happening somewhere, either the amp or a pedal for the fuzz face types to sound their best. Try something like that.

 

[Iguana]

I’ll have to give that a try with my ts9. I was just shocked that it sounded so bad! That is literally the only thing I’ve ever plugged into the amp that sounded bad. Hell, even an acoustic/electric sounds half decent through the Bassman. Thanks for the tip.

 

[slammintone]

No problem and I think you’ll like it. My Mayer classic fuzz sounded like you described. Amplified pharts or whatever plugged straight into either my Sonny Jr 5f6a clone or my Dr Z Joe Walsh amp until I put a Maxon OD9 after the fuzz with the drive set kind of low on the Maxon to approximate a warmed up amplifiers preamp.

 

[el84ster]

Man that just happens sometimes. It’s basically down to how a pedal hits the amp. Especially how the input stage is biased. Some pedals just make an amp sound gross the way it hits it.

 

[fernieite]

Have you tried different guitars with that set up? I find fuzz faces work better with single coils.

 

[Stephens]

Agree with the above posts. Try and OD between the fuzz and your amp and that will make it sound way better. I had the same thing happen to me when I ran a fuzz in to my Super Reverb for the first time.

 

[Gibbons59]

My fuzzes don't play well with my Marshalls or Fenders until they're turned up enough to break up. My Supro Blues King 8, with the boost turned on, sounds phenomenal at any volume. So it gets played the most at home. Definitely try an overdrive after fuzz as suggested, and you should be good!

 

[Iguana]

I just realized that I never followed up on this thread. Sorry gang. I tried the Fuzz with every pedal I’ve got between it and the Bassman. End result? Varying degrees of sonic flatulence. I guess that means I just can’t use my fuzz with my Fender. Hardly what I would call a hardship. The Bassman sounds beautiful without any FX. I would like to find a nice basic reverb pedal for it though. The memory boy does a pretty good job but it’s not a reverb. Anybody got a recommendation for a basic spring reverb pedal?

 

[renderit]

 

[Iguana]

Funny renderit, I was considering the possibility of building my own unit similar to the Victoria in your image.

 

[renderit]

The vibrato on it is fantastic, as is the reverb tank.

 

[corpse]

The plain $100 JHS reverb is just great.

 

[Stephens]

MXR reverb. Lots of tonal options that sound great!

 

[ajtonly1]

I just realized that I never followed up on this thread. Sorry gang. I tried the Fuzz with every pedal I’ve got between it and the Bassman. End result? Varying degrees of sonic flatulence. I guess that means I just can’t use my fuzz with my Fender. Hardly what I would call a hardship. The Bassman sounds beautiful without any FX. I would like to find a nice basic reverb pedal for it though. The memory boy does a pretty good job but it’s not a reverb. Anybody got a recommendation for a basic spring reverb pedal?

Fuzz faces like seeing an amp on the edge of breakup or into a overdriven amp. Also, don’t assume the fuzz knob needs to be cranked to get your desired sound. A lot of times it is too much gain and farts out regardless if silicon, which the Johnson is, or germanium.

 

[renderit]

The Digitech reverb on the bottom row works well.

I use it if I don't want to carry the Victoria above.

On the Bottom Row, the Wampler Velvet Fuzz might be your answer. It plays well with my Bassmans.

 

[J T]

I've been happy with the TC Electronic Nova. Yeah they don't make these anymore, but it's dead quiet and sounds great. It has a really good spring sound too. Two switches one programmable to whatever setting you want so there's two reverbs always available if you want.

 

[Iguana]

I picked up one of the JHS Series 3 reverb pedals yesterday. It sounds fantastic! I know I said I was looking for a spring type reverb but I couldn’t pass the JHS up. The thing punches well above it’s weight!

 

[Mr. Papa]

I like the JHS hall reverb better than the spring verison.

 

[janalex]

Also depends on how faithful your FF is to the original design. The original nkt275 ones had a gain of about 60 HFE for both transistors. These would be the equivalent to a low gain Sunface. They really only give that classic dirt therefore when combined with distortion from elsewhere, most famously Hendrix’s dimed Marshalls. There are high gain designs that people have on their pedalboards which can be used interchangeably with their other dirt pedals into edge of breakup amps but the classic FF is not that.