Fuzz Factory?

Tweez

Has anyone here used/own a Fuzz Factory? I've got some money burning a pedal shaped hole in my pocket and I want to get a new distortion (either a Fuzz Factory or Barge Concepts Interfax Harmonic Percolator Clone). The majority of demonstrations of it are Muse affiliated, apart from the official one with that idiot narrating, so it's difficult to get a good idea of how it sounds normally (I hate Muse and that's all anyone seems to play with them). Does anyone here own one to give me feedback on it?

Thanks

Doog

Steer clear of the Harmonic Percolator if you're after Shellac-in-a-box, Albini's clangtastic sound comes from his weird setup. The Danelectro FAB overdrive or FAB distortion (I forget which) is supposed to be based on the HP too, if you just gotta have a bash at it. 😁

Hurb over a Shortscale has a FF and is always up for doing demo mp3/videos for folk if you ask him nicely.

Tweez

Doog said: Steer clear of the Harmonic Percolator if you're after Shellac, Albini's clangtastic sound comes from his weird setup.
Hurb over a Shortscale has a FF and is always up for doing demo mp3/videos for folk if you ask him nicely.

Yeah I'm not bothered about Albini's Shellac/Big Black/Rapeman sound; that would be a small fortune in its own right. I gave up on that years ago it's just a cool pedal.

Ahh ok, I joined shortscale the other day, I may ask him. Thanks again Doog 😀

EDIT: Thinking about it I'll probably steer clear of them both unless anyone cna convince me otherwise, I'm already getting a Pulsar and a Rat 2, that should satisfy 😛

jellybelly

fuzz factory was pointless. Was not impressed at all. Also the pulsar was pretty tame: if your after a standard but highly variable trem then its great but it never gets extreme.

effector 13 do some good weird pedals/fuzzes, check them out. I want a vintage fuzz master...

Tweez

I've been toying with the idea of a Truly Beautiful Disaster for about a year now, maybe I should just bite the bullet and go for it. I've only heard demos of the Pulsar, I'm not bothered about it going into ring modulator territory, I just want to use it for helicopter choppiness and slight detuning, from your experience can it do that? I've listened to a few demo's and it seemed to get nearly choppy but not all the way there, I figured the demo'er wasn't pushing it far enough?

dinosaur

if you want helicopter choppines i think something simpler will do, like the carl martin vintage surf trem. i'd rather take the worm than a pulsar, it sounds weirder

jellybelly

It never got near jonny greenwood choppiness,, was nice and well mannered, if you want somthing a bit weirder (and as you like MBV etc etc I guess you wanna make a bit of NOIZ not play along to old surf records) the worm is good like dinosaur says or go and make one, thats gonna ba a project of mine soon...

...and the truly beautiful disaster sounds AMAZING plus it loops all your pedals, I think, so you can have just one in the chain if you like.

Tweez

Ahh ok cheers guys, that kills two birds with one stone as I wanted a Vibrato and the Worm has that also.

dinosaur

didnt MBV use boss pan trems? i found one in a store for like 150 euros but i didnt buy it cause its too expensive.

tweez, a cheaper way of getting both vibrato and tremolo in one is the marshall vibratrem but i havent heard much about it

Johno

Tweez said: Ahh ok cheers guys, that kills two birds with one stone as I wanted a Vibrato and the Worm has that also.

DO NOT BUY A WORM!!! i had one & they are without doubt the most useless pedal i have ever heard, plain awful. I messed with it for about 30mins trying to get something useful from it, the effects are so weak they are hardly register. I promptly sold it to a guy on shortscale & he sold it within a week. I recommend you actually go to the shop & try one out, don't go buy the demos on the ehx site. I cannot stress how ####e this pedal is, you will be gutted if you buy it. It all sounds good on paper but I honestly wouldn't accept one for free. There are tons of scathing reviews on the harmony central website.

dinosaur

yeah i saw a lot of bad reviews for it. it does sound a little #### to me but for the price its quite okay. all i care about is the tremolo.

about the fuzz factory, i havent heard any good samples of its own tone, only the noise it makes and i think its a little over rated and over priced. it does make some weird ####ed up tones though, i saw a video demo of a guy playing through it and then pulling the cable out of his guitar and th pedal made this explosion noise.

i wouldnt go for it though, its not a 'real' fuzz pedal, more like a noise pedal. for that price you could find a superfuzz on ebay and be perfectly happy

Tweez

dinosaur said: didnt MBV use boss pan trems? i found one in a store for like 150 euros but i didnt buy it cause its too expensive.
tweez, a cheaper way of getting both vibrato and tremolo in one is the marshall vibratrem but i havent heard much about it

Yeah they did, I was so pissed off a few months back there was one on ultimate-guitar for $20! the guy sold it about an hour before I emailed him ☹ . They're discontinued and worth a lot now unfortunately. Ahh well I just bought a Deluxe Memory Man anyway 😀 thanks for the heads up on the Worm Johno, It seemed cool on paper, but I'll avoid it now. As for the Vibratrem, I've heard bad reports on the Marshall pedals, but the Memory Man has a vibrato anyway. Still out for a choppy tremolo though 😀 .

dinosaur

i want a tremolo too so please recomend some.

ive been thinking about the carl martin trem.

Gavin

Tweez said: Ahh ok cheers guys, that kills two birds with one stone as I wanted a Vibrato and the Worm has that also.

Lol, yeah that was me that bought it. It really was powerful weak.

Tweez

Tweez said: Ahh ok cheers guys, that kills two birds with one stone as I wanted a Vibrato and the Worm has that also.

I hate it when a pedal seems cool on paper but when you get it it's dog####. I'm glad you warned me because I was browsing ebay for them at the time.

dinosaur

yeah, same here, its anoying and i just found the worm on a resonable price,thanks for the warning

Nimbus

Johno said: DO NOT BUY A WORM!!! i had one & they are without doubt the most useless pedal i have ever heard, plain awful. I messed with it for about 30mins trying to get something useful from it, the effects are so weak they are hardly register. --

Are there different issues of the EHX Worm? My bandmate's got one, and I don't think that the effects are weak in any way! It's maybe 3-5 yrs old pedal. You can really twist the sound with it.

I think people should always test a pedal before buying it. You can't know if it's good for your ears by someone else's opinion.

GP

Doesn't the new worm use a tube or two? That would be the first thing to suspect if it's not performing well, especially if a tube is being used for the oscillator (that would produce a weak effect if the gain has dropped off).

I wouldn't know as I've never taken one appart, but the problem is probably something really minor. As already suggested, always try stuff yourself (it's all subjective at the end of the day).

Doog

You're probly thinking of the Wiggler:

Which is fair enough, because they look pretty similar..

GP

Whoops!

It's possible that the worm uses light dependent resistors to do the modulation, in which case that could account for variance from unit to unit...but as already mentioned, I've never had the opportunity to crack one open.

If anyone wants to give me a freebie though... 😆