Finally! I Found a Fuzz that Doesn’t Make My Teeth Hurt
I found my Fuzz! Wampler Velvet Fuzz, about $200 USD.
I’m not a fuzz person. I’m not even really a distortion person in general, except for the original RAT and the JAM Pedals Rattler. I’ve struggled with fuzz, not wanting to give up on the idea, despite never finding one that didn’t annoy me, or feel like a velociraptor was biting my head.
The good folks at That Pedal Show have shirts that say “All You Need is Fuzz” and because I have a lot of respect for Mick and Dan, I did not give up on fuzz, despite all indications that I would not find one that I could enjoy, let alone tolerate.
I am happy to say that I found one.
Two weekends back (as of publishing date), the weather sucked, so I decided to spend a few hours going to various maker’s sites and listening to their posted samples of their various fuzz pedals. I was well on my way to an F4 migraine as a result when I went to the Wampler site, and checked out their two offerings. I own a number of other Wampler pedals and the ones that I own, I use on my boards so I was as open minded as I could be at that time. I read the description for the Fuzztration and was fairly sure that it was going to fall into the “I Hate This” dumpster where everything so far had fallen. i was correct. Then I listened to the samples of the Velvet Fuzz.
I have heard Brian Wampler and Josh Scott say that naming pedals is a real PITA. In the case of the Velvet Fuzz, the name is bang on brilliant. The Fuzz is a fuzz, but smooth and creamy. You can make it more gritty if you are so inclined, but it doesn’t spit, bite or glitch like so many fuzzes do based on my hearing of them. I was really very impressed.
I then checked the websites of nearby guitar shops to see if any would have this thing in stock. As we all know, stock is an issue in the guitar and pedal space these days, and I got very lucky in discovering that Cosmo Music in Richmond Hill Ontario had at least one in stock. Since we are no longer completely locked down where I live, I sent an email to the store manager, a dear friend named Andrew to let him know that I was coming down. When I arrived, I could not find Andrew, but did find another good friend by name of Rob Vendrasco. Rob is the face of the Cosmo Music YouTube channel for most things, and is a great musician and a true no BS guy. I told Rob what I wanted and he replied “Oh the Santana fuzz, it’s brilliant!” Coming from a man that I respect, this was good news, so I bought the Velvet Fuzz, went home and installed it on one of my boards.
I tried it in different positions on the board and did not find that it’s sound changed whether it was first or second in the chain. My JAM Pedals Rooster is much more particular, so it gets position #1 followed by the Velvet in position #2. This board is set up for my Victory Viscount which is presently not using it’s own speaker and is instead going direct into a Two Notes Torpedo Capture X (more to come in a different post on that rather wonderful bit of kit). As best I can tell the Viscount (now discontinued) is a Duchess in a 1x12 cabinet. Setting the Torpedo up to use the cab sim for a Fender Super Reverb, with no effects on in the Torpedo produces a really nice Fender tone, that feeds directly into the UA Apollo interface for recording or playback through a set of Focal monitors.
The Velvet is everything that I hoped for and more. If you would like to hear really good samples, I am going to direct you to the page for the product at Wampler so you can hear what I heard. The Big / Tight switch offers a nice level of control as well and I use it in both positions depending on the desired outcome.
The Velvet also gain stacks well. Using the Rooster in front of it, I get a really nice tight and bright fuzz tone, and using it into a Wampler Tumnus Deluxe (a superb Klon alternative) it takes the sustain of the Velvet and gives even more tone shaping capability. The push into the Viscount is really lovely. I could of course put my delays, modulations and reverbs in the effects loop of the Viscount, but I wanted to see what things would sound like with everything into the front end of the amp and have to say that the sounds are wonderful. I use a Wampler Tape Echo on this board (almost always on to some extent to create some space) and a Walrus Audio SLO when I want more ethereal reverbs than the Viscount does itself. I also found that activating a Diamond Comp Jr after the Velvet can increase the creamy effect. Thus, I was successful in proving to myself that the Velvet Fuzz not only sounds great alone, but also plays well with other pedals. I will try it on a number of my other boards as time passes, but am not expecting any negative surprises. I generally run my amps clean and bring the dirt via pedals, unless it’s a massive head that needs to be cranked up to get the sweet spot in which case there is an attenuator in there somewhere as I do have neighbours.
If you are anything like me and find fuzz in general more annoying than anything, but would still like to find a fuzz that you can enjoy, take the time to investigate the Wampler Velvet Fuzz. It sounds great and the price is really right. I own well over a hundred pedals, because I am a very happy pedal geek. I have them from many fine builders. I put hotlinks for the Wampler pedals in this article, but you can search for any of the others as you wish.
Thank you for reading, and until next time, peace.
