Since its inception, the Seymour Duncan name has been inextricably linked to the electric guitar – the company’s founder was a guitarist and all their products (the celebrated pickup, the pedals and various other accessories) were created with only that instrument in mind.
In the last few years, though, the builder has been releasing stompbox designs that seem to aim at an audience that goes beyond the fretted string players: the Andromeda Delay and the Silver Lake Reverb are creative tools that can be inspiring in the hands of any musician playing an instrument with a line out.
The brand new Fooz Fuzz is a very flexible pedal that seems to at once confirm and accelerate this process, with the company acknowledging that this stompbox was “inspired by their love for analog synths.”
The Filter side of the circuit, placed on the bottom right of the pedal is the heart of this effect; it includes a filter with lo-pass and hi-pass options (selectable through a toggle switch) and your typical frequency and resonance knobs. A second toggle switch allows you to link the filter either to the Envelop or to the LFO, whose controls are on the top row of knobs, allowing for classic “auto-wah” effects. The LFO’s speed can also be controlled through the Tap Tempo footswitch.
The Fuzz section, situated on the bottom left, can be on, off or – quite intriguingly – applied in tremolo mode, which basically links it to the LFO section.
A series of eight DIP Switches on the back panel of the pedal open up various settings for expression pedal and envelop control.
Check out the demos of the pedal by Shawn Tubbs and Mike Hermans, below
