How Bias Affects Fuzz Pedals 

Everyone should own a multimeter with alligator clips on the ends of the leads. Makes life so much easier

Buying a fuzz face for more than $100 is ridiculous. There's only 11 components in the original design.

I've always thought that the Fuzz Factory is essentially a Fuzz Face where every possible bias point is adjustable, which means you can get just about any sound imaginable (and many you can't). But it isn't easy to figure out or control. The Silktone is a pretty ingenious design. Thanks for a cool and helpful vid!

Very nice video man. Good informations. I am just dealing with these fuzz problems. Very cool video.

Great info thanks! I have a circa 2018 NKT/RCA Analogman Sun Face that I just love..

The Barber fuzz pedal is the bomb. Adjustable to no end. Good when you go from Strat to LP.

Good stuff man. I built a Tone Bender Mk1 this summer but couldn’t find the vintage correct transistors, so I ended up using some old Russian MP40A’s and it must be affecting the bias because it has a kind of gate effect where it chokes down on anything not strummed really hard. Not sure if it’s a bias thing or if I just need to to keep searching for the right NOS transistors. Thanks for taking the time to share this info. Big Stringjoy fan here and I’m in Nashville too. Feels good to play local. 👍

I have a FUZZLORD VOID MASTER and inside the pedal is a bias, and fuzz trim pots. I tried to adjust them a little and now I want it back to "factory settings". can you help me?

My Voodoo power supply has outputs that can supply less than 9volts to your fuzz ( or whatever). I’ve gotten results that sound a lot like these low bias settings.

What's your favorite classic fuzz pedal?

Thanks! Next time, the effects of different transistors in a wah? 😄

My LPD Soliel has a bias control on the front. The sweep is wide and gets a tone from loose and dirty, to tight and fizzy. I prefer a tighter fuzz tone personally

How will dying battery pedals in front of Fuzz pedals work for bias.?

That's the most hipster hat of all hipster hats.

I want expression pedal control of the bias; anybody doing that?

Please bias some jfets for us!

👍

Bias fx fuzz pedals

Blackstar… all you need.. my BIASED opinion 😅🎸🎶😎

The fuzz is my favorite type of distortion even though I'm a shred and sweep player, but the actual fuzz face is one of the crappiest fuzz circuit architectures around lol. I'm nowhere near the Phd level, but my formal education is in electrical/electronics engineering. That crumbling you hear is the transistor stealing some of the guitar's input signal to bias and switch on. You're literally hearing another cause of it's distortion generated by the loss of input signal and the transistor clipping it just as it's switching on and off. Both are audible traits. That couples with the "organic" clipping created by pushing the transistor into the top of it's operating specs, so it naturally clips the signal. It's a highly non-linear circuit. It has it's highlights that make it unique, but overall, it's a rather low quality circuit and effect. People do things to improve upon them, but the low input impedance, and the biasing that runs them in a sloppy "Class-A/B" sort of way makes them a gimmick by an reasonable and modern standards. It's great for some genres of music, but if you're looking for outstanding note definition and separation such as when playing very clustered arpeggios, it's literally the worst fuzz you can choose from lol. I'm about to finish up a very high input impedance Class-A fuzz, but have been battling with myself over adding clipping diodes. An authentic fuzz is generated by running tubes, transistors or a member of the transistor family at their peak spec potential, and generating the clipping. *Anyway, when you hear a fuzz that's actually Class-A, they sound phenomenally better than these crude topologies whether it's the fuzz face, based on it or otherwise.* If I were playing punk, grunge, acid rock etc. then I'd probably be into a modified version for sure.