2 great vids by jeff kollman, showing off the t jauernig F BOMB

https://youtu.be/V7jGIvpLF_Q?t=6m3s
https://youtu.be/AS_OXzMLX7k
http://www.tcjeffects.com/f-bomb-3-fuzz/

Kamikaze
So the fuzzface is a Fuzz as it has transistors. I believe originally Germanium and later Siicon

There’s far more to it than that :-).

Almost all distortion and overdrive pedals contain transistors which provide the signal amplification, either as discrete components or as component parts of an IC op amp. Some also use transistor clipping as well. The major component difference is that most distortions and overdrive circuits involve the use of diodes to generate clipping while the purely transistor fuzzes like the Fuzz Face just drastically overload a transistor or two.

Like all rules there are exceptions to this and no two people agree on what is a “fuzz”, what is a “distortion” and what is an “overdrive” anyway. A Boss SD-1 with a high gain setting and the Proco Rat with a moderate gain sertting sound very, very similar, but one’s an “overdrive” and the other’s a “distortion”. The two circuits basically do pretty much the same thing (as does the Tube Screamer), but one can do more of it than the other.

I don’t think any software emulation yet has managed to replicate how the “classic” transistor fuzzes react to the guitar’s electronics and clean up as the guitar volume pots are rolled off. There’s an interaction between pedal and guitar which changes as the impedance loading the pedal is seeing from the guitar changes, which lets you go from bright and almost clean to total dark glitching fuzzing just by adjusting the guitar’s volume and the sound and response varies depending on the pickup type and pot values.

As for germanium versus silicon transisters in Fuzz Faces, personally I tend to prefer the brighter and raspier silicon for humbuckers and germanium to smooth out and remove the “ice pick” effect from distorting Tele bridge pickups. Modern components are much more standardised than transistors made 40 or 50 years ago and the problems like two supposedly identical fuzzes sounding completely different or germanium transistors changing their characteristics drastically depending on the temperature are much less of an issue than they used to be.

Sheesh. 4th time my post got swallowed...
 
There's far more to it than that.
 
You can create unsymmetric clipping with two diodes of different materials, such as a germanium and an LED. The Boss SD-1 is a Tube Screamer but with a silicon and a germanium diode back-to-back. An extreme variant good for rhythmn playing is to have just one diode to clip one half and let the other half clip against the op-amp. But be sure you select an op-amp that does not get destroyed by being hard clipped.
 
Or you can set up a ladder of diodes for progressive clipping creating a rounded waveform that sounds more like compression than distortion.
 
Or you can full-wave rectify the signal, then clip the result, like in the Shin-Ei Companion FY-6 circuit that found itself into many, many pedals back in the day.
 
Or you can shift the ground around which the clipping takes place by shifting one input of an op-amp whilst feeding the signal into the other input like the Ibanez ToneLok FZ-7
 
Or you can take the Fuzz Face circuit and bring all rail and bias points out to potentiometers so you can create your very own horrible, spitty or full and roaring variant of the Fuzz Face. Many boutique pedals do just this.
 
Or you can just have a poor amp circuit with too little power like the Maestro FZ-1a which works with a 1.5V battery leaving not much headroom.
 
Or you can have long-sustaining, smooth distortion by feeding one distortion into another. The Boss MD-2 and JB-2 can be set up like this. The configuration Tube Screamer -> WaaWaa -> Distorting amp achieves the same thing with the added bonus of being able to set the wah pedal to boost the note you want to sustain.
But this is distortion, not fuzz.
 
Or you can create your own non-linear transfer characterstic in post-processing using one of the plug-ins that comes with the free Audacity audio editor. Try it. It's wicked.
 
My favorite fuzz is the Boss FZ-5 which simulates the Maestro FZ-1a, FuzzFace and the Hendrix Octavia.
I particularly like the FZ-1 sound. I have built several clones using NOS germanium transistors and not only is the Boss accurate, it is reliable and consistent.
 

jpetersen
Sheesh. 4th time my post got swallowed...

Akismet, the forums’s spam filter from hell, seems to be getting more and more enthusiastic about deciding posts are spam as time goes on. It seems particularly sensitive to posts that are edited after first posting.

jpetersen
There's far more to it than that.

There always is where fuzz/overdrive/distortion is concerned, starting with what each term means.....

Taking the output from an instrument and clipping, compressing and boosting it in a musically pleasant way sounds like it ought to be easy but the sheer number of pedals and different amp configurations all aiming at doing it proves it’s not simple.

jpetersen
Or you can have long-sustaining, smooth distortion by feeding one distortion into another. The Boss MD-2 and JB-2 can be set up like this. The configuration Tube Screamer -> WaaWaa -> Distorting amp achieves the same thing with the added bonus of being able to set the wah pedal to boost the note you want to sustain.

The 1960s/70s trick of running a bass-heavy fuzz into a treble booster to even out the frequencies that reached the amp was an early version of the same idea of course. Interesting that you put the Tube Screamer before the wah - “conventional wisdom” all over the web says it’s “wah before distortion”. Putting a distortion before the fuzz is the way I do things as well, otherwise the wah’s frequency boosting effect can get squished by what follows it and disappear while any noise being generated in the wah circuit gets massively amplified.

The EHX Cock Fight does a pretty good job of the fuzz-wah thing in a single pedal and has a few other interesting tricks as well, especially if you have a hardware sequencer that sends control voltages.

jpetersen
My favorite fuzz is the Boss FZ-5 which simulates the Maestro FZ-1a, FuzzFace and the Hendrix Octavia.
I particularly like the FZ-1 sound. I have built several clones using NOS germanium transistors and not only is the Boss accurate, it is reliable and consistent.

I’ve owned and used quite a number of Boss pedals (who hasn’t) but over the last few years I’ve grown to dislike something about a signature Boss sound they all seem to share, though I’m still quite attached to my unmodified SD-1. I will say Boss pedals do tend to last a very long time - they can get a bit hissy after a decade or two but they don’t just break and die very often. Their silent switching is good as well.

My first fuzz pedal, back in the fabulous 1970s, was a very cheap Italian thing. Can’t remember what it was called but I traded it against something or other over 30 years ago. Sometimes wish I still had it. Maybe one day someone will again make a pedal that not only turns a guitar into a fizzing, hissing buzz-saw but also picks up the local BBC radio station, police and ambulance radios, taxis.....

I’ve been through quite a lot of fuzzes/distortions/overdrives since then, nowadays I’m using Dunlop (mini) Fuzz Faces, an EHX Nano-Muff for humbuckers, a Barber Trifecta for the early Big Muff/3 knob Tone Bender stuff and an EHX Octavix I got a few months ago which I think is the best of the several octave-up fuzzes I’ve had. It’s replaced a Foxx Tone Machine clone that sat on my pedal-board for a very long time - the EHX simply sounds much better and is far less noisy.

With all things fuzz/distortion a lot depends on the guitar and amp that’s being used of course. Some pedals work better with some setups than others, and no two people will ever fully agree on what the “best” version of any effect is either. Which is how it should be - the world would be a boring place if we all chose the same thing.