What Do You know About The Foxx Tone Machine Fuzz Pedal?

jrockbridge

Stealing Your Riffs
Have you had any experience with a vintage Foxx Tone Machine Fuzz Pedal, the reissue, or any other pedal based on this circuit?

I know Wolfgang Van Halen is a fan of the vintage pedals. The tones he gets with them sound huge.

I have not even come across any vintage units for sale. I assume they must be somewhat rare. So, if I did find a vintage pedal, I suspect it would be quite expensive. Even the reissues go for hundreds of dollars. I’m not ready to pay big money yet. But, I do have curiosity and GAS to try a reasonable facsimile of the circuit.

Warm Audio made the Foxy Tone Box fuzz pedal as their version of that pedal circuit. I don’t know how faithful it is, but I’m considering buying one of those to dip my toe in the water.

{edit} I'm really impressed with the Danelectro 3699 Fuzz in the bottom video. Also, I prefer the smaller form of the pedal.





 
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I've never played a real one but have owned a few modern takes. It's got two sounds, a mega gainy, low end beefy fuzz and then the octave up fuzz. Both are cool but the octave up sounds a little piercing at times to me. I keep a Toneworks Fuxx Fuzz laying around in case I want that sound. I think they are about 50 bucks.
 
I have the Warm version. It rips. I had the Dano French Toast for years which was based on it, but it went missing and is probably at my friends’/bandmates’ place somewhere.

The octave up is rad for wild out of control fuzz leads. Without the octave you can get some good trashy 60s garage sounds on power chords and the like.
 
I’m not sure anyone makes a true clone because fuzz could be unpleasant and “hard”, most everyone, including Prescription (“Experience”), Fulltone (“Ultimate Octave”), and Danelectro (“French Toast” and “3699”), reworked the fuzz to be smoother. The original was deigned by Steve Ridinger, the president of modern-day Danelectro, who also designed the Dano copies.

Prescription also sold the isolated octave circuit as the “COB”, or Clean Octave Blend so players could pair it with the fuzz of their choice.
 
Good video. What I learned is that I have more experience with octave fuzz than I thought. Over the years I’ve owned the Shin-Ei Companion, the orange Kay, the French Toast in the video and currently the Tone City Fuxx, JHS Superfuzz, Behringer Super Fuzz and Boss octave fuzz. I’m a fuzz crazy maniac!
Did you get any of the JHS Legends when they closed them out half price? I picked up a Bender and Smiley. Always wanted a fuzz face but just would not pony up full price. Really like them both.
 
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