Here is the Rumble Fuzz! This is a rendition of the "Bumble Buzz" by Jack Whites record label. I did quite a bit of research on this and discovered that the Bumble Buzz is actually a clone of the Kay Fuzztone. The Kay Fuzztone is a vintage circuit that has been duplicated time and time again. Originally it was built in an expression pedal that allowed you to adjust the fuzz level with you foot and adjust the volume level on the side of the enclosure. The circuit has been modified to have anywhere from 4 -1 knobs. This version has "1" knob. I put the 1 in parenthesis because there are actually no knobs. I modified it to have a volume control inside the pedal as a trim pot. My customer wanted a similar pedal to the Jack White one. Jacks pedal has no knobs so this was my solution.
The Fuzz effect is pretty cool on this pedal. It works well with other pedals and alone. The fuzz by its self is a bit crackly sounding, much like a vintage fuzz would be, and when paired with a distortion it gets pretty thick and spattery. Not quite as spatery as a fuzz factory but still pretty nice. I also noticed that it reacts well with the pickups of the guitar. In the demo I played my Schecter through it but i'm sure using other guitars with single coils or even nicer pickups it would have a very different feel.
The art and layout were done by me. I grabbed the Wu-Tang bee from a google search and then did the layout on the computer (as I normally do). The enclosure is a stock painted 1590B I got from Hammond. To be honest the quality wasn't what I expected coming directly from Hammond. There was a bit of over spray on the edge where the bottom plate goes on and I had to cut it off with a razor. Once i did that it was fine though. I've been using a new clear coat lately, it's a lacquer finish. It seems to go on a bit more even than the typical rattle can acrylic spray. It also dries a lot faster. Well here are some pictures. I'll post a video demo soon.
Video Time!!!
