Any cheaper modellers that actually have good fuzz fx?

[Gmork]

Distortion and high gain stuff was always the bane of the older multuifx units like the boss M50 etc, i know distortion has gotten a lot better on these mooer s and what not but does anyone into fuzz know how the fuzzes on these multifx are?

Im not talking about axefx or helix or any of that stuff, just the cheaper sub $400 stuff

 

[Empryrean]

Fwiw the fuzz effects in my fm3 suck a lot so I ended up buying fuzz pedals /I am irresponsible and have a gas problem. I don’t expect my mooer ge150 to have a usable fuzz but I’ll check for ya tomorrow. I wanna say it has something to do with impedance but idk

 

[Bearitone]

This is the problem I had with Kemper. The modulation, pitch, and time based effects were jaw dropping but, the distortion, drive, and fuzz effects were lacking hard.

 

[GunpointMetal]

Lots of complaints about the Helix fuzzes as well, I guess it has something to do with the input impedance and how fuzz pedals handle that. With helix I know a lot of people were having to drop the input impedance to really low numbers to get the sound they were looking for.

 

[oracles]

I havent found any modeler, regardless of price point where the fuzz isn't absolutely awful.

 

[Big Dumb Bitch]

Digital fuzz is a very questionable lifestyle choice and I do not support it.

 

[ATRguitar91]

Lots of complaints about the Helix fuzzes as well, I guess it has something to do with the input impedance and how fuzz pedals handle that. With helix I know a lot of people were having to drop the input impedance to really low numbers to get the sound they were looking for.

From what I understand that's fixed pretty easily with a single setting change, I believe in the global settings.

FWIW, I just got a hardware fuzz and the Helix fuzzes hold up with it. Just different flavors of fuzziness.

 

[Gmork]

Ya figure its because fuzzes are just not seen as something important enough to put effort into?
Because surely if they can almost perfectly replicate complicated tube amps then SURELY they can replicate good fuzz fx.... Right?! like come on lol.

Im convinced the folks developing these are simply putting their focus on other obvious things.

Now i want to see someone make a multifx unit with an emphasis on fuzz/od/phaser/etc and more emphasis on the doomier/punk amps. Thatd be really cool imo

 

[oracles]

Now i want to see someone make a multifx unit with an emphasis on fuzz and more emphasis on the doomier/punk amps

The demand isn't there for them to justify spending the time to improve those algorithms. The doom crowd (myself very much included) doesn't want a digital amp. High headroom, loud amps with big iron and glass has a certain appeal and I dont know a single doom guy who's going to move to a Fractal/Helix/QC/KPA from their HiWatt/Sunn/Orange etc, I certainly won't.

With little to no customer demand, Fractal etc aren't going to sink time and money into making something no one wants.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Fuzz "aficionados" are picky as fuck, and historically opposed to digital, which isn't surprising since digital fuzz has always been sort of shitty (but not in a good way) forever.

They seem far more interested in throwing three or four hundred dollars at some small run, private built magic box than a fancy digital whatever.

So I think the money is there, but extracting it is beyond anything anymore has or will try.

 

[budda]

Cliff has explained why a fractal fuzz cant sound 1:1 like a pedal and iirc it has to do with the input loading down the pickup.

Ive gotten fuzz tones i like out of the axe fx

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Cliff has explained why a fractal fuzz cant sound 1:1 like a pedal and iirc it has to do with the input loading down the pickup.

Ive gotten fuzz tones i like out of the axe fx

You can get good fuzz out of the Axe, but not great, and for the cost of entry and how pretty much everything else is better, at first blush it's kind of puzzling.

The fuzz on the Axe reminds me of that old Digitech Hendrix pedal, if you're not a big fuzz player it's fine, and you can have some fun, but the second you switch to the real thing the difference because pretty obvious.

 

[wheresthefbomb]

Im convinced the folks developing these are simply putting their focus on other obvious things.

Now i want to see someone make a multifx unit with an emphasis on fuzz/od/phaser/etc and more emphasis on the doomier/punk amps. Thatd be really cool imo

I think those "obvious things" are just what the market is calling for. The cross-section of people using modelers and people who want lava-pouring-down-your-ear-canal-into-your-spinal-cord fuzz tones is incredibly small. It might just be @budda and you.

Another part of this is that doom/punk amps very often are just what's loud and cheap. A lot of last decade's sleepers have become highly desirable (Beta Lead, VTM series, Music Man, even old Carvin is creeping up) and what I see filling that bill now is stuff like old SS Peavey PA heads. So, the target audience for "doom/punk" amp sims is probably the same people who are already buying modelers, who probably don't care as much about how authentic their t0an is when they want to fart out some d00m for funsies before they go back to playing Periphery and Stryper on a 5150 sim.

The demand isn't there for them to justify spending the time to improve those algorithms. The doom crowd (myself very much included) doesn't want a digital amp. High headroom, loud amps with big iron and glass has a certain appeal and I dont know a single doom guy who's going to move to a Fractal/Helix/QC/KPA from their HiWatt/Sunn/Orange etc, I certainly won't.

Nadja use modelers and they're still better than 98% of the third rate Sabbath worship d00m bands, but they're an outlier for sure. You can pry my big iron outta my stoned, dead hands.

 

[budda]

You can get good fuzz out of the Axe, but not great, and for the cost of entry and how pretty much everything else is better, at first blush it's kind of puzzling.

The fuzz on the Axe reminds me of that old Digitech Hendrix pedal, if you're not a big fuzz player it's fine, and you can have some fun, but the second you switch to the real thing the difference because pretty obvious.

I dont claim to be a fuzz connoisseur, but I think great fuzz tones are doable. As said its something a modeller can never nail like a pedal. I guess not trying to nail a pedal works in my favour .

I wonder how the tone match feature works for this - i have never tried.

I bought the axe over the helix for the tones of the fuzz options, hilariously enough. I wanted Whores. And the LT wasnt giving it up.

 

[bostjan]

Hmm. I thought all fuzz sounded shitty. Maybe I need to try whatever the holy grail of fuzz supposedly is.

A lot of doomy guitar tones are probably just going to be impossible to recreate at low volume, since the entire idea seems to be to take amps that don't have a lot of saturation unless you dime them and then to dime them.

Maybe you can use a discrete pedal and some sort of preamp that uses 12AT7 tubes or something?

 

[wheresthefbomb]

Hmm. I thought all fuzz sounded shitty. Maybe I need to try whatever the holy grail of fuzz supposedly is.

A lot of doomy guitar tones are probably just going to be impossible to recreate at low volume, since the entire idea seems to be to take amps that don't have a lot of saturation unless you dime them and then to dime them.

Maybe you can use a discrete pedal and some sort of preamp that uses 12AT7 tubes or something?

Maximum volume=maximum results. Generally, the d00m comes from power amp distortion. Buzz from the Melvins uses a Hillbish Beta and Crown power amps, though, so that's definitely not the rule.

As someone who both plays and enjoys doom, I find a lot of classic doom guitar tones to be really... shitty. Electric Wizard, Sleep, etc. It works for them but I'd cry if my guitar sounded like that. I'm more in the Cult of Luna/Old Man Gloom school of t0an.

 

[budda]

 

[Empryrean]

So I tried out my mooer and definitely don't love it. I wouldn'tconsider myself a fuzz aficionado of any kind but there's a certain feel about it that's off. Like as if it was boosted even before my guitar hit the fuzz section if that makes sense.

 

[BurningRome]

Because you're looking to keep cost down I'd follow with the suggestion of the Mooer GE150 and GE200.

GE150's are going $140 new and the youtube clips I'm seeing demonstrate a fantastic pedal for the sounds. The housing is a different situation....plastic.

 

[Elric]

Ya figure its because fuzzes are just not seen as something important enough to put effort into?

Nope. It's because fuzz effects are low impedance and the lowered impedance loads the guitar pickups when you connect a fuzz to the guitar and it forms an interactive circuit between the fuzz pedal itself and guitar, they affect each other.

A digital signal processor necessarily has to buffer the input (to do A/D conversion) and even if it has a variable impedance input (AxeFx, Helix, others probably, too, have this) the circuit will behave as if a buffer has been inserted between the guitar and the fuzz pedal, because one has been.

Take something like a non-true bypass Boss pedal and jam it between your fuzz pedal and guitar. That is how the digital model works on an AxeFx or similar. It's sort of the same reason you cannot get natural feedback on a direct out, the feedback loop is necessarily broken.

I'd say it's worth it to get a decent analog fuzz or two (true bypass of course ) and not worry about it. Everything else in digital land is pretty much amazing these days.