Individual synth components (fuzz)

[OriginalCrash]

So you guys may or may not have noticed I've been reading/asking a lot about synth lately. In keeping with that... If you're going the individual component route (or have a synth pedal without fuzz) are there fuzzes that work better in that role than others? I've read several times that gated fuzzes work well... Would something like a Woolly Mammoth (with the pinch knob turned to give it that gated sound) generally work better in a synth role than a more traditional fuzz (like say a Tone Bender, Fuzz Face, or Big Muff)?

Brian

[kevteop]

I swapped out a Pickle Pie B for a Woolly Mammoth purely because the noise from the fuzz inbetween notes was irritating me. I'm actually not that stoked with the sound of the Mammoth but I think that's the infamous input impedance issue - it sounds great when plugged direct into a passive bass. Must get that sorted out...

Going by my experience with the Octavius Squeezer I'd say the Brown Dog is probably a better choice, but there's always the Flying Tomato, the Hairy Balls sounds like it would work well too - lots of grind.

[markjazzbassist]

IMO gated fuzzes work the best. lovetone bigcheese/cheesesource and subdecay flying tomato mutant fuzz are the ones i have owned that work well.

[blondmix3]

I can get some pretty sweet synth tones out of my Big Muff and a Radial Bigshot MIX so that I can keep the bottom. I also occasionally put a Small Stone after the Muff for some variety.

[Mullenski]

Keeley Fuzz Head --> POG --> RetroSonic Phaser seems to nail it for me. However, all the active electronics have got to be off or it gets noisy in a hurry.

[The Lurker]

some people prefer gated fuzzes because have more definite starts and stops to them, whereas a Big Muff will generally sustain things.

The basic purpose of a fuzz is to give you a square wave, which something like a Minimoog will produce using an oscillator set to produce a square wave. With a bass, you have to alter the signal to make it a square wave.