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Fuzz and Distortion?
- Thread starter winndaddy
- Start date
Fuzz is a particular kind of hard distortion. So all fuzz is distortion, but not all distortion is fuzz.
people call them the same all the time. They are different in my opinion. fuzz makes things sound fuzzy. distortion makes it sound distorted and changes the tone alot more than fuzz.
Fuzz: Invalid Link Removed
distortion: MXR M80 Bass Distortion + Demo Video - YouTube
Fuzz: Invalid Link Removed
distortion: MXR M80 Bass Distortion + Demo Video - YouTube
Overdrive makes it sound...overdriven and at the same time, Chorus makes it sound...chorussy
+1
I'd say in my experience Fuzz colors your sound alot more than Distortion. and Distortion colors your sound much more than Overdrive.
Check out the Ibanez PD7 Overdrive pedal, has a switch between "Overdrive" and "Distortion" and the difference is apparent. Overdrive is more generally useable across different genres for just alittle grind in your sound, distortion sounds meaner and more "metal" I guess. Mastodon - Blood and Thunder is my best example of distortion bass tone.
Fuzz is an off the wall tonal concept that I think is a whole category to its own. You have to put more thought and effort into crafting a perfect fuzz tone in a band mix, its very easy to either lose ALL bass and be inaudible, or be too loud and effectively drown out your entire band. The knifes edge balance is so good though.
Funny enough, I find distortion pedals to be hotter than fuzz pedals a lot of the time. My Bass Big Muff tends to lose out on the low-end when engaged while my MXR M80's distortion channel has this almost inherent mid-scoop to cut through the mix (in all fairness, the mid-scoop is automatic when the dist channel is engaged). However, I've tried the an EBS Metaldrive pedal in-store once and I found it very abrasive also.
Personally, the best combo that I've found works is a fuzz into an overdrive pedal. You get a nice thick gritty tone with lots of low-end and attack to both complement a guitar (or two) and also cut through a mix.
Sorry, poor choice of words on my part. What I'm trying to say is that I find the distortion gives more character to my tone than the fuzz does. More distinguishable in a mix as opposed to cut. Make sense?
