First generation vintage fuzz tones

Skreddy Pedals™ Martian Tarantula:

Angry sounding fuzz, but fairly well-behaved; nice authoritative voice.

Based on the earliest fuzz pedal design, that is hard to find, expensive, and typically all sound different from one another; they have an interestingly bright sustaining sound on the high strings, and surprisingly good chord articulation for something so grindy and fuzzy.

I designed this using silicon transistors for temperature sensitivity and consistency from unit to unit. Oh also they're cheaper and easier to source. But anyway, I did tune this thing to sound like the old ones that use very oldschool germanium transistors. I got it to stay nicely biased and polite, but then I backed up that process ever so slightly so that it is capable of sounding just a little bit broken--makes it much more interesting and fun!

The original circuit's "Attack" (also called "Filter" in the Marshall Supa Fuzz) was a dumb bias control that didn't actually lower the gain but made the signal cut out when turned down low. I changed it completely, made it useful (but still not a gain control), and renamed it "OVERLOAD" instead.

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Interesting blend of grunge and clarity

The OVERLOAD knob takes the sound into 3 variations of voicing...

  • At full up, it is extra fat and woofy, slightly saggy.
  • In the middle, it is balanced and fairly tight.
  • All the way down it is extra dry and gated, slightly cold-biased.

Decent amount of guitar volume cleanup; gets more polite and defined, at least

Excellent midrange cut

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Reviews

Dave

Marc,

I am so very pleased with this soundscape beyond words.....

It's taken me a while to dial it in with my stuff but I am beyond thrilled
with where it's going.

I just spent very loud hours with the Martian and it is terrifyingly
excellent thru a few different scenarios.

I don't usually write thank you letters but your finely tuned sense of
frequency offering warrants one.

Thank you again,
Dave

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Sound Clips

Dave

So I recorded this straight into a an Iphone 8

I used an ESP Phoenix II with both humbuckers ( '59 neck & JB bridge) into the Tarantula (overload around 11 o'clock) feeding both a Marshall JCM800 and a Tech 21 TM60 ( clean channel ) each driving their own Marshall 1936 2x12 cab with stock Celestion G12-T75's

For the chord voicings and riffs I tend to use, this pedal is monstrous in it's treatment of all of the edges of the notes, Ie, crispy, full and articulate.

I love how it sags but doesn't phart out while giving sizzle right in that low midrange where it really shines. The high end doesn't get fizzy either.

Soundcloud: Ron Wood's Car

Horrible, nasty clip I recorded

Using Ibanez SZ with PAF style humbuckers

Not demonstrated: any guitar-volume clean-up, which eliminates the glitchiness and sag completely
(video) Skreddy Martian Tarantula with humbuckers

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