Fuzz

Truthfully, there's no hard line that separates overdrive from distortion from fuzz. They all kind of hang out in this nebulous world of spillover from a auditory standpoint. If looking at the manner in which the signal is manipulated to get the "clipped signal", it might be easier to arrive at a place where the distinction between the terms makes a difference.

Clipped instrument signal, typically with both halves of the sine wave of the music signal being clipped. This results in even-order and odd-order harmonics being generated. : What tends to separate the clipping of Fuzz from Overdrive or Distortion is that the clipping is not achieved by over-amplification in a tube or transistor, but that the clipping is done by employing either a single limiting diode, or pair of limiting diodes in the circuit. These diodes serve to truncate the tops and the bottoms of any musical sine wave going through this particular circuit. In extreme situations this can result in what is known as an audio "square wave".

Contrast Guide

We do not expect this definition to be authoritative, however, it is a set of definitions that we have put together in order to be able to separate out how we understand the different forms of signal clipping to occur. What we hear isn't necessarily what you hear, but we can put definitions around what happens physically to the signals. This is how we understand the different forms of signal clipping as pertains to an audio signal and heavy music. Quote and link to these definitions at your own peril.

Overdrive

Minor waveform squaring-and-rounding from over-amplification, Effects usually only applied to one half of a sound's sine wave. Usually only through one or two gain stages.

Distortion

Major waveform squaring-and-rounding from over-amplification. Effects usually applied to both halves of a sound's sine wave. Usually cascaded through multiple gain stages.

Fuzz

Major waveform squaring without rounding due to diode clipping of waveform. Effect applied to both halves of a sound's sine wave. Usually only occurs through a single gain stage.

Fuzz Pedals

• Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face
• Colorsound Tonebender
• Gibson Maestro FZ-1 Fuzz
• Boss FZ-2 Hyper Fuzz

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Sources

• Hewitt's Sound Garage:Timeline of Fuzz devices
• Jim Dunlop Guide: Overdrive vs. Distortion vs. Fuzz