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
- 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
Sources
