"Synth-like" fuzz?

[JonFrum]

I've seen the Bazz Fuss described as synth-like. What produces the synth sound, and how could you get a fuzz "synthier"? A search came up with plenty of uses of the word, but no specifics.

[Skreddy]

I think the concept of "synthy" involves a bunch of things going on at once.  A purely electronic instrument boils down basically to an oscillator.  A single tone.  An instrument that just produced a sine wave would be boring!!!  So notice how we do things to fatten up the sound of organs for example.  Overdrive them.  Run them through Leslie cabinets.  Etc.  Now a synth, as opposed to an old-fashioned organ, starts out with basically no interesting character, just a basic tone.  So synths have extra modules for lowpass, highpass, and bandpass filtering, controlled by lfo's (low frequency oscillators) which sweep them in varying speeds and intensity.

An electronic keyboard can produce a tone indefinitely until a key is released, unlike a vibrating string (unaided by mechanical or electronic feedback).  So a "synthy" sound for a guitar effect would be something that could produce an infinite degree of sustain, ideally locking onto a note and oscillating of its own using that resonance.

Since a synth is commonly controlled by a keyboard in which every key can strike a simultaneous note and different parts of the keyboard can be addressed at once with two hands, it never seemed like such a huge necessity to add octave splitting or doubling functions to the synth instrument. 

But with the guitar, we commonly play melodies and solos using just one string and one finger at a time, so the addition of octave up and octave down can add a great deal to the "bunch-of-stuff-going-on-all-at-once" aspect, making it more synthy.

I bet if you take any very sustainy pedal into into an octave-down effect into an octave-up effect into a flanger or a phase shifter, then maybe add some delay, and I bet you'll sound like you're playing a Roland Guitar synth or at least an old EH Micro Synth.

Alternatively, put an envelope filter after the guitar instead of infinite sustain, and you'll get some tasty funky clavinet-synth tones.

[rove]

The MXR Blue box can be pretty synthy, and with the mod to make it only one octave down instead of two, its pretty versatile in the rangy of synthy sounds you can get, spice it up with some modulation via a chorus, flange, whatever, and you're pretty close to an analog synth tone complete with LFO.

[slacker]

Like Skreddy says the reason the bass fuzz sounds a bit synthy is that it can completely destroy the guitar's dynamics especially the attack, so you just get a long sustained note. It also has a hint of octave up which makes it more interesting and less guitar sounding.

[Processaurus]

Like Skreddy was saying, looking at a basic analog synth, there's a couple oscillators, then filters, then envelope.   You can approximate that signal path it by squaring up the guitar signal with high high gain (helps to use the neck pickup, and lo-pass filter the guitar before the gain so that less harmonics get through, (like the Strokes do on  one of their records, theres a bunch of keyboard sounding stuff, but its just guitar and amp with that recipe)).  A chorus, flanger, or digital detune (the most convincing) effect can make it sound like the cancellations and comb filter effect you hear from 2 oscillators not quite in sync.  An octave down or up mixed in is synthy too.  Pitch vibrato as well.  Then if you filter that with a resonant filter of some kind (I've used Tim Escobedo's Idiot Wah following synthy sounding effects and liked it).  An Envelope filter processing the square waved guitar, but with the envelope detector hooked up to the clean guitar will give a classic sounding filter sweep synthy sound...

There's so many variations, one recipe I used to get a synth sound in a sadly synthless band I played in was: Neck pickup -->Octave divider with only -1 octave, no dry, -->Fuzz -->Slapback delay, no repeats.  Its a lot of pedals to turn on for a 5 second part though!

[tcobretti]

You should really, really check out some of the stuff on Tim Escobedo's site.  Some of those pedals are almost too synthy.  Tim is brilliant at that stuff.

http://www.geocities.com/tpe123/folkurban/fuzz/snippets.html

[brett]

RE: Bazz Fuss

It also has a hint of octave up

Yup, for sure.  A big, fat hint of octave and inter-modulation tones.

[DDD]

I've tried sub-octaver (with the neck PU) followed with the high-gain fuzz. The sound was quite "snthy".
But in five minutes the sound seemed to be "boring" and unimpressive.

[Meanderthal]

 That last point/formula Skreddy made was a good one- the envelope follower. So, going that direction, try this:

guitar- envelope follower- compressor- big muff(or bazz fuss)- octave down(oc-2 or 3, chilli dog, etc)- phaser/flanger/chorus- delay(or not)- amp. That oughtta give you a very expressive, non-boring, synth like sound that you can get a lot of interesting sounds with your fingers(technique). It would also make a nice versatile 'conventional' pedalboard...

[Jaicen_solo]

I think it's important to note that conventional synths have their filters arranged differently to guitars. Usually, a guitarist will use a filter pre-distortion, whereas a synth starts out with a complex wave, and filters the harmonics.
I'd personally try a combination of Roktave followed by Mutron (State variable!!) and perhaps a slow gear??
That'll get you somewhere near the moogy sound you're probably looking for

[JonFrum]

Just to clarify, I'm not interested in building a guitar synth. I was just curious about what generates the synth-like sound in a circuit like the bazz fuss.

http://www.home-wrecker.com/bazz.html


You can't get much simpler than that. Why would the BF have synth-like elements to its sound, and other fuzzes don't?

[Mark Hammer]

The Gretsch Controfuzz is an underecognized clever little devil that fits some of the criteria for "synth-like".  It uses a clean/fuzz blend that has some interesting time parameters.  Because the fuzz side is SO distorted/clipped and mixed in at a lower level, and because the clean tone has a fairly short decay time, the sound appears to start out clean, and changes over time to fuzzy.  Worth taking a look at.

[Yun]

i havn't yet built a bazz fuss that has sounded synth-ish.  i think that the "tone" that the circuit produces is way too harsh to ever sound synth-like. 

I have gotten close to it by using a 47uf , or 50uf input cap, and a mids control. 

If you want that synth-tone from a fuzz box, i'd start from the Dirty sanchez circuit.  the texture control is essential in getting this tone from the dirty sanchez. 

Don't get me wrong, the bazz-fuss is indeed a SUPERB and simple circuit that produces great sound- but not synth-tones, atleast through all the rigs that i've gone through anyway......

[JonFrum]

I'm waiting on parts to breadboard a Bazz Fuss on the way to a Whisker Biscuit, so I"ll find out how "synth-y" it sounds.

[Yun]

I'm waiting on parts to breadboard a Bazz Fuss on the way to a Whisker Biscuit, so I"ll find out how "synth-y" it sounds.

YESSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The whisker biscuit is hands down my faveorite bazz fuss varient.  and it's up there in my top builds.  you WILL NOT be disapointed, man. 

[JonFrum]

I really liked the sound clip - even through my nasty laptop speakers - and I like the idea of the tone pot. I figured I'd build the simple Bazz Fuss, listen to it, and then go to the WB. It will be my first breadboarding, and should be a good experiment.

[8mileshigh]

I was just playing with my Bazz Fuzz and it definately sounds more synth like for lead playing that any other pedal I have.  I guess Dirty Sanchez would be the next step but I've been incredibly lazy for the last several weeks.  The cold/shoveling must be getting to me 

Chris

[tiges_ tendres]

The Gretsch Controfuzz is an underecognized clever little devil that fits some of the criteria for "synth-like".  It uses a clean/fuzz blend that has some interesting time parameters.  Because the fuzz side is SO distorted/clipped and mixed in at a lower level, and because the clean tone has a fairly short decay time, the sound appears to start out clean, and changes over time to fuzzy.  Worth taking a look at.

I bookmarked a link from this site that explained how to remove the clean signal!  The fuzz is really awesome. I Wish I could find that thread.

EDIT:

Seek and ye shall find!

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=41886.0

[Meanderthal]

 I built the Controfuzz. Want to completely remove the clean signal(as far as yer ears can tell)? Just turn down the volume knob on yer guitar. It struck me as kinda funny how this is opposite of a FF... it actually gets dirtier with the volume turned down!

Interesting on bass too.

[Quackzed]

the shocktave is a down octave fuzzy beast... sounds pretty synthy, think atari buzz 'pitfall anyone?'