integrated circuit based fuzz circuits

[Mark Hammer]

Petey,

None of the circuit examples you linked to in the original post are what I would call "fuzzes".  Overdrives?  Yes.  Distortions?  Maybe.  But, examining the gains they employ, they are basically able to clip the peaks during the initial pick attack, but unlikely to yield the kind of protracted waveform perversion over the note lifespan that we tend to label as "fuzz".

Doesn't mean it is impossible to do so, using op-amps.  And I'm not dissing you for selecting them.  Rather, the less-informed should be forewarned that "fuzz" is not to be found in making any one of those circuits.  You'll get something musically useful, to be sure; just not fuzz.

[anotherjim]

On tape deck fuzz.
Long, long ago, I got my first recording deck, a "Bush" brand top load stereo cassette deck. I soon found if I set it on pause/record I could use it as a pre-amp. Plugging my bass into a Mic socket and setting recording level at max gave this fruity, splatty fuzz tone. Unfortunately, I don't have any surviving recording of this, but it's not unlike the bass fuzz tone on the The Stranglers "In the Shadows" track...

Back then, I didn't have the knowledge or inclination to look into the tape decks electronics, because it would be interesting now to know what was going on. It was probably discrete silicon circa 1973.
Maybe one day the "Bush Fuzz" will live again.