spirit n the sky fuz pt.47 (response to sody54)

joegagan · February 11, 2007, 01:05:17 PM

hi, I know this has been discussed to infinity before, but internet fact seems to be that Norm Greenbaum's fuzz was built into his guitar by his tech. (tele? - 335?)

I also feel that a lot of that tone was his amp and a really great room it was recorded in. does anyone else think they can hear the room reverberating in that track?

I think that a Sam Ash fuzz would get you pretty close to that tone, based on similar tones on "draggin the line" tommy james. that track was recorded using a sam ash fuzz played by my friend pete scaltrito. I have seen the actual pedal - he offered to let me check it out inside!

markm · February 11, 2007, 01:26:32 PM

Quote from: joegagan on February 11, 2007, 01:05:17 PM
I have seen the actual pedal - he offered to let me check it out inside!

Well......!
Did ya

joegagan · February 11, 2007, 01:29:10 PM

no, but it would be really fun to trace it out and see if it compares to the schem that's been on the net forever. I will make thime to do it and post here!

markm · February 11, 2007, 01:33:03 PM

Tell ya Joe,
I'd be interested to see if it matches up.
That'd be very cool indeed!

tcobretti · February 11, 2007, 01:48:38 PM

Agreed, that would be cool!

blanik · February 11, 2007, 03:49:27 PM

i just sent him an e-mail for fun, here's his reply...

"Thanks for writing.
I had a custom built fuzz box. Many rumors have circulated around the internet, including the slit speaker, but not true.

Norman Greenbaum"

The Tone God · February 11, 2007, 06:47:43 PM

This topic was hashed out on another forum I was on. Someone contacted Norman about it and he responded that it was a fuzz but didn't go into much more detail then that.

Andrew

blanik · February 11, 2007, 11:38:34 PM

well, he mentioned a custom built Fuzz, it was around 68-69 so i guess it must have been a common Germanium Fuzz... sounds like he had a low battery or stab pot on his (according to the "edge of breaking" sound...)

R.

g3rmanium · February 12, 2007, 07:11:52 AM

Quote from: The Tone God on February 11, 2007, 06:47:43 PM
Someone contacted Norman about it and he responded that it was a fuzz but didn't go into much more detail then that.

Guess he must have been asked the same question before.

Doug_H · February 12, 2007, 09:25:27 AM

How you doing, Joe?

IMO I agree that much of the "magic" in the guitar sound in that song has to do with the recording itself. There is a reverberation and EQ that adds a lot to it. If you listen closely and focus on the distortion itself, it's really a pretty crappy sounding fuzz. Shouldn't be brain surgery to get that distortion sound in and of itself. We've got crappy fuzz circuits out the wazoo here.;-);-)

I think that in a lot of these sounds we know and love, the distortion is just a small piece of a much bigger picture. Poor analogy probably, but you can't recreate the feeling of the Mona Lisa by just meticulously duplicating her nose.

YMMV of course.

DDD · February 12, 2007, 09:55:59 AM

Well done, Doug!
Regretfully you're right...

Meanderthal · February 12, 2007, 10:29:35 AM

That's the kinda fuzz I file under a mental category - psycho tuba.(whatever, makes sense to me...)
My Brassmaster clone has a horrible blatty misbiased sound a lot like that on guitar. Just add reverb, cut some high end and there it is. Seriously.

On bass it's a total funk monster!

Doug_H · February 12, 2007, 11:23:30 AM

"Psycho tuba" makes me think of "The Rapper" by the Jaggerz. That's an overpowering fuzz...

Meanderthal · February 12, 2007, 11:37:08 AM

Bingo!

doug deeper · February 12, 2007, 11:46:25 AM

ive had good luck getting this sound with the fy-2 circuit minus the scoop filter... i also eq'd it like the fuzzrite.
(.002 output caps .05 input, on each stage)

Sody54 · February 13, 2007, 06:14:38 AM

Thanks for all the input folks. I think I'm going to try playing around with a Fuzzrite and see what I come up with.

Brian

brett · February 13, 2007, 06:55:52 AM

Hi
yeah, my Fuzzrite is kinda like that (brassy trombone), but maybe not as "blatty" and gated. The Fuzzrite and the FZ1s have a common principle to them - cut lots of bass. IIRC the fc of a Fuzzrite is about 150 Hz. That's about two and a bit octaves higher than the fc of a fuzzface.

Actually, I've built two Fuzzrites. The one with low hFE power transistors (BD139s, hFE = 150) was lots better (ie had a more vintage tone) than the one with high hFE transistors (300).

PS I've got a non-working headphone amp based on a Ruby that gives everything a very fuzzy, heavily gated sound. If I work out the cause I'll post it. (Just now I'd gues it's either badly biased JFET, perhaps a J201 with a 1k source resistor. Or an IC socket where I've only soldered some of the pins to the tracks.)

R.G. · February 13, 2007, 08:59:01 AM

Oddly enough, Craig Anderton's "Optimum Fuzz Adapter" gives the heavy, gated sound right out of the box. It's a 741 opamp set up as a comparator. If the signal is big enough to trip the signal over, it's fully saturated. No intermediate tones or rolling back the volume knob to clean it up. 100% fuzz, all the time. And it's easy to breadboard.

Doug_H · February 13, 2007, 09:35:19 AM

Quote from: R.G. on February 13, 2007, 08:59:01 AM
Oddly enough, Craig Anderton's "Optimum Fuzz Adapter" gives the heavy, gated sound right out of the box. It's a 741 opamp set up as a comparator. If the signal is big enough to trip the signal over, it's fully saturated. No intermediate tones or rolling back the volume knob to clean it up. 100% fuzz, all the time. And it's easy to breadboard.

That's the first fuzz I ever built, back in 1974.

Ben N · February 13, 2007, 09:53:26 AM

Isn't there a gated fuzz in EPFM (Ultra-Fuzz, or Uber-Fuzz or something)? Is that the same thing?

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spirit n the sky fuz pt.47 (response to sody54)

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