So! Roanne got me this lovely tiny little MASSIVE pedal about a month ago and I’ve played it live since!
The Fuzzolo is a varient of the Woolly Mammoth circuit but with a few differences…
First of all, the sound of the Woolly Mammoth circuit is a big and sizzly fuzz tone that with the use of the Pulse Width control can be made to be gated, super squishy and all round splattery and blowing up! The Fuzzolo has these sounds in spades too but without the tone or gain control of the Woolly Mammoth!
I’ve had two Woolly Mammoth’s and sold both of them as I could never get them to work well in a mix EQ wise. I think think was due to the tone section of the circuit scoopping out some of the mids of the pedal. This can sound great at home and can be adjusted when recording but in a mix with other guitars and/or bass it can be problematic! Also the Mammoth was dinstincly quieter than some other pedals… I like my fuzz pedals to have a huge volume boost on tap so that I can have a much bigger gap between clean/fuzz and also to distort the amp some more!
HOWEVER! With the Fuzzolo, the tone circuit has been removed completely from the circuit which not only allows a much stronger mid presence but also allows the pedal to be a LOT louder! Also, I had a look inside the pedal and I found a BS 170 transistor which is from the Super Hard On circuit. I emailed Zvex to ask about it and he told me that it’s a secret! This probabaly plays a bigger part in why this pedal is so much louder and brighter than the Mammoth before it.
This pedal is also TINY. When I say tiny, I mean TINY. I absolutely love it!
Another thing worth mentioning is that the Fuzzolo has a small jumper inside that can connect a series resistance on the input to the pedal. I tend to put a variable resistor into my fuzz pedals (the finicky ones) to solve the issue of using a buffered pedal behind them and this jumper solves it perfectly for me! Meaning that I didn’t have to do anything to the pedal for it to be perfect!
Anyone thinking that it’s just a Woolly Mammoth but with less controls is right BUT it also has some massive benefits to it that make it perfect for me. That being the massive volume, great mids and internal series resistance jumper! What a boss fuzz!!
I’ve been setting with the Pulse Width control in about the middle where the gate just about kick in and it has an ENORMOUS low end and a huge splattering fuzz tone. Really sticky highs with my Fender Twin and an absolute tremendous low end. It’s worth noting that the low end on this pedal is HUGE, it can completely overpower the pre-amp (and power amp or speakers!) of your amp and can create a ‘blowing up’ fuzz tone effect. Personally I LOVE that sound but for some it can be off putting. In that case, just turn the bass down on your amp. (And if you can make sure you’re using some heavy duty speakers!).
In summary, a very very TINY but perfectly sculpted fuzz with some really really great improvements on a somewhat flawed design (to me at least!). I couldn’t have asked for a better improvement on the Woolly Mammoth design and the fact it’s so small is just plain CUTE.