12 of the Best Unique or Unusual Fuzz Pedals

This is actually a twin channel pedal where each has 3 voices - a Drive, Fuzz and a Boost with different tonal characteristics - but you can mix them up either way in series or parallel not dissimilar to the Strymon Sunset which I also have - while that has no fuzz voicings. I use The Brothers really as my regular Fuzz pedal, typically alongside the Foxpedal Defector and Dr Scientist Frazz Dazzler - and sometimes BitQuest too. I frequently swap-out and change around pedals in the other pedal-chain slots, but the Brothers stays constant for now. I'm hoping that Joel Korte eventually does a dual Germanium and Silicon pedal in The Brothers mould - that would be perfect for me, and mean I would not need to keep chasing the Spaceman Gemini III.

This is a superb pedal - amazingly versatile and full-featured as well as great sounding. I initially acquired it for its various 8 effects and with a mind to use it mainly as a bitcrusher, but it was originally devised as a Fuzz pedal, and using the Fuzz option in combination with the various effects gives you some great sounds. This pedal usually lives in the number 7 slot, but shares that very much currently with my synth pedals - so they get swapped around quite a bit depending on what I need.

I found this pedal when looking for Gemini III alternatives - for which I was rather late to the party. This seems like a reasonable offering at a reasonable price. Although I typically prefer a touch more tone-sculpting, and it would have been nice to be able to blend the two transistor voicings together like the Gemini III, and in fact the Monsterpiece PNP does to a degree. Depends what the availability on the others is as to when or if I get this one.

I first mentioned this in my Weird and Wonderful pedal article, and have touched on it a couple of times since. Seems that Mr McSpunckle is on a break for a while as he has taken down his Etsy page, and there is not much movement of late on his Facebook page either. Reading between the lines - these pedals were tricky to put together and there were enormous delays in lead-times - some customers seem to have had a variety of issues, yet the vast majority seem to have been largely satisfied. This is a tremendous pedal in all its iterations really - and gives you near enough every type of flavour of fuzz. It has oh so many dials and toggles though that serious patience is required for progress - and we all know how wildly erratic fuzzes can be at times. I still love the idea that this pedal exists - like I said in the intro - it's a little large and over-complex for my liking, but if one comes up for reasonable money I may just do something about it.

Before I started this phase of research I was not overly familiar with all the Fuzz pedal specialists - like Monsterpiece, MJM, Wren & Cuff, SolidGoldFX etc. Now that I am, I really like the output of all those companies - and in particular from Monsterpiece - although you have to order direct from them, while the occasional example does turn up on Reverb every now and again. As per the video - this pedal has a huge range of tones via 5 dials and a Tone-defeat toggle. I really like the sound of this one, although with my current thinking would still probably prefer a Gemini III ahead of this. If I can't practically get hold of a Gemini, then this is my next best choice.

OBNE do some really interesting pedals, and this is the one that I'm most captivated by - plenty of tone-shaping dials and toggles for a variety of tones - particularly those edgy velcro and gated fuzz sounds. This has been on my wishlist for a while - it keeps getting pipped by others, but it will happen for this one eventually.

This is another pedal that has been on my wishlist for a while - alongside a number of other exceptional mini fuzz pedals. I fully intend to get this weird gated, bleepy fuzz at some stage, it's just a matter of time and priorities now - really smart pedal though - with loads of functions AND that clever Igor pressure-sensitive foot-pad / expression pedal. (Note that the video above play fine even though it looks odd!).

I came across this pedal by chance, having been drawn in by Side Effect's very impressive Il Mostro drive pedal. I like Zvex pedals, but don't like their landscape / horizontal format, or even the larger medium-sized enclosures - so a compact homage to the Woolly Mammoth was a perfect fit. It covers the same tone-haping controls, but does not purport to be an exact clone, while it gets you quite near enough - and gives you an added oscillation feature - win-win for me. Pedal acquired from Reverb.com direct from this Greek pedal-maker. Highly recommended and a nice companion to my Zvex Vertical Fuzz Factory.

The much lauded and celebrated twin Germanium + Silicon fuzz mixer pedal is currently changing hands at silly prices. The last one sold on Reverb cost over £900 and there was one listed before Christmas for closer to £1,000 - but that one seems to have been withdrawn now. However great this pedal is, I really don't think it warrants 1000 credits of your hard-earned monies. As I said in the intro I will wait and see if the prices stabilise somewhat - and more are put up for offer - none on Reverb currently. Would be even better if Zak Martin were to make an updated version of this - would need to be suitably different so as not to upset his main collectors. I think Joel Korte could do a cracking version within his Brothers chassis too - so I'm also waiting to see if someone else has a crack at doing something similar. If nothing happens for a while I will most likely order in a Monsterpiece PNP DLX which is an excellent pedal along similar lines.

This type of effect is usually known as a fuzz-oscillator or oscillo-fuzz even - which adds an LFO into the mix to give you warbly stuttery fuzz. The DBA Evil Filter is kind of an extreme version of this, there are several other including the Last Gasp Super Oscillo Fuzz - but this particular one seems to tickle my fancy. Don't know when I will get it - possibly in a fortuitous sale some months hence - lots of priorities ahead of this one though - however good it is.

I've always liked the sound of Zvex fuzzes, but hated their form-factor - the sideways elongated / landscape style - which can work well for certain dual-footswitch pedal types, but really I prefer mine vertical and properly compact. So I was delighted when Zvex decided to release the Fuzz Factory in vertical format shortly before Christmas - and indeed snapped one up in the new year. I would have preferred a Fat Fuzz Factory in this format really - for the extra voicings, but that will surely come I suppose. I also have the Mastotron on my wishlist (hoping for vertical for that too) - as well as the great mini Fuzzolo pedal - which has been on my wishlist for the longest time, and whose price keeps fluctuating. There seem to be plenty in stock - just waiting for it to hit sub £100 again!