PastFX revives and enhances the DOD FX76 Punkifier as the PX76 Punkifriar Fuzzy Drive

This PastFX project came about as a follow-up to its previous DOD FX65 / PX65 Stereo Chorus revival. Where Verlie asked for suggestions on which other cool and interesting discontinued DOD pedals could be revived.

TheSuperFunAwesomeHappyTimePedalShow’s Alex and Gabor were the ones to suggest the forgotten gem that was the FX76 Punkifier - an oddly monikered and labelled gain pedal which offered distinct fuzzy-drive tones through some fairly unusual controls.

Verlie added in a 5th ’Mead’ control (Contour) - which accentuates the Upper Mids and Highs of the output, but only when either the Spikes or Slam controls are fully dimed. Then you can sweep back the Mead control CCW to deliver more bite / zang and sizzle! Moving the dial in a clockwise direction softens the output, CCW sharpens the output.

Controls - Spikes (Highs), Mead (Contour - stock is fully CW), Slam (OD Gain), Menace (Output Ferocity), Punk (Overdrive > Fuzz Mix).

So the ideal settings to start off with are Spikes (Highs), Slam (OD Gain) and Menace (Output) at noon, and Mead (Contour) fully CW (Stock FX76), and Punk (Overdrive > Fuzz Mix) fully CCW.

You can then gradually raise each of those dials, and when either Spike or Slam are at Max you can start edging back the Mead control!

For me the best thing about this pedal is the intersection of the Overdrive and Fuzz - when those two textures combine. The Fuzz tone can be a little buzzy / scratchy for me to like playing it fully CW for long, while I’ve kind of become acclimatised to it. It can be a little ring-mod-like at times - so you need to tweak several dials in tandem to ameliorate that buzzy artefact.

The tone of the Overdrive, and the Fuzzy-Drive combination are very cool though - and there are lots of sweet-spots along the way - while it does involve ’tuning’ the pedal somewhat for each voicing. The optimal Fuzzy Drive range is from 9 o’c to 3 o’c on the Punk dial - depending on how strong you like the fuzz voicing - where the Slam knob can somewhat offset the buzz when raised.

Readers will know that I’m a huge fan of ’Fuzzy-Drive’ pedals and have as many as 50 that loosely fit that category. The PX65 Punkifriar is quite a distinctive voice within that sort of specialism. Note that the Mead control can be very subtle - and only applies when certain levels are reached on the Spikes and Slam knobs.

The Punkifriar is available right now from the PastFX Reverb.com Store for $238 AUD / $168 USD and equivalent.