DOD FX33 Buzz Box

quite easy to use ... one knob for octave, two for bass/treble, and one for volume.

this is the noisiest pedal i've ever used -- i don't even use it for my guitar... i also create some noise music, and i wouldn't be able to do it without this beast. i got ahold of a used one for big money ($100), but it was well worth it.

it's a DOD, and DOD doesn't have the best reputation for quality. i've had it for a few years, and the only thing that's gone wrong with it is that the pedal sticks (it's hard to switch on and off).

never dealt with DOD.

for noise, this pedal is essential. i've heard the same about the DOD meatbox, but i've yet to get ahold of one. for actual guitar playing, you might be better off getting a boss octave pedal -- they have a better rep than DOD.

but i wouldn't trade this pedal for anything.

Simple, as simple can be, you want to annhilate everything turn it on
if not steer clear!

What the hell do you think, this along with the meat box were part of merzbow's rig in the anlogue days get the picture. Musical clarity it aint but if the sound of tectonic plates shifting and tinintus are your thing its heaven. Stick this in a loop and you'll cream yourself.

Guitar I use a epiphone les paul, and Jackson kelly through a traynor mark 3 head into a 400 what hiwatt cab with various pedals including a meatbox, boss oc3, cry baby, little big muff and sometimes pod 2.0

If it turns on it works, if not how the hell would you tell???
dod marketed this using the statement "no its not broke - its supposed to sound like that"
maybe if its broke it would actually sound like a harmonic percoloator or something amazing, but thats not the point is it.

As for the pretentious twats who say dod are built poorly, ive never had a problem with this or the meatbox which are both vital in my setup. Dod are far more sturdy feeling than the overrated boss pedals aside from the plastic switch which is a little flimsy looking but never given me any trouble.

Never had to use it.

Its awesome.

One knob for the octave, two EQ knobs and one for Level. Turn the Octave (heavy) knob down and you have a pedal similar to the Grunge pedal (another underrated noise pedal with lots of good sounds, all of them awful, but nonetheless useful). This distortion is a bit more trebly than the grunge, but only slightly. Turn the heavy knob up and you get more and more noise as the octave comes in. It's easy to get lots of sounds with this pedal, all of them awful, so this pedal is very easy to use. It is only a stompbox after all, I don't see how any stompbox can get less than a 9 or 10.

I use a tele with a DM2, BD2, Rat2, EH Frequency Analyser and either this pedal or an MXR Blue Box.

This pedal is legendary for alternative guitarists and avant-garde musicians. The advertising campaign said "no it's not broken - it's supposed to sound like that!" Legend dictates that it was designed by Buzz from the Melvins, although it's not quite true. It was based on his MXR Blue Box/RAT sound, but he didn't design it.

The Buzz Box is a loud distortion and the psychotic octave that doesn't track. As you turn up the heavy knob you get more and more octave - from a slight overtone, right through to a burbling sound like a volcano erupting... The Octave noise gate fizzes and makes clicking sounds, the synthy octave jumps randomly from 1 octave down, 2 octaves down or no octave at all, depending how it feels at the time. The distortion fizzes and the octave jumps around behind you when you play leads. Play a chord and it's like an icepick in your ear. It sounds like a blown speaker, or a truck running you over. It's loud and nasty - but everyone knows that, and it's the whole point of this pedal.
This pedal is very cool to get horrid noises. On guitars it's useful for Sonic Youth noiseouts, in electronic music it's good for Squarepusher or Aphex Twin type interludes. Turn it on and make the soundman hate you. Turn it off and you're back to your normal sound. The audience will wonder what on earth happened there?

DOD pedals are quite reliable. The box is metal, only the switch is plastic. I've had loads of DOD pedals and none of them have died, although sometimes you have to be handy with a soldering iron. On the other hand very few guitarists actually USE their buzz box's, preferring to hoard them as collectors items, so they tend to be in immaculate condition mint in the box when you get them. The most annoying thing about DOD pedals is the different power supply to Boss type, so you need to use either a second power supply, or a battery. Take the battery cover off and keep it somewhere safe or you'll loose it very soon.

They are good at ignoring you. I've never got a response from them, so they get zero.

I play nofi rock or make experimental noise in my room with feedback loops and a four track. I've used a DOD Grunge pedal for years to get horrible noises. It's stupidly over the top but not scooped mids like most "metal" pedals, so it stands out in the mix. If I want to play the Roobarb and Custard theme, or sound like a chainsaw chopping down an oak tree I use my trusty Grunge. The distortion in the Buzz Box is very similar to the Grunge. I also used an MXR Blue Box for the octave sound and thought I didn't need a buzz box because with a Grunge pedal AND a Blue Box together you can get just about all of the sounds of the Buzz Box, so it's debatable whether anyone need pay all that money for this rare pedal at all. To compare them: In the Buzz Box the distortion and Octave are in parallel (not series) so the octave is that little bit more disconnected, a little weirder. Plus of course you can turn both the distortion and octave on with one stomp, and also the Buzz Box is far rarer and therefore cooler to other guitar snobs. The Buzz Box isn't so heavily gated as the Blue Box and so it just destroys any signal that goes into it and feedsback like crazy. Which is good. The Blue Box has a warmer sound on it's own and is more musical, despite some volume and noise gating issues. I'm debating which one to keep because there's very little between them, they are near identical. To sum up: Buy a Grunge and an MXR Blue Box and you'll have a DIY Buzz Box and you don't need to pay all that money for the real deal. But the Buzz Box is still waaay cooler.

Back to the Buzz Box review: everyone who'd want one knows what it sounds like. It's horrible, and it does it rather well. It works as a sound source for noise music and it's a lot of fun. Having the real deal is better than Blue Box/grunge imitation I described, and this is the most disgusting pedal I've heard: forget the Fender Blender, Shin Ei Fuzz Box, the Fuzz Factory - this is genuine hell on toast. It makes all those look like a nice Disney movie. No real musical value, but it's good to keep handy. It tends to be an unpredictable beast, so having a sampler on hand is useful because you're unlikely to get the same thing twice. You can always keep it on your board to scare people, wake them up if they look like they are losing interest in your music, or inflict pain on the unappreciative audience only here to see the other band. Most people will turn it on at the end of the set to make a big din, and walk off stage with feedback ringing behind them.
The Buzz Box is the most horrid and out of control pedal ever made, and it's well worth getting if you see one. Lots of fun. It's by no means essential, but if you play noise, you'll probably already have at least one. An MXR Blue Box is a much cheaper and more reliable alternative.

I think it makes sense. 4 knobs. Thrust is your basic level control. If you turn off all knobs but Thrust this thing sounds like a standard heavy metal type of pedal. The other 3 knobs all introduce noise of various types. The Buzz and Saw knobs introduce a crackly buzz. Saw is in the upper bandwidths and Buzz is in the mids. The Heavy knob introduces the suboctave and a noise kind of like a geigercounter. You can turn up the Heavy knob gradually and you get varying degrees of uncontrollable atonal insanity. At higher settings the notes you are playing become completely obliterated, but at lower settings you can find a nice balance between music and insanity...

Yes, it's noisey, but that's the point!!!

Seems fine.

fiddle anddidle around w/ knobs it's just to make noise

crazy,unfilteredocive/fuzz drive noise for noise sakes i like pareingit w'my pitch shifter then just hold on it plays it self bottom line ;is its just silly. piss off your band mates or or really piss off some sound men/woman,no musical value what soever if you dig that sort of thing(smile)

it's a dod so tape up the battery cover,it still works

what??!!

made just for noise dose that well, just another flavor, crazy scare your cat fun

It is fairly easy to use when you get past the crazy names on the knobs. The manual gives a pretty good explanation as to what everything is and what it does. Even gives some sample settings to get you started.

This thing is all about noise. It is probably the Holy Grail of Noise Rock equipment. I'm not really a Noise Rock enthusiast, but I do like to experiment on occasion. I play in a Progressive Hard Rock band with a twist of Metal. You probably couldn't use this pedal all of the time......but, I like to use it to end a song or even a set. Just go berzerk and play off the wall crazy shiate. My setup goes a little something like this...Jackson PS-4> Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive> (sometimes)Buzz Box because it is a tone hog> into Marshall VS102R. Pedals are always subject to change in my setup. This pedal sounds completely and utterly shitty. But it is supposed to, so as far as that goes, it should get a 1 for the bad sound and a 10 because it is made to sound like crap and does it very well.

I would and have use it without a backup. But as you know, with DOD you have to kind of baby them in order for them to last.

I got this thing a couple weeks ago at a nearby music store. It had been sitting in the case since it came out. It is NOS. As you know, these pedals are no longer made. They have become quite collectible. I bought it with the intention of selling it to make some money, but while testing it out, I discovered some sounds that I loved. So it became part of my setup for occasional lunacy. If you can find them anywhere, buy it. If nothing else, hold onto it for a while and sell it and make yourself a little extra cash. I would buy another one if I saw it somewhere.

LOVE THIS PEDAL the most unigue pedla i own and i own over 300 its real easy to get a good sound out of it it can be a bit noisy if the buzz is turned up a bit you want to plug this thing in with all of the knobs turned down then work your way up

i use it wit a vox and a tele the octave effect is just unreal its got distortion blended in and i just love it i cant think of any artist it can copy right now the only artist i would try would be 311
or incubus (i just got the gonkulator to copy glass) but the sound is just great octave distortion hard i use it alone i did use it wit an ibanez echomachine and it did work well wit it i dont know how usefull my review can be but i have to tell the world that thisa is probebly dod most obsure and most best pedal ever next to the gonkulator and corrosion and death metal

well mines been modified wit a new stomp switch cause thats the problem wit dod the footswitces are not the best for this i give it a 9 i would use backup without it

dod has great customer support u can talk to a live person and they will send you spare parts their customer support is a lot better than ibanez and boss

i been playin for 20 yrs and would use this pedal to play harder stuff i am thinking about buying a bacup since these thing are gettin rare i cant compare it to nothin right now its in a class all it own i do like the modified switch it has it is going to help me create new and intresting new music

I tryed to control it but it controled me. It has a strong spirit and a mind of its own. All the knobs have useless names that do not help. I don't a couple of the controls are as standard as "gain", "tone", etc.; therefore they just picked fun nicknames.

I give it a perfect ten for being the shitties effects pedals I've ever known. I like to use it to destroy the end of a song. There are a multitude of sounds you can get out of this thing. All such sounds are wretched. Its hard to get the same nasty sound twice(either that means i'm to undisciplined/lazy to play with enough regularity or it is a magically irrational machine that taunts me find a way to use it in a way that i get consistent results).<--(i dunno)It makes chaos happen so i just use it for that. I wish i could make it stop feedbacking sometimes,(it likes to make this earbleeding high frequency sizzle) esp sense this happens on 90% of all settings. It doesnt fit with my other fx cuz I have to adjust everything so it doesnt hurt my ears. It is so horrible it frustrates me trying to use it for something. The beauty is it so trashy it sykes me out and I go apeshiton the guitar.

I will never trust any shoddy made dod pedal, but I give it a 2 cuz it isn't dead yet.

Go and find one it will fuck everything up. At the store they wanted a $100 for it but i just played on it for a couple hours and then they knocked off half the price. They said they wanted to get rid of it real bad. So now its my gremlin and i feed it after midnight every night with a glass of water.

OK morons.....all you dumbasses saying that this pedal sounds like shit....your right...it does sound like shit....IT IS SUPPOSED TO SOUND LIKE SHIT!!!! If you like stuff like that, thats great. But if you don't like stuff like that, don't whine that it has no tone and that you can't get get certaind people's tones out of it!!! This pedal is for the adventurous only!!!! Not for tone purists!!! Trying to get a tone purist to like this is like trying to tell a 14 year old that his Metal Zone going into a Crate practice amp sounds shitty!!!! He won't listen!!!! So, please...take this warning!!!

Very straightforward, even with the dumdum names. Its easy to get this thing to do what it does, hard to say what that is.

I want to meet whatever freak designed this thing. Possibly the greatest pedal ever built. Of course I think everyone I've played it for other than me hates it.

DOD pedals are pretty poorly/cheaply built but they don't seem to give me many problems.

Amazing pedal, probably least useful as a guitar distortion box unless you want to sound like king bizbit flower hour. Run it on the stereo bus of your mix!!