Dunlop JD-F2 Dallas-Arbiter Fuzz Face

two controls - couldn't be easier.

my set up is a tele with a stacked bridge 'bucker into a marshall 50 watt tube head - all cranked. this pedal makes a bit of noise, but nothing major. sounds best with the tubes screamin' - i think this may be where other players run into problems, 'cause this baby needs tubes. i can get great gov't mule type heavy blues, and even dave gilmour type sloooow solo sustain. i don't use other effects so i can't comment there.

hell yeah. few chips aside this thing can't die!!

dunno.

this is bad ass fuzz, and a damn sight more reliable than my old dallas fuzz. doesn't pick up the radio neither!!! i like that it's red, so as i can't lose it onstage. i used some other fuzz in my time, and this is as good as any. rock'n'roll!

Many of the infinite number of sounds that can come out of the Fuzz Face sound great, others sound absolutely awful. Getting a good sound out of it takes a couple minutes of tweaking the controls on your guitar, amp, and the unit itself. Getting the EXACT sound you want is almost impossible unless you know a whole lot about guitar effects and amplifiers, like a guitar tech.

One thing that bothered me a lot is that (if you have the older style that uses germanium transistors) you can't put a wah pedal before it. I read somewhere that you can take it to a repair shop to get a simple fix for the problem but it's still rather annoying.

After spending all afternoon finding the right sound, it sounds awesome. I play through a Carvin 100w tube combo amp with a Fender Stratocaster. I always use the overdrive channel when using the Fuzz Face otherwise it's way to choppy sounding and the tone of the guitar is absolutely destroyed. The reason it gets a nine rather than ten is because it is very noisy when it's the only effect or the last effect in the chain. I find that an easy solution to this problem is to turn the fuzz knob down just a touch. It eliminates most of the hum and doesn't take away much tone at all.

I'd definitely depend on it for a gig, that may just be because my amp's overdrive channel is good enough for me if the unit malfunctions. I have, thankfully, not had any problems so far.

I've never dealt with them, and judging by the other reviews here I never will want to.

I play a lot of Hendrix and Cream style music and find this is better than using the overdrive of my amp, which is saying something because i love my amp. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to add some serious tone on top of their overdrive or to get the infamous Hendrix light crunch sound (Wind Cries Mary, Hey Joe, Bold as Love, etc.). It's very versatile, and (if you're willing to spend some time with it) very easy to use.

the pedal only has two knobs - volume and fuzz. that helps, but the pedal does need to be plugged in at the volume you are going to play at, as i found the sound changes with volume (especially with tube amps). that said, it's very simple to use, and i found the sound i wanted within five minutes. as easy as any pedal i have used.

i play a gordon smith custom sg (equipped with an emg humbucker) through this pedal into a marshall superlead mk2 100 watt tube head. i bought this pedal because i like fuzz, and because fu manchu used to use them. i'm not after a jimi hendrix sound at all, so i'm not sure whether this pedal nails that or not. itdoes, however, do stoner rock extremely well!! it's not noisy, although it is very loud when engaged. it gives a thick, saturated heavy sounding fuzz. sounds great with chords, and even better on solos or single note stuff. sustains really well too. with the emg in my sg i can even get a good chug which is not common in fuzz. that said it definately is a fuzz pedal, not distortion. it sounds cool with either delay or phase. i'd say it is a very bassy thick fuzz as opposed to a shrill thin fuzz. paired up with my marshall it rules.

oh yes. super heavy duty casing. no obvious areas of weakness.

before buying this pedal i read quite a lot of mixed reviews but went ahead and bought it because i figured i could mod it if it sucked. mine is an absolutely bog standard re-issue, and it is fantastic. i have owned and used a big muff (very similar, but the fuzz face cuts through with my band a bit more), zvex woolly mammoth, boss fz3, analog man fuzz sunface, boss hyperfuzz and ibanez fuzz, so i know a good fuzz pedal when i stand on one - and this is (along with the muff) the best i have used. it provides just the thickest sabbathy sounding fuzz imaginable. for stoner/ classicrock it is just perfect. i love the simplicity too - i don't miss the tone knob - it just makes me fine tune my amp more which is a good thing. i find it a very inspirational pedal, just banging away on the low strings sounds so great!if you are considering this pedal don't be put off by bad reviews, this is a really great pedal. for lovers of big muff type fuzz, this offers a very cool variation on the theme. it's different enough to warrant buying along with the muff. and if you like fu manchu....look no further!!

There's one for Volume, one for Fuzz, sounds simple to me.

Good tone. It can get that classic retro psychedelic tone. Ex. Jimi Hendrix, Cream, the list continues. It can be tamed though, to a more calmer fuzz, that can drive pretty well. It takes a while to learn good combinations. Definitely not weak, you can go insane with this thing. Sounds best through a tube amp, I've used a Marshall with it, and unfortunately that amp's clean tones don't quite agree with fuzz. With overdrive in an amp, plus fuzz, you can get some wild stuff. Overall, the sound is great, but the player determines a lot.

This is built rugged. Though. the knob/pot connection has a few times been known to let's say (I turn the knob to about 10, and the knowb and pot spin far past it.) this caused some trouble when playing, because it went a little to rowdy sounding, and I'm still working on that problem. Other than that, solid.

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Great fuzz. The greats used this fuzz, and though some new ones may be for other people, this is a good box. Very retro, takes you to the sixties and back. It doesn't, however get the smoothness of say, a tube screamer, but that's not it's function. This is the fuzz for fuzz only. It is just awesome. Works best on tube amps, or clean amps. If you're not digging the Buzzy like fuzz tones, this is not for you, but like I said, the player shapes the sound.

Phrase of the day here is 'no nonsense' and it is particularly useful in describing this product. It is very easy to get a good sound ad not at all complicated to used in anyway.

Again... there's no messin with this baby, just out and out distortion. I was surprised and very pleased when I realised how quiet the pedal is.. not in a bad way, I mean it doesn't pick up much static even at high volumes. If you are using a wah pedal, I suggest you use it after the fuzz unit as the fuzz face doesn't seem to take a blind bit or notice what tone wah is putting in and give gives out whatever the hell it wants. No nonsense.

Rugged construction; will take a fair bit of kicking. No battery indicator... unfortunate as the unit is battery only, unless you have one of those jump adapters.

I'm not sure as I've had no trouble with it.... I bought it used and there was no manual, but thats no big deal. Its Dunlop so I would think the CS would be good.

I play brit pop and classic rock mostly along with some other stuff, its perfect to get that crunchy tone.

Its a big smiley face with two huge rubber knobs (not those kind of knobs perv) for eyes and the switch for a nose. Its a no brainer.

Setup can vary, though I usually work my 68 Gibson SG through a Marshall 80 W amp with a crybaby wah either ahead or behind the fuzz face.
I think the pedal sounds great, and for those of you who were looking for a Hendrix type sound and felt disappointed, you just didn't try hard enough. By just playing with your amp gain/volume/tone, the pedal order, guitar volume/tone,pickup selector, and finally the actual fuzz face control knobs you can get an infinite number of sounds. If you want a raw hendrix fuzz of the early years (purple haze esque) the pedal can be fine on its own. If you are looking for a later hendrix sound around Woodstock up to Isle of Wight, try hooking it up with a crybaby or other wah set close to full treble. You can wail your solos, and drop low bombs a la Spanish Castle Magic. You just have to play around. The easiest hendrix tone to replicate with fuzz - wah combo is the rare hendrix tune "Midnight" or "Peace in Mississipi". This is the sound you are looking for! For the sharpest fuzz and more wah effect, putting the fuzz face first in the chain is better. Just play around and experient nuff said.

So far so good. I found it in pawn shop about 8 years ago. Who knows how long it was played before that, I'm guessing not very much. It is definately a Dunlop re-issue, however it has Germainium transisters which have been replaced in newer JD issues in favour of Silicone. I believe that the silicon trans contribute to the unfavourable results experienced by some buyers. More duds. The Germainium transisters in earlier models are also finicky. I honestly believe that I got a very nice fuzz face, but I know people that have crap ones, its just luck.

When I got it however, the rubber stoppers on the bottom were sheared off, I don't know whether from rough use, or nervous hands. I'll never know.

Never had to try, don't know

I play a lot of classic rock hendrix/sabbath type stuff. I used to play a lot of metal, and this is not the pedal for it as there is no palm mute crunch capability, however you shouldn't be using that much fuzz for that anyway. Classic Sabbath tones can be found, and if you use a Wah to modify the tone, you can achieve a Fu Manchu type sound if you like that.

I've never had another fuzz pedal to compare this with, so I can't rate it to any competition. I'm happy with the sound, and many of my friends have commented that it sounds pretty sweet. If it was stolen, I'd probably sample some new stuff on the market for comparision, and buy the fuzz face again if other brands couldn't hold up.

The thing I love the most about the pedal is its simplicity, sometimes the simple effects are the ones that allow us to find the most creative sounds, rather than some board that can synth 10000 different effects, and has like 10 knobs to adjust speeds and tones and other crap like that.

Wish it had an AC adapter capability, and the battery compartment sucks.

like the other people have said: 2 knobs, and they turn.

this is a very touchy area as you CAN get sounds that are good, but it takes some work. as most people say that the only setting worth anything is rolling the fuzz all the way up which is just not true. i put the fuzz at about 10 o'clock and the volume at about 2 o'clock and got soem great sounds. now, mind you, this pedal does NOT make you sound like jimi hendrix, or eric clapton. neither does getting the stuff they use(d). that calls for a little something called "style" and "technique"(novices look into these things). however, seeing as hendrix was my main influence i can get some very hendrixy sounding things, but not exactly. also, all you guitarists obsessing over sounding like other guitarists should note that its about 10 times easier and 1,000 times more gratifying to find your OWN sound. whoever your trying to emulate has already done what your attempting, maybe you should try something new(thats my little soap box speech for the day).

TERRIBLE. the only way you can guaruntee that the unit will work after five months is to never open the box. and then again, if you never did open the box you wouldnt know if it worked in the first place
(which IS possible). im not joking. i bought mine brand new about a year ago and it worked fine. then about two weeks later all of a sudden, it crapped out on me. for example, the only time you could get the unit to start being fuzzy would be to crank the "fuzz" knob like some previous people said(which makes me believe they had a defective unit right from the start). So after it crapped out on me i sent it in to dunlop to get it repaired(ill go into more detail on that later). when i got it back(sort of, again ill explain later) it was working. until i dropped it, not two times, not three times, but ONCE. thats right, all you people saying that its as sturdy as a rock obviously just use it for the garden. i drop the thing once(and not even really hard) and again, its crapped out.

okay, now here is where i explain what i said i would previously. as i stated before, i sent the unit into dunlop to have it repaired. well, after about 6 months-thats right, i said 6 MONTHS. nothing had happened. i stayed in contact with my friend who works at the store where i got the unit who would try to contact them(dunlop) to no avail. finally when he got through, he convinced them to just give me a new pedal because i had waited so long. so they did(which is why i said they "sort of" got my pedal back). terrible service. HORRIBLE. im not even going to contact them to TRY to get my pedal fixed after this recent crapping out. i might just trash it and say "oh well, that didnt work out too well" and consider my money wasted. which believe me is much better than having my TIME wasted by the dunlop company.

i mean, considering that any venture with a new effect can have an impact on playing style and may potentially be something that you decide to stick with, this pedal has done a good job of that. but NOT for over a hundred dollars and NOT when it craps out twice and NOT when the company is so terrible to work with. this is the only "fuzz" unit ive tried, and although it does a pretty good job at what its supposed to, im more willing to try ANYTHING else to not have to deal with all the problems ive had with it. any other grievances i have are mentioned above.

Two knobs. No rocket science here. All you need to do is spend some time tweaking the knobs, and it is not hard to find a good sound.

I use an epiphone les paul or fender hwy1 strat through the Fuzzface, an ibanez Tubescreamer, a dunlop Univibe, and a boss DD-3 Delay into a fender princeton chorus amp. By using the fuzzface at the beginning of the effects chain, it is not as noisy as it would be used alone. I can get a lot of different sounds, Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and SRV with this pedal.

I would never gig with any pedal without a backup. I am paranoid.

Never had to deal with them.

Despite a lot of poor reviews from other users, I opted to buy this pedal with the idea that if I didn't like it, I could sell it on e-bay. Not happening here! This one pedal has replaced both the boss distortions that I used. I can get a variety of styles out of it. All it takes is tweaking the volume and fuzz on the pedal to find your sound, raising the volume on the amp and slightly lowering the volume on the guitar. You can't turn all the knobs to 10 and expect to sound good. It takes a little work. I don't know what these other reviewers were expecting or even if they know what they are doing, but this is a good pedal for the money and made by a good company. The only complaint is there is no battery compartment. You have to take the bottom of the pedal off, therefore, exposing all of the electronics and having potential for tearing something up. Other than that, if you are considering this pedal, buy it, spend some time tooling with it, I think you'll be very pleased. Otherwise, if your not, you can sell it on e-bay!

Two knobs and a switch (the right way, with no tone
control.) Certainly stays where you put it. I'd give
it a "10" for ease of use, but since "ease of use"
includes changing batteries (which is a royal pain in
the booty) I'll dock it down to 7. We'll get to the
"changing the battery" issue later...

FYI: This is the re-issue, not the original.
I play Strats, through Fender and Carvin tube amps. I like
minimal effects, and prefer to use playing dynamics and
amp distortion instead of boxes in most cases.

So I'm not a huge fuzz fan. That having been said, a lot
of pro players I like swore by the original version of this
thing, so when it was re-issued, I decided I had to try
it for myself. I had a Big Muff way back when (the real
one, with the tone bypass) and I was hoping for something
similar to that.

Well? I was pretty unimpressed. I couldn't even hear the
thing without both the gain and fuzz knobs being maxed
(or nearly so.) The pots were non-linear, meaning that
up to 7 or 8 you couldn't hear anything. Then beyond
that setting, the effect became too extreme and uncontrollable.

Impression: One sound fits all. Mooshy, non-dynamic fuzz, with
no bite -- sounds almost like there's a compressor built in.
If that works for you, then knock yourself out. I was looking
for something a little less obvious-sounding, especially
given the relatively high price for an "off-the-shelf" (non-
boutique) unit.

Can you depend on it? Probably not, unless you're both
very careful and very lucky. Here's why:

Open it up. Check out how the battery just leans against
the inside of the unit (there's a little bump cast into
the housing, which is supposed to hold it still while you
try to screw the bottom plate back on.)

Consult the drawing of the inside of the unit. It's a
thoughtful touch, but the orientation of the parts is not
the same as that on the unit. Thanks for the time wasted
hoping that would help...

Admire the flimsy leads going to the battery. Remember to
hold the device firmly in place, 'coz if it falls while
there's a battery mounted, that cheapo set of wires is gonna
break. Remember the $90 dollars you spent, and wonder how much
of that was pure profit because all of the research and development
was done 35 years ago, and because the components were selected
based on low cost instead of high quality...

Now, try screwing the thing back together, without the
battery moving. That long screw in the center is a little
tricky to thread through the bottom plate so it seats and
threads properly into the underside of the unit's top, huh?

Perversely, the super light wires are so long that when
you get the battery oriented correctly, they end up looping
around in such a manner as to not only stress them needlessly,
but also to cause them to behave like a spring. The spring
wants to kick the battery out of position (remember,
it's just leaning against a small bump on the inside of a
rounded inner surface.) So you gently finesse the battery
into place, then try to hold the unit perfectly still while
you drop the bottom plate back on, and reach for the screws,
and... Oops -- try again. Oops -- and again... @*#! try again...
OK, let's see... I'll just tilt the unit a little, and wiggle
the screw around blindly so I can feel the hole... DOH! The
whole poorly-designed mess just fell, the battery harness broke
like a twig, and I'm off to find my soldering iron.

Seriously: I understand that this is a reproduction of
a "vintage" piece, and that the Dallas Arbiter company was
probably nothing much more than one or two stoned guys
in a garage somewhere 1966, and that it would be asking
too much for Jim Dunlop Inc to modify the heavy pot-metal
casting so that the battery would seat, etc. But
geez, the retarded drawing (obviously not checked) and the
really cheezy wiring (inside of a not-inexpensive unit)
makes me question how much thought and care goes into the
rest of the unit. I've concluded that the answer is "none"
and that the annoyance factor far outweighs any sonic
benefit likely to be derived from what is essentially a
one trick pony -- its one trick just isn't that earth-shattering.

I no longer have the unit, but as I recall, there's no
provision for a "battery eliminator" either. And the
description above is not as exaggerated or as satirical as
you'd think; it's actually a pretty accurate run-through
of the replacement procedure. Me, I'd rather change a diaper.
On the plus side, the housing itself sure is sturdy.
Perhaps in five years I will start collecting Fuzz Faces
which no longer work electronically, but which nonetheless
make wonderful (if ugly) paperweights.

No idea. Hopefully the guy who made the blueprint which doesn't
match the unit isn't the same guy who answers the phone.

I bitched enough above. The Fuzz Face isn't awful -- just
disappointing.

Basically, I wasn't so blown away by the sound of the
Fuzz Face to make it worth keeping. For $90, I guess
I expected more, especially design-wise. Ease of maintenance,
as well as of operation, is a big deal to me; it's lacking here.

I didn't care for the way the pots didn't do anything
at low settings, or that the sound was too extreme at high
settings, or that the sound lacked dynamics.

Then again, that's me, not you. It might be just what
you're looking for; if you're an aficianado of fuzzes,
it's certainly one of the classics, and worth a look.

I continue to search for one or two boxes to serve my
admittedly limited need for "fuzz."

Just don't say I didn't warn you (at embarrassingly great
length) about the battery changing procedure.

It's easy. 2 knobs (volume and fuzz) both of which turn most of the 360 degrees and there is a decernable difference in the sound as you turn them. not a lot of control here but this is pretty much a one dimensional effect anyway.

the "manual" is kinda funny actually. it's actually a little piece of paper about the size of two credit cards. is tells how to change the battery and how to plug in the pedal to the guitar and the amp. wow!! good to know stuff!!

i really haven't tried this out in a bunch of different configs (i've had it for only a few days). i mainly put it after my bad horsie wah and before my boss sd1. i plan to shuffle this up a bit as time goes on but i like the way it sounds in this config.

my amp is tube and my pickups are humbuckers if that matters to you. i find that by itself, this pedal gives a good soft fuzz at low volumes and that really scratchy but not noisy fuzz at higher volumes. one interesting feature is that the harder you play, the more fuzz/effect the pedal puts out. it's very noticable, as in there's almost no effect when i play softly and huge fuzz when i thrash away. i'm not sure if this is good or bad yet.

i bought this fuzz looking for sort of a 60's or 70's hard rock sound (maybe even clapton's sound on crossroads) but i haven't gotten it yet although i'm hopeful. i won't be disappointed if i don't as i'm ultimately looking for my own sound anyway.

one last note on sound: it is absolutley quiet turned off. it might have true bypass but i'm not sure. check the dulop site.

looks pretty tough to me. the button is tough and the knobs are covered in rubber. i don't abuse my gear so it should last np.

if their manual is any indication of what their customer support is like, then you might as well consult your nearest wall or cat.

i won't pass judgement on them for not being wordy though...

i play mostly hard/blues rock. this pedal definately fits into my mix. i tried out a big muff (too noisy) and a mini dano fuzz/octave (it was on sale) in the store but i ended up taking the fuzz face due to its being smoother. the big muff definately had more sustain which i might miss with the fuzz face but i probably won't miss the screeching of the big muff.

as some one else has mentioned, this pedal doesn't seem to have a an ac adapter (although their website has a dead link to one). that's a pain as i hate f*cking around with batteries. also, worse than that is the fact that this doesn't have an LED to tell me whether or not i'm draining the battery (boss has spoiled me maybe).

overall, i think i'll be quite happy with this pedal once i get accustomed to using it with my setup.

oh, and my wife likes the pretty red color. ;-)