Dunlop JH-F2 Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face

This rascal couldn't be any easier to use! Gloriously simple!

I am using a 1981 Gibson Les-Paul, and a Peavey Backstage-50, solid-state, amp. For a primitive, and simplistic, fuzz it is not that noisy incredibly. I find that the quality of sound is somewhat unpredictable in nature. At times it is happenin', at others very glitchy/scratchy. When happening, it produces a warm and smoky type sound that has a "nasal" quality to it. All though this may just be my amp(?). I find it works best as a "boost" to an already crunchy or distorted amp tone! By itself, to my ears, it is a little weak and lacks sustain for leads, all though it seems to be Ok for power chord rythym playing. I also find that the sound quality changes depending on what, and how many, FX are used along or in conjunction with it! Along with a Wha-pedal (Dunlop Mr. Crybaby-Super, and in line AFTER the wha) it produces a thin and "quacky" sound to my ears. I am able, at lower/subtler fuzz settings to approximate a slightly overdriven/natural amp/speaker breakup type tone with the "Fuzz-Face", as well as on the edge Hendrix, early Neil Young tones, and even nasaly sounding Clapton-esque sounds as well! My favorite aspect of this pedal though woild have to be it's "unpredictable" nature! It's a fuzz-filled sonic journey into the unknown every time ... I like it! It gives your ears a sonic "walk-on-the-wildside" indeed!

Seems to sturdly constructed. Yes, I would gig without a backup for this gizmo!

I've yet to experience any trouble with my "Fuzz-Face", but I do believe Dunlop is a reliable and reputable outfit!

I play a mixture of Blues/R&B, Classic Rock, and pyschedelic music, and find the "Face" adequate for these styles. I lost or stolen, yes, I would purchase another one!

Volume and fuzz controls and a switch. If you can't figure it out you must be "special" or something. That aside, finding THEE sound is strangely difficult for such a setup...more on that below...

I use this thing with a 65 Jaguar, a 65 Jazzmaster, a re-issue Strat, and a 62 Fender Super amp. I love the way this sounds but I have to say that one thing really bugs me: unity gain (matching volume when effect is on or off) only occurs with the volume control most of the way up...who the hell needs a volume CUT with fuzz? That aside, I love the way this sounds. I am NOT after a Hendrix/Clapton tone...I'm trying to nail that late '60s Davie Allan & the Arrows biker movie soundtrack fuzz sound and THIS IS AS GOOD AS IT GETS!

Seems really solid...I just hate having to have a screwdriver handy to change the battery! Oh yeah, the rubber keeps coming unglued...where's my Contact Cement?!

Never dealt with 'em, but I've heard EVIL things about Dunlop...but that's hearsay.

I really like this thing, it totally nails the 60's biker movie soundtrack fuzz sound to a "T" and it looks way cooler than generic rectangular stompboxes. I marvel at the fact that people buy these things and expect versatility...come on there's NO TONE CONTROL! Like I said, for what I do, it totally fits the bill and I'm very satisfied.

Two knobs, volume and fuzz. Very easy to use. Fuzz to the maxx. I'm pretty sure mine is a recent reissue.

Play Strats and Teles through this and other effects (tremolo, chorus, OD, etc) into a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. It's a noisy effect. Only use it for certain things. It's fairly out of control, but it's exactly what I wanted. Chords turn to total fuzz with no discernable notes. Strictly for single or two note combinations. Volume pot on guitar has no effect unless you turn down halfway! Can't hear tremolo or chorus or anything else. Sounds a little thicker if you have the signal overdriven rather than clean before you hit the fuzz, but not much difference. Sometimes even if you hit the wrong note you can hardly tell! It's like a beast that takes over your setup. Pretty cool.

No problems. Eats batteries for lunch.

Like I said, I play surf, and this is so over the top for certain parts in like four songs we do. It's a fuzz monster. My only complaint is that the battery seems to be an independent variable that's hard to control. As the juice goes down the volume and fuzz go down. I've heard that Hendrix used these for awhile and actually preferred them when the battery was low. Starts to sound totally trashy and unintelligible, still cool. I wish it had an AC input like my other effects. If you're looking for the ultimate fuzz, I think this is it. In my search for a comparable (or even somewhat close!) fuzz pedal with an AC power input (to avoid batteries), I've played the Way Huge Foot Pig, the DOD Classic Fuzz, the Ibanez Soundtank 60's Fuzz, the Boss Hyperfuzz, and the Voodoo Labs Bosstone. All these pedals, with the exception of the Boss (which had two types of fuzz: one sort of Smashing Pumpkins or Industrial, one more classic-sounding and okay, still too metallic for me), never came close to the Fuzz Face for total wacked-out fuzz.
As an addendum: I thought the little "face" on this pedal (the black footpad with the white smile through it) was kind of dumb, so I tore the pad off, and painted the thing like a "Danger: radiation" symbol: yellow, with three black sections radiating from the center. I'll never sell it!

It's just two knobs so it's pretty easy to figure it out

This WQN"T give you Jimi's sound...It eats the tone right out of a Strat and makes it sound like any Plain jane cheapo distorted guitar. It is completely one-dimensional. The best you can do is crank the volume and gain both about 8 ot get a real screaming lead tone, but forget about chords - PURE MUD!!! With the gain at any less than six, you have to turn the volume to ten just to get the same output as a Fender single coil pickup and this creates loads of high end hiss. As the name says, its got tons of fuzz but it won't really crunch

I can't comment. I've used it about 12 hours worth and it sits in my closet now.

I've been playing seriously about 3 years, play blues and wanted a Hendrix like crunch tone. I'm not sure how much it differs from the 60's models, but this pedal just dosn't make a Jimi like sound. I tried every setting I could (whch are few with only 2 knobs) and couldn't even come close too a "Dolly Dagger", "Message to Love" or other '69-'70 Jimi tone. The effect totally squashes and compresses all the sparkle and nuance of my Strat. I've played a Real Tube Driver and it allows the guitar's true sound to come thru much stronger. The Fuzz Face makes my $700 Strat sound like I'm playing thru my Quantum 10W $80 dollar beginner amp. I can't really say anytyhing positive about this pedal. It's a shame that so many people buy it b/c in Roger Mayer's words it's "Straight out of any early elctronics book...it's a minimum parts count circuit." And that's just how it sound..CHEAP!!!!! Don't buy it to copy Jimi's sound if you don't have a Marshall. It saddens me that Dunlop profits from an inferior product b/c suckers like me associates it with a legendary musician.

This pedal is definately not for everyone. It requires the player to be very attentive to all that is going on, as the player must not only play his/her guitar, but also this pedal. I've been using it for 3 ears now, and using it is now second nature to me, but it takes a little work to figure out the dynamics and so forth.

I've noticed that most people are saying this unit isn't very good. i'm surprised. i tried out about 5 different ones, and I lucked out, because I got an excellent sounding fuzz. The pedals on my board, in order are: Digitech Whammy Pedal (original), Voodoo Labs' Micro Vibe, Ibanez Tubescreamer Reissue, Fuzz Face and finally a DOD analog echo pedal (FX-96). These pedals go straight into the front end of a cream-tolex Fender Blues Deluxe tube amp. My guitar is a 1975 Stratocaster. It sometimes can get a bit noisy, as it will occasionally pick up AM radio waves, and of course, single coil pickups will cause a 60-cycle hum, but that can be diminished greatly by dipping your pickups in wax. I have a virtually noise-less setup, although, when I saw Eric Johnson live, his was picking up AM radio too! In my experience, this pedal has always sounded great. I play original music much in the vein of jimi Hendrix's more ethereal work, such as Angel and New Rising Sun. I also do a lot of instrumental guitar music very much like Eric Johnson (who I believe to be so much like Hendrix.....). I don't use a wah, because I haven't found a new, innovative use for it. I use the whammy pedal for octave effects (like Joe Satriani) and also the detuning for a slight chorus. I've found that , unlike most fuzzes, the wah sounds better AFTER the fuzz. Also, contrary to something I read on this board earlier about it not working with Vibe clones, it DOES, but the vibe needs to be put BEFORE the fuzz in the effects chain. So far, i've read that most people are saying the fuzz and volume need to be maxed. I haven't found tat to be true. Actually, it sounds best with the fuzz at about 11 o'clock, and the volume at about 2 o'clock. This produces a fat, warm violin-type tone that sounds great with vibrato'd notes. There isn't much sustain from the pedal alone, however, coupled with an overdriven tube amplifier, it sounds magnificent. This pedal is the basis for my lead tone. The Tubescreamer is then used for a gain boost when even more sustain is needed. It sounds best BEFORE the Fuzz Face, with the gain at about 11 o'clock, volume at 1 o'clock, and the tone around 9 o'clock.

I would definately use this pedal without a backup. It is a tank. I have never had a problem with it. I'm only 16, and don't make much money outside of gigging (and that money goes into my recording studio usually), so I can't afford to be buying pedals all the time. It is definately a dependable pedal.

I have never had a reason to deal with the company.

I play an ecelctic mix of blues, rock, and jazz/fusion music. I'm 16 years old and have been playing guitar for 7 years, 4 of those professionally. This pedal is a great match to my music, and is the foundation of my lead tone, however, one must take the time to learn how to use it. It is only two knobs, but there are so many different sounds available through the use of playing style, that one must LEARN the pedal, or it will seem like a waste of money. The dynamics are great. It gets wonderfully warm and clean when the volume knob of the guitar is turned down. I compared this pedal with a Sovtek/New Harmonix Big Muff pi and decided absolutely this was the one to get, however, I had to try about 5 different ones before I got a good one. The red ones seem to be more consistent in design and tonal quality... for some reason the blue ones don't sound as good.

I has 2 knobs, volume and fuzz, turn them up. Not Hard.

I use a cheap fenders standard to fuzzface to Marshall JTM612. Sounds very well when the marshall is set to around 17 on the gain channel. It adds a great boost to the signal, BUT YOU MUST TURN THE VOLUME DOWN ON THE GUITAR. If you don't, your amp sounds like it will explode (which is cool though.) My advice is to only use this throuh a tube amp, if you dont have a tube amp you probably shouldn't even be using a fuzz face, try something cheaper to match your amp.

2 Knobs and a battery harness. How can it break? Duh.

Sounds most like Hendrix's "Beginnings" from FROTNRS. If you dont know what FROTNRS stands for, throw away your guitar.

It's easy to use: two knobs, volume and fuzz; it only works when both knobs are tweaked all the way up.

I use it with Mexi strats and a Laney tube amp. It is noisy, but it's OK for a fuzz pedal. It's not exactly like the original fuzz faces; this one has bad dynamics and doesn't work with a wah-wah. It's too wretched for chords and at it's worst for playing rythm-lead at the same time. To get a good sound out of it, you have to tweak your amp's gain a bit, and roll off the guitar's volume to 8-9. It's too tubey when the guitat volume is on 10. For a better fuzz, I would go for a Fulltone 69 pedal; and it works with a wah-wah too!

It's made out of gold and can't be sold; it has a ton worth of steel in it!

My style goes to a mix of blues-rock and Hendrix-Vaughan-Clapton. Again, I would go with a Fulltone fuzz and won't be gigging with this! I also have a Big Muff pi reissue, but I actually prefer the Fuzz Face better, since Big Muff has a much compressed, unnatural distortion to it. I guess it's better for Dunlop to review this effect and put out a more efficient version of it; this is literally worthless for it's money.

The two knobs on the pedal didn't seem to do anything at all except to make the fuzz more unusable and noisy.

One dimentional. Had a sort of compressed sound that limited the attack and overall dynamics. I used it conjunction with a 1963 Strat and a newer Les Paul through a 1965 Blackface Super.
Overall, the sound seemed weak, sort of like a compressor that squashes the sound and "breathes" too much. I may have received a bad one. In that case there would be a quality control issue here. I expected an exaggerated , slightly bright, fuzzy late 60's era sound (if that makes any sense). What I got was weak, no balls, no character. I would recommend maybe trying out a few. I got mine through the mail and did not have the opportunity to hand-select one.
The control knobs on mine really didn't do much which supprised me. I have not had the opportunity to play an "original" but I'm quessing that like so many reissues they may not be true to original specs.

I got rid of it as quickly as possible so I have no idea if I would have retained that horrible sound for ever.

I've already got a Big Muff, a TS-9 (wonderfully modified by Analog Mike) and a Fulltone Soul Bender and the Fuzz Face was by far the worst of the lot.

The Dalllas Arbiter Fuzzface reissue by Dunlop has two dials on it and a button to turn the fuzz on or off. It is very basic technology, thus it does not have any editing patches. The manual is pointless, because this fuzzface is very easy to use. The Fuzzface has not been upgraded in any way, nor does it need to be.

I use this beast with my Fender Tweed Blues Deville. The Fuzzface sounds great through an all-tube set-up. I have not heard one through solid-state, but it probably would not sound as good. The reason the Fuzzface can get away with being a solid-state device is because most people use this creature through a tube amp.
The effect is basic but it sounds great. The fuzziest, most distorted sound I have ever heard out of a pedal. The sounds of alternative groups such as Nirvana and The Smashing Pumpkins are easily achieved by this red roundfaced demon. It can give more distortion than any tube amp is capable off.
Sure try and put seven AX7 TUBES in the pre-amp section of your guitar amp. You still won't get the distortion and fuzz of the Arbiter Fuzzface.
I personally don't like going through the Fuzzface when I am not using its fuzz (when the units off), due to a little signal decay. I tryand stay away from that if I can.

I would depend on The Fuzzface whereever I was playing. It's set-up is so simple and direct that its longevity is assured. The Fuzzface's steel body painted red is built to last for an eternity. Its body is not cheap plastic, nor is it poor qaulity metal. This creature could withstand even the most brutal treatment!!!!
I have had this transistorized mostrousity for about 2 years. Yes, I would use this pedal without a backup.

I have never had to get any Jim Dunlop product fixed, but they were nice enough to send me some brouchers, I had asked for about their products. So I can say they are quite friendly.

I play all sorts of alternative music with this machine. The Fuzzface is a good match for my Fender Tweed Blues-Deville. Both units are extremely portable too!
I have been playing electric guitar for about 20 years. And yes I would buy this unit again if it were stolen.
I love its tone, its simplicity, its appearance, its durablilty, its ease of use, and its distinct sound.
I really hate its high price, but in the long run this re-issue is worth it. I would but another one if I could get it for about $60 Canadian used.
My favorite feature is its thick, distorted sound. I have tried other distortion pedals with no luck, but once I heard this metal transistor fiend, I had to buy it!!! I chose the fuzzface because of all the reasons above, plus I needed something very portable and strong.
I wish it had a lower price tag. The Fuzzface has about $20 Can. of electrical parts on the inside, so I think Jim Dunlop could lower the price.
I would suggest and recommend this round pedal to anyone I remotely liked. This is the best distortion/fuzz pedal I have ever tried or owned. I love it almost as much as my Peavey Valverb, but that's another story.

Bonehead trivial

Disappointing. Yeah, it sounds 'like' a Fuzz Face, but not as good. Too much upper midrange grit that you just can't roll off from the guitar. Rolling off treble at the amp makes the sound too tubby, congested. At its best, the original Fuzz Face had a ballsy violin-clarinet sound. The reissue just doesn't hit the mark. In contrast, the Fulltone '69 not only reproduces the best tones of the original, but will let you tweak for different guitar/amp combinations, even soften/sharpen the attack.

Dependable. Yeah, just what I need. A dependable mediocre-sounding device. It's utterly without failure because I never use it.

never tried

Poot. Good for tweaking and hacking, just to see if it can be improved. If a guitarist stole it, I'd shrug & laugh. I chose it because the originals I had in '68 and '73 sounded so good. Not so the reissues.