Frantone Peachfuzz

fuzz and tone are straightforward but the vol is way over the top and hard to control. gobs of gain. it's almost at the lowest position if you want to maintain vol level.

well i haven't played them all but this is def the best pedal i've used so far. im a bassist so take that into consideration with my remarks. I had a Tech 21 XXL which totally blew, a Guyatone distortion which is OK (might be better on guit) and a black Russian Big Muff Pi. I liked the muff quite a bit but the construction is shameful. how can EH sell crap like that with a straight face. my Small stone is the same way - EH is the WORST. To be clear, the muff had some great tones but it's just not reliable. switch is dead and i used it about a year, moderately. I tried the Roger Mayer bass pedal and it just didn't pull up a clear dirty fuzz sound for me. The Peachfuzz sounds decent - it sounds somewhere near Pumpkins fuzz or 70's Sabbath or some stoner rock stuff. I think there is some EQ in this thing as it sounds like the mids get a little scooped and the bass boosted. I just keep thinking it sounds like a marshall tube stack really driven hard.

havne't had long enough to comment but my inspection shows it to be made well of quality components.

haven't tried

Overall i think it's a step in the right direction for me. i'd like to try the fulltone bass drive which people drool over. but this puppy's definitely a lot of fun and very huge sounding. i live in brooklyn so i might go drop by their factory to see what's up.

The Peachfuzz is an extremely easy pedal to use,three knobs: fuzz, tone, volume. The settings work well with one another and it was easy to find great sounds without the manual.

My rig is on guitargeek: http://guitargeek.com/rigview/623/ I play atmospheric guitar pop RIYL, Ride, MBV etc. The pedal is dead quiet and is great when I'm looking for a thick thunderous fuzz to break up the trebly bite that I get from my Rat II. The output from the pedal seems to absorb too many low frequencies when using it in conjunction with a noisy coda during times the bass is fuzzed out as well. We use a Roger Mayer Spitfire or an EH USA Big Muff Reissue on the bass. I really love the thick fuzz sound when a passage calls for the Peachfuzz.

I keep it in a pedalboard but I havn't had a problem in over a year and a half. On the way to playing SXSW in Austin (post 9/11), the Transit Authority really layed into my pedalboard and when it made it to the baggage claim, the case was open and everything (10 pedals)had condensation on them. The TSA had sprayed some freon type of explosive detector on eveything including inside the input and output jacks, ripping apart my meticulous George L connections. The Peachfuzz performed perfectly at the show the next night despite her rape by the TSA. I gig/tour without worry.

I've e-mailed and recieved instataneous replys. I've mostly been inquiring about other pedals or sequence suggestions since I haven't experienced a problem yet.

I play dreampop and this pedal adds a nice option to thicken-up the wash or make it seem like the gutteral gates of hell are opening. I've been playing guitar for over 12 years and in bands for the same amount of time. I traded a Zvex Fuzz Factory for this. I kept the FF for two days and it seemed like the pedal was bipolar, on the same settings the sound would fluctuate by the hour and it had these transistor-type overtones that I wasn't digging. I have a Zvex Super Duper 2 in 1 which I love. I'm used to Zvex's quirky charms, but, the FF was too tempermental for me. I'd buy a Peach Fuzz again. Dean Wareham of the band Luna recently started using a Peachfuzz instead of his Way Huge Red Llama. He's always been my tone guide.

very easy to use fuzz,tone,vol

I use the Fuzz through a Rivera 100W Rake head the Paul made for me it's a lot like dumble. Cravin 150 Pwr Amp for efx only; Cabs: 4X12 Marshall stereo loaded with Weber chicago and Thame 60W Speakers use it mono a 16 ohms,Rivera 2X12 Loaded with Weber Chicago at 16 ohms, Vincenzo 2X12 Loaded w/Weber Thame 60W and Vintage 30.I use a Bradhaw switcher Rs10 and 2X4 for efx I have a TC D-Two,TC G-Force,Bradshaw mini Mixer. Pedals are: Keely Compressor,Analog man Juicer,Arion Chorus for trem, Voodoo Lab Micro-Vibe,and Peach Fuzz. Main gtrs are a PRS McCarty with Duncan Pearly gates in the neck and Tom Anderson Ho2 in the bridge, Tom Anderson Drop Top w/Floyd Rose has John Suhr V60's and Suhr Humbucker in bridge. The peach Fuzz is very Low noise,built like a tank, My Rake head sounds very good with this unit, It has a lot of bottom end but the tone control does a nice job. If you wanted to tweek it change the cap valve this is very cheap to have done. The paint used on the peach fuzz chips very easy, The trick to this Fuzz is that you must use you vol contoll on the gtr to go from clean,crunch, and fuzz tones if you want to use the pedal for balls to the wall you get Stepin' Wolf Born to be Wild I never cared for that tone, all I do is back off the vol on my gtrs to clean up. My fav. tones that i use a lot is Michael Landau,Larry Carlton,Robben ford,Hendrix,Robin Trower,
Black Crows. The peach fuzz gets it all. I still give this unit a 10 it's the tone that I dig. I also run the peach fuzz 1st into the input onf my head and compressors 2nd this smooths out the peaks of ant od and fuzz.

I have owned the Peach Fuzz for a 1yr now and it's very dependable.
I would by one again.

The people at Frantone are very cool and respond well.

I play Jazz,Blues,Rock,Country and the fuzz is very good for all these styles. Been playing 20yrs if were stollen I would by again.
I love about the unit that it's very well built and the tones it gets, I wish that the paint job would hold up better,fav feature is the why the unit goes form a tube screamer,od and fuzz, I've had fuzz faces, CAE/Blak cat Freddy Fuzz,big muff the peach fuzz kills them all.

Its as easy as it gets,vol.tone,fuzz.Only a deaf person would have problems dialing it in,and they would probably get it right.

It's a fuzz the only person who wouldn't like it is somebody who bought it mistakingly,some kid who really just wanted a distortion or an overdrive.So if you want fuzz this is your daddy,it does the Pumkins thing.I play 50 watt Marshalls,Boogie blue angel,and Fenders.It's cool with single coils or humbuckers,Want low end balls and Chunkin'-you got it.It can do a cool nasal thing too if your into it.It ain't cheap, bring your vaseline.Nothing in life is really free.

Been playing 25 years,best fuzz I,ve ever heard.If lost I'd shop more for a better deal.It is fuzz at it's best,with true bypass: very important to me.

3 knobs - very easy to use, hard to get a bad tone out of it unless you crank the tone the bass side too much.

The peachfuzz sounds huge. It's got a really big wide sound that is just room filling. It's kind of a one trick pony, but it's a good pony. It's articulate, cleans up very nice when you roll back guitar volume, and cuts through the band. If you take Siamese Dream as the standard (in terms of amount of fuzz), the peachfuzz can just about approach that, but it excels at lower levels of fuzz as well. I use it for a dirty punch on some of our harder songs with the fuzz set at half or less. The tone control is even (not really spikey anywhere). It's a great pedal, maybe not for everyone since it sits between things like the fulltone 69 and the crazy fuzzes like a big muff or a fuzz factory. But it suits my needs well. I do wish there was a knob to control the fuzz that was independent of the gain. THen it would be the ultimate.
It plays well with others in my chain '56 RI goldtop w/p90s, EB mono vol, barber direct drive, peachfuzz, zvex sho, md-3 delay, guyatone vtx trem, holy grail all into a marshall bluesbreaker reissue. I play mostly indie rock in the vein of superchunk, husker du, etc...

built like tank, no worries.

It's a great fuzz pedal that covers a good range of overdrive levels. Built well, sounds enormous, and cuts through the band. What more can you want?

standard fuzz pedal layout.

Fuzz, Volume and Tone knobs.

this pedal is very easy to use. I dialled in a nice fuzz sound within minutes of plugging it in.

the manual is a small piece of paper. No settings or anything on it. To be quite fair, it's a fuzz pedal, and unless it's a Zvex Fuzz Factory or something, you don't really need settings suggestions in the manual or anything.

My current setup is the following:

1967 CAR Fender Jazzmaster > Krank Cheetah Scream Treble Boost > Frantone Peachfuzz > Frantone HepCat > MXR 6 Band EQ > Voodoo Lab Tremolo > Morley Emerald Echo > Akai Tune Lok tuner > Silverface 70s Fender Musicmaster Bass Amp.

In this chain the pedal is very quiet. It interacts very well with my treble boost and my OD as well with all the rest of the pedals.

On it's own the fuzz effect is very nice and thick. "Muscle" is a word that springs to mind sometimes. The more you turn the fuzz up, the denser the effect gets. Very nice :)

There's plenty of fuzz there to please most people, but I wouldn't say that it gets really out of hand (like a Way Huge Swollen Pickle, for example)

the only thing that might be a problem for people is that the pedal is quite bassy. it kinda sounds like Siameze Dream by the Smashing Pumkins (a good thing for me).

it's not a major problem for me, but others might dislike it.

so, 2 points off for that, as it could of been more versatile with it's tonal range.

True bypass is also a plus.

I can definetely depend on it.

it's built like Battleship Gallactica! :)

on a serious note, construction is excellent. Great footswitch, good jacks.

I would never gig without a backup of my main effects though (fuzz, OD) I'd carry a cheap boss, just in case.

I actualy had to email them when I thought that the peachfuzz had gone dead.

Mia was very prompt and nice in her answers.

my pedal hadn't really gone dead.

it's just that when the battery goes under a certain voltage rating, then the pedal brings out no fuzz effect, even though the LED is on, and everything appears to be normal.

a fresh battery brought my peachfuzz back to life!

thank you, Mia :)

I have been playing for 10 years now, and I play loads of different types of music, but my main stuff is Sonic Youth, Dinosaur jr, Lemonheads, Ride, Adorable, My Bloody Valentine etc.

this pedals sounds very good indeed.

If it was stolen, I think that I'd replace it with a pedal with a broader tonal range.

I'd like to try out some MJM stuff....maybe The Sweet, by Frantone would be a good choice too.

nowadays we're spoiled for choice when it comes to fuzzes.

I love the way it looks, like the way it sounds, and overall, I think I made a good choice when I bought it. Just wish it had a broader tonal range, and a tad more fuzz on tap.

Well all you have are 3 knobs...not that hard. Tone gives you more bass, then you have the fuzz and vol. The pedal works with my Boss pedal board and just pops right in!

Best thing about the pedal is that it can go really wild if you crank the settings, but it also can get just a little bit of fuzz. I make money playing in a cover band and it is just really usable. I use a Holland 50 watt amp and a Tele so I am a bit of a tone nut.

Just bought the pedal a month ago, so I guess we'll see! Seems very tough. I know that the jacks are Switchcraft, so it will probably last a long time.

Don't know

When I play for fun I play blues, but I also do covers to supplement my income. The only thing that would be better is if you didn't have to undo the screws to change the battery, but since it works with my pedal board, doesn't matter.
I bought this pedal because not only is it made in America, but it looks cool and just has an amazing smooth sound. Also it is less than other quality distortions.

This pedal sounds terrible. I cant use it at all.

I play a Fender Strat into a 100 watt Fender Stage Lead amp. I bought this pedal to use as a fuzz, but its completely worthless amd I returned this pedal the day after I bought it. It sounds weak, it has no bite, no bark, it doesnt sound that clear, and its tracking of the bass notes is way off. There isnt enough fuzz here to play lead guitar.

No need for customer support because I returned this pedal the next day and got a full refund.

I have been playing electric guitar for 20 years amd I know the goods when I hear them. This Peachfuzz aint the goods, folks. Its the worst fuzz pedal Ive ever heard, even worse than my 25 year-old Maestro MFZ Fuzz. Yes, its that bad! This Peachfuzz purchase was a waste of my time and money. The Boss fuzz that was recently discontinued is ten times better than the Peachfuzz and costs half the price! The Peachfuzz should sell for 75 dollars, not 175 dollars. Some of my other pedals include the Banzai Cold Fusion, Austone Fuzz Nutz, Roger Mayer Axis Fuzz, Fulltone Soulbender, all of which are much better than the Peachfuzz. I keep good pedals and I get rid of junk.

Well 3 knobs-not that hard, but a cool shade of blue! Volume, tone and fuzz.

I saw the last Peachfuzz review so I had to write. Wish they had the balls to use their name! Beautiful true bipass, the tone knob actually gives a bass boost. The coolest thing is that you can get just a little dirty distortion. I use a Fender Bandmaster with a @x12 with Celstions so my set up is great.

Switchcraft, sturdy box(small too!), alpha pots and a beautiful hand solder job. Totally dependable unless perhaps you are playing under water or something,

Emailed a question and got anhonesty reply right away. Told me the SWeet was a little to much sustain for the kind of music I play

I use this pedal when I do blues gigs or when I am backing up singers. I would use it recording as well.

The Peachfuzz is really easy to use. I "upgraded" from an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff NYC reissue, first to an EH Graphic Fuzz (it sucked, very yucky sound - kinda gimmicky) then today i exchanged that for the Peachfuzz. I say upgraded in quotes because the big muff is definitely no slouch, it has a great fuzz sound (at least that particular reissue did). The big muff has an awesome sweepable tone knob, which the peachfuzz doesnt have. The single tone knob (3 knobs on this pedal- Fuzz, Tone and Volume) is more of a simpler low pass filter that is still very functional. I kinda miss the tone knob from the big muff.

the battery is housed in the back of the pedal, which is only accesible by unscrewing the 4 screws holding the back plate on. it would really suck to have to deal with those screws 5 minutes before a show.

im also not thrilled with the power supply jack, i wish it was just a standard boss-type plug so i could power it from my tuner. i understand this has different power requirements, though if a company is going to make a plug like that, for $175 they should really just include the power supply.

the actual dialing up of sounds on this pedal is really simple, though. it comes with a inkjet printer printed manual that i dont think anyone would need except for the sentence on how to intelligently positiion the battery in the back.

btw, i bought this from 30th street guitars in NYC and they were very cool and helpful. i tried out maybe 20 different kinds of fuzz and they let me do an exchange (i initially bought the graphic fuzz) with no hassles or anything. they have an awesome selection of hard to find stuff.

in regards to hum, hiss and other noises, this pedal is very quiet, much more so than 90% of the other somewhat expensive ($150 and up) pedals i tried. it has a true bypass too, although it does drain the battery with the unit plugged in and the fuzz off (i think).

the fuzz itself is absolutely fantastic. even at the lowest setting on the fuzz knob there are cool tones to be had. the levels of distortion go from a really mild overdrive, all the way up to a very distorted sound.

i also tried it going directly in to my console and this also produced a great sound. very very different from the amp'ed sound. this was more of a "theme from fat albert" or some really old 60's kind of crazy fuzz. when direct it has a germanium transistor sound to it, i dont know if it uses those or not. my point is, when direct it gave me a sound that ive been trying to get for several months but had no idea how to get so for me this pedal is sorta perfect. with some early reflections and a little eq it should fit soooo nicely into a mix.

the overall volume of this pedal when turned on is mind bogglingly loud. it's fantastically loud and totally controllable due to the volume knob. with my big muff's gain turned down (for a mellower sound), switching between clean and fuzzed would leave the fuzz too quiet, even with the bigmuff's volume knob turned all the way up. i do not expect to be having that problem with this thing anytime soon.

i'm giving it this category a 9 because when switching back and forth between my amp's clean channel and the fuzz, i feel like there is maybe a little too much bass coming out of the fuzz. i like pretty punchy bass on my clean channel (a peavey classic 50 212) but it's just a little much around 100 hz or so with the pedal turned on. then again, i just got it today and i havent even rehearsed with it yet, i only cranked it a little in my studio room.

also, i think i noticed a slight pop when turning the pedal on.

overall though, the sound of this pedal won out over ALL the other ones i tried, which i think is saying a lot because i checked out so many, some of which were pretty expensive.

i just got it today, so i cant really say how reliable it is. the casing is made out of some kind of hard core metal, the switch looks like some kind of military issue thing, even the LED has some kind of protective hood around it. overall it looks like i could drive my saturn over it without it breaking too badly.

the insides are wired together well, i do a little of that myself and it's certainly a hell of a lot better than i could do. i didnt really like how the battery sits in the compartment, it just seemed a little sketchy. not that i think it's going anyhere, i just had to be creative with how i left the battery when putting the cover back on.

at this point if i had a show tonite i would bring a backup, but i dont think too many people out there would not bring one if using it for the first time on the same day you bought it. that would just be suicidal.

never dealt with them, but they're from my hometown and current hood of brooklyn, USA so how bad could they be?

i play a lot of styles, i also buy stuff knowing that when people come here to do sessions, they will occasionally want to use my stuff. ive been playing for about 15 years and been doing sessions for about 7 or 8 years (im just answering these questions they give you here).

my other distortion sound is a sansamp gt-2 and i sometimes use the distortion channel on the classic 50. i felt i needed something a little less polished sounding - something more transistor-y sounding for those times when a really polished sound is not as suitable. i think the peachfuzz is perfect for that.

after narrowing it down from all the other fuzz boxes i tried in the last 2 days, i'd say yeah if it were stolen, id replace it with the same one. on the other hand, the big muff i traded it in for it costs less than half of the peachfuzz and is a damn fine sounding fuzz. for some things i would even say it is better. so if youre reading this trying to decide which to buy, id say check out both cuz these 2 are the tops IMO

the main difference i have found is that the big muff has wayyyyy more gain and takes less of the gain knob (actually it's called "sustain" on the pedal) to get there. it has a really cool tone knob but is overall not a tenth as loud as the peachfuzz.

the peachfuzz has a few things about it that really make it stand out for a player. first i think that there is a real degree of subtlety that gets drowned in the big muff once you turn the gain up a little bit. with the peachfuzz it still responds nicely to your dynamics and chordal notes dont turn to shit, even at fair amounts of distortion. both pedals sound really funky when you plug them in direct and i can say that the big muff is fucking tubular for bass when used direct.