Sabine NexFX 5100 FuzzStortion

Update to my review of 2 years ago (see LaPhillyBoy below) - Love this pedal even more now - in facts I went and found another one as a backup just in the unlikely case it should ever get lost or broken.

This pedal continues to be my secret Tone weapon. I have seven different tube amps and some only have a single tone control (the real old ones) and I like to use the mid and high eq on this pedal to really hone in on the exact tone I want. With the Drive all the waydown and the mix set to Fuzz this pedal operates like a pure overdrive boost. I just use the Level control and the mid and high to adjust the tone and I can push my older amps into Overdrive heaven. I also have a handbuilt 6550 60watt head and by Scooping the mid on this pedal allthe way down I get a nice classic JCM800 sound. I can't say enough good things about this pedal. I love it!

Nothing rates a 10 in my book - unless has nice **** and talented lips - but this is one of myfavorite tools for making rock n roll.

Awesome. Great. 5 knobs. Lots of options. 2 Outputs - clean and dirty - and it is two pedals inone - has a Distoriotion side and a FUZZ side and you can blend them together (though I just use one or the other)

Amazing. Sounds BETTER than a Big Muff - and as good as a METAL MUFF (IMHO) - I am extremely happy with this peddal. Quiet as a goddammed churchmouse - no hiss, buss or b.g noise at all. Quietest Ditotion ever. YOu can palm mute it and it just goes away (must have a very fancy gate inside because I can't detect it at all)

Built rock solid. I never heard of these before I bought it but i can't believe nobody else is raving about these. Best kept secret in pedal effects.

No idea. But Sabine has a great rep as a high end Tuner company - It comes with nice documentation and a Warranty Card - seemss fine to me.

LIke I said very impressive pedal - too bad the marketing crashed and burned. Here are the things I like about it.
PROS
- Great super saturated Distortion tone
- Nice FUZZ TONE - though not a total ripped speaker type fuzz
- Extremely quiet both on and off (how do they do that?)
- Dual outputs - clean and dirty - NICE!
- whole face is backlit a deep magenta red - unique and cool.

CONS
- Uses a slightly wider barrel tip for the 9v AC adapter - I have to get the tip adapter for it - til then I will run it on batteries.

Takes some getting used to depending on your Guitar & Amp...
Mini-Manual is a good starting place...

I use a Danelectro DC-59 Guitar & Epiphone Valve Jr. Tube Amp or Vox ACVT30 set on Clean Cab settings.
My Chain for this combo is:

Guitar > Digitech Bad Monkey OD > Fuzzstortion > Arion Flanger > Dano Tape Echo > Dano Spring King > Amp....

I like to keep a pretty clean tone & the Fuzzstortion is a great addition my collection of quiet/clean bypass/transparent Box's.
I am not a fan of Distortion but I love a nice Fuzzy/Buzzy 60's tone.
Before my Fuzztortion I would just overdrive my amp with the BMonkey & got a nice Sid Barret kind of thing going on thru the Valve JR.

Moving a little later in 60's sound...

I have only put in several hours of playing but I think the Fuzzstortion really gets it done well. It sounds great without any other effects right to my Amp...the Fuzz is thick & Buzzy as you want to dial in but keeps the tone of my Lipstick PU's very well...if you put some overdrive in front of it a little goes a LONG way, add a little Flange, & get some echo going & you can get the Hendrix thing...used with the correct Echo pedal (Tape type emulating) & the Fuzzstortion gets you that Crunchy Buzzy OD Neil Young thing...

I am not an expert on Fuzz Pedals & didnt see the point of experimenting with chunks of Cash on Boutique stuff...so I grabbed this for 20 Bucks on Ebay-I would easily have paid $75 for just the Fuzz sound. Also its pretty quiet Unit overall...I hate noisy pedals or coloring Pedals ( aka BOSS )...if you like retro-Indie Fuzz stuff or 60's Garage Fuzz...buy on of these.

See other reviews for Distortion side of Unit...

I think this a Great place to start for Fuzz exploration...I am sure a Roger Mayer sounds great but I can't really see the need if you are budget minded...Like I said I'm not an expert on Fuzz pedals but I do have a great ear for Tone...and this sounds just great...I can safely say if you are using single coils to a Tube Amp this has great tone...also for dirty buzzy chords you dont get drowned in a sea of saturation but rather each string retains its natural timbre with Fuzz ON TOP of it not all over it...

This guitar pedal is easy to use. Sure it have 5 knobs but it is easy to dial in a good fuzzy sound out of it. The manual is basically pointless since the pedal is very specific in its function

Middle; treble; drive, level and distortion/fuzz knobs.
2 outputs: one for clean (true bypassed) and the other with the effect.

Really cool and explicit.

I can't give a 10 because it would have to be the best fuzz around and i haven't tested all of them yet. But i have tested quite a bit. Ehx Big muff (the standards; USA, russian, vintage) vintage proco rat (it is supposed to be a distortion but oh well) some boutique hand made pedal that some amateurs sell over ebay and websites; in the OD/ dist department i have used the most famous pedal around (boss, mxr, ehx) etc.

The FUZZ sounds sounds very very similar to the ehx, with quite some variations and improvements. You can EQ this pedal some more; it DEFINITIVELY HAVE MUCH MORE output than the big muff, and you can actually palm mute and is a bit smoother and clearer. ALSO, you can use this as an distortion pedal so it is REALY versatile, but since it is a single pedal, most people just dial one sound and use it like that in their respective pedalboards; but this is really versatile. Is like a controlable version of a cranked up big muff/ Rat

This is a keeper. Most people dont know wth is this pedal, and thats cool because is the BEST fuzz i have ever used, and is a great dist. I even sold off my tube multi distortion (Rocktron silver dragon) a Warp Factor, and a Zoom Tri metal because of this, (so it IS this good)

10 would be perfect, and there have to be a pefect fuzz pedal but... in the meantime you can spend 25 bucks and use this; is the best fuzz i have used and for the price... well PRICELESS (haha sorry for being redundant)

Can you depend on this? lets see.

IT IS HARD METAL CASING with the mnost effective 9v battery casing i have ever seen in my life. REALLY REALY HARD and realiable. Have used without backup to all gigs and reharsals and stuff. This wont die.

This is discontinued and i think their marketting was a total failure. If you go to their site, you wont find anything about this pedals. So i dont think you will get any customer support on this, but thats my guess.

I stumbbled in this pedal when i was looking for junk in ebay. ignorance is bliss, yes it is. This only costed me $15 (s/h included)

I play heavy and overdriven stuff.

I use mostly customized stratocasters, fenders and guitars that sound sweet and can get distortioned, but without being too nasal or noisy.

This pedal, as everything, have its cons. It drains battery fast (mind you, it IS analog and true bypassed) but the led iluminated basically all the pedal and thats why the battery is drained that fast. Also, if you want to use a 9v adapter, you will have to modify it socket, make it a bit wider because that plug is made to fit in the sabine 9v adapters; a really cheap move. When you power this pedal up via a 9v adapter, somwthing really nice happens. You can use it to chain its power supply to other pedal of your choice =) (one of my favorite feautures). other than that, is great; really really great.

This fuzz distortion pedal, because of its versatility, owns! This IS a high quality pedal with lots of aplications. Very graphic and musical, I might add. I use it for 90's alternative, psychadelic and intense music, but you can also use it for intense nu metal and even 70's fuzzy stuff. With low distortion settings I can even use it to play surf rock. If you are into that mesa rectified high gain shit; I suggest to stay away of this: fuzz pedals are the way to sound both REALLY HEAVY and ORIGINAL, at the same time. No modeler or tube amp can do what a fuzz pedal can and thats why a good fuzz is always handy if you want to sound.... different.

That being said, this is a GREAT fuzz pedal. I just love it.

Try it and then buy it; or better yet; buy it and try it if it is possible, its really cheap and you have absolutely nothing to lose, may be 20 bucks.

easy to dial in

plexi with about seven pedals. Love the pedal. it sounds great and is dirt cheap. It has true bypass. I had the fuzz factory the fulltone soul bender and the USA muff a rat ect and this is the one that won by a long shot. Nice fuzz no farting and did I say cheap yet. Good pedal check it out.

Classic rock guy .I use strat and PRS single cut. I'd buy it a gain and I'm thinking of checking the rest of the line. Don't belieave the hype with the $200 pedals out there. This gets it done.

Check out these features:
Control plate glows red
TRUE bypass so it doesn't eat batteries when clicked off
Can be powered by an 18 volt wall wart for adding some serious balls to how it performs.
Cast metal housing.
Second power jack for outputting to another pedal plus it includes the chaining wire.
Lastly, it even includes a really fancy looking draw string carrying bag.

It's a pedal, how hard can it be to use.....OK, ease of use REALLY means was it easy to get good sounds. Basically 10 minutes with toying around on my amp and pedal and I had her singin. I must confess that at first it souded awful because I left everything set where I had it for my other pedals. I'm not generally a peal guy and figured it would at least sound decent with those settings. I was using the Danelectro Fab Tone though so it's not too shocking...

There is a manual with some settings that actually came in handy. They pretty much gave the sound it said they would.

While it's not going to give you a full on fuzz sound, this pedal is great for an over driven midrange tone with a nice thick tube fuzz sound.

I can also get a pretty sharp and glass cutting scooped mids metal tone with it but the Sabine Overdrive does a better job for that metal crunch sound. Regardless, it does it and does it very well.

This pedal can be pretty quiet even at higher gain settings but like any other pedal, has that noise floor that is easy to tap into. So far so good though I'm not sure how I feel about recording with it since I'm looking for flawless performance for comparable results to any store bought CD.

As one other review said, it's a very interesting pedal. It definitely gives you tube sound. I'm very impressed.

Cast metal construction. I could see this pedal lasting a lifetime if treated decently...

Who knows....

Overall I'm very happy. For what I paid, I got 3 times the pedal. I've got way too much gear to list so I won't bother....11 guitars would eat up too much room let alone listing everything else.

There's not much to say other than I'm very happy with it and glad I didn't bother with a tube screamer or MXR overdrive.

I'd buy it again but since I have the Sabine Overdrive, I could live without it. It's not as fuzzy as I'd like but at the same time it does a great job of sounding like a tube distortion.

Killer pedal at a killer price

The knobs clearly indicate what it does. Blends Fuzz and distortion nicely one one knob. No "Low" eq control, only High and Mid. Then theres level and drive

It gets the dirt. I've heard better, I've heard worse. Not a modern metal sound. It does some more classic heavy and metal tones. Not one for leads, does well with chords.

I bought it busted already. The blend knob still works, most of it was busted off. Bought it at musicians feind carnage center scratch, dent and oblitterated dept. WHo knows how it will hold up.

Probably bad, since it appears to have been hit by a forklift.

I'm using it in a punk rock band. As long as it sounds dirty and nasty, I'm happy. I've been playing for almost 30 years now. If it were lost or stolen, I'd buy whatever I could find to replace it. I only bought it because it was all busted up and still working. But hey, I think that says something. It's smashed, and it still works...

Extremely easy to use! there are 5 knobs, but they are logical and useful.

I am really impressed with the sound of this fuzz. i have tried some bad fuzzes (GFX-707, POD) and some good fuzzes (Fuzz Face, Bug Muff), and this one lands somewhere in between...but very close to the top of the list of better ones i've heard. i would describe this as full, warm and heavy! i like this with power chords, or heavy string funk riffs...like Tom Morello. I can't reccomment this for leadsters, but it will do it. Great sustain on Harmonics and such, and a great quality of this pedal is when you strum a full chord you can hear all of the strings. Nicely done.

It's metal...but not very heavy. No problems yet. i am very light on my gear so i think i'll have this for a long time.

haven't dealt with...i'm almost looking forward to it after reading the other reviews.

I love fuzz. I looked everywhere for an afordable and good sounding fuzz box for a while before i decided on this one. I have a GFX-707 that has a fuzz effect, but it got too digital for me after a while. I used a friend's POD which is much better (i would reccommend that fuzz actually), but it still ended up being too digital. I went to my local music shops and tested all the well known stuff but i wasn't prepared to pay that much.

This pedal sounds very analog to me, and it has lots of features. You can choose either Fuzz or Distortion, or a mix between the two. It has some EQ options as well (Treble and Mid) and a drive knob. It has some practical features as well, such as a well lit display for playing in the dark, 2 outputs and the ability to share power with other effects.

I wanted the fuzz for really heavy stuff..and porn grooves...hehe. I can say that this pedal does both, and i don't heve to mess with the settings. A clean switching mechanism makes this one a winner. But like everything, TRY IT FIRST!!!

You have to experiment a few days before you get a sound you like.I found this to be extremely versatile and was able to find more than one sound I like.

Using a Fender strat through a Peavey Prowler and can get some very natural fuzz and distortion tones that are transparent and very analog sounding.This is the real deal........no need for boutique anything.It's all right here.Good sustain and fuzz tones with distortion sounds that have clarity and woomp!

seems ok so far,but would always use a backup with any pedal.

Sabine is a reputable co and would expect help if needed.

Play mostly rock and blues and this pedal covers it.It takes a little tweaking,but you get to that sound if you stay with it.I own DOD pedals that are also very good.The DOD FX100 and FX101 are very good reproductions of overdriven amps and this one is just great in it's class.Has a very good sound with no tone loss.

Very easy to use.

Playing with Several guitars through a marshall 100W all tube stack. When it is working correctly it sounds awesome. Unfortunately, it was really noisy at very low volumes. More about the problem in the reliability section.

Seems very sturdy...all metal construction. I noticed I had a problem when I would turn the power for my set-up on and it would be the only thing that came on automaticly. It would start out fine, but after playing a while, it would hum very loud and noticeably at low output.

Called Sabine about the problem. This is the second new Sabine pedal I've had problems with (see steriochorus). They have been very helpful. I mailed them the pedal. I haven't gotten it back yet, but am confident that they will fix the problem as they did with my steriochorus.

Overall, I like the pedal. I don't think I ever would have bought it, but I'm glad I have it. If it was ever lost or stolen, I would probably buy some other fuzz and distortion boxes.