Seymour Duncan SFX-02 Tweak Fuzz

Where can you go wrong ? Vol/Tweak/Gain

Using 90's Fenders (Mapsle/Rosewood) both with Buckers on the Bridge
position and a Line 6 Variaxe 700 mostly as a tele or a 335 (they're awesome guitars for the working session player .. )

well the rig .. to be honest .. when I use the Tweak Fuzz no other pedals are working .. so does it really matter .. ?
I use misc pedals .. around 8 or 10 on my board they vary BUT ....
Boss Cmp /Boss Gate/Ibanez vintage chorus /vol pedal / 2 tube kings /Boss od 2 /Akai Head rush and a Boss dd5

assembled in a much more sensible order ..:) ..

to a JCM 800 stack 4x12 .. OR .. a Peavey Classic 30 for small venues and sessions.

YOU STOMP IT .. IT FUZZES !! Amazingly wide options !! Killer tone !

Full of gain .. NOT NOISY AT ALL !!

MAIN REVIEW : ---> See Overall Rating

it's a tank.

for Vol / Tweak / Gain ?? Are you kidding me ?

well ..first .. .. I'm a working guitarist .. Sessions .. LIVE TV .. and Live Concerts ..
This is my first review .. I never write them ..but I'm THAT excited ..

I've been looking for a new DST for a while now ..
and was kinda pissed to find out that "it can get any better"
than what I had ..

Don't get me wrong I LOVE the Tube King I own
(original tk999 made in Japan) I have 2 of'em .. with NOS tubes ..
they give me a CLEAR distortion .. heavy on the MIDs and LOWs
and SHARP on the High Edge ..

but try to imagine this in your mind .. the YK999 sound
is so clear .. that when holding one note .. it sounds like a whistle ..a clear voice if you will .. a feedback .. ONE SOLID NOTE ..

While I LOVE IT .. and it's my main lead .. I've been wanting
something MEANER .. I wanted some CHCHCHCHCHCHC
goin on inside that one note I'm holding ..
with more texture inside of it .. a higher resolution if you will ..

I saw that Saraceno video on Youtube last night at 1am ..
and I just had to have it ! :)

I went to the store this morning .. played on it for 1 minute ..
payed and left ..got home .. put it in my rig ..
and went out for a show in front of 1200 people ..

IT KILLED !!!
AND .. I was as excited from the tone as I was when I got my first pedal ..
between songs I'd tweak the tweaker for a different tone and enjoy
the new color on my color chart ..

I really recommend this puppy if you're into multiple timbers ..
it's really cool sounding .. and VERY useful ..

There .. I'm done ..

Ciao.

volume, tweak, gain. Nothing could be more easy.

I??m a Gibson Les Paul fan I got 3 of them and a 335. As soon as I steped on the switch I was blown away by this gorgeous warm fuzz tone, and then when I started playing with the controls things only got better. You can get the full Hendrix/Eric Johnson sound or just a twangy picking type of fuzz. The tweak is a great feature that adds versatility to this pedal. You can geat a great sound with gibsons or single coil guitars. I use a MG MONOVIBE, FULLTONE OCD, TWEAKFUZZ, VOX WHA, BOSS CHORUS CS3 and a DD3. The OCD can add extra gain when set like a booster but its not necessary with a Les Paul. I know you can find some better fuzz boxes but not with this versatility. The sound is great and I??m very satisfied. You can be sure you could get really vintage fuzz sounds with this thing. It is noisy if you use a DC adapter but using a 9v battery you can avoid this. An alcaline 9V batery can last for a long time with this pedal so its not a problem. By the way, fuzz face dont offer the option of a DC adapter.

Open the pedal and you will find a very clean circuit, very well fixed and it came with a 9v battery from the factory (something dangerous). The pedal is built like a tank looks like it will last forever.

Never deal with them. But Seymour Duncan was very nice with me when we met in myspace.

I??m just giving a 9 becouse I know that its possible to find a better fuzz box but this one is really great. I found the sound I was looking for (Hendrix - Johnson tones) with the add of a great versatility thanks to the tweak feature. It??s a keeper and for the money you can??t buy something better.

Super easy to use, 6-way rotary switch instead of a tone control, brighter as you move left. One gain, one Level control, and that's it.

It's fairly noisy, but it's a fuzz pedal... What do you expect? As for the tones it gets, the 6-position impact switch really makes this pedal, allowing it to get a fantastic fuzz tone for virtually any setup, bright or dark. I could use a little more output, with the level and gain knobs maxed, it's modestly louder than the bypassed sound. This makes it more difficult to use some of the lower-gain settings live, unless you're running it with a boost pedal. Also, my z.vex and BYOC use germanium transistors, and I'm beginning to believe that they go a long way towards getting a pleasing, musical sound. So, if I could find this with germanium transistors instead of silicone, this pedal would be a hands down 10. But because of the transistors, the sound can get really fizzy in the treble frequencies if you're not careful (and if you have a fender amp with a bright switch). Overall, I'd say this fuzz pedal would be fantastic for 60-75% of fuzz players for just about anything. Compared with my z.vex, this fuzz is much raspier and isn't as good for 'end of the world is this thing broken' fuzz textures. If you have a dark amp, you want this pedal. Even if you have a bright amp, you might like this pedal for the straight-ahead, no b.s. fuzz tones it produces.

Appears pretty reliable, all the important stuff is metal and really sturdy. When I got the pedal, the tweak knob was a little loose, but I took care of that with a small flat head and haven't had any problems since. True bypass is a nice plus, and the nature of fuzz pedals (simple circuits) means that if it does break (which appears to be highly unlikely), it'll be a piece of cake to fix.

I'm part of the Seymour Duncan User Group forums, and I've never seen or even heard of another large manufacturer being so responsive to the people who use their products. I've never had to send in a pedal or a pickup to get repairs, but there is no doubt in my mind that the company would be both responsive and helpful. This company is the only company, in my mind, worthy of a 10 for customer support. They really do go the extra mile.

I say a pedal is only as good as it sounds, so this is an 8 out of 10 in my book. I'm gonna crack this open sometime soon, and if I can find some nice germanium transistors, I'm gonna try and swap them out (not without consulting the company first, though), seeing as this only set me back $45. I recently purchased an mxr doubleshot distortion as well, and this has a much more strident treble response, but it comes with the territory. That being said, this pedal isn't for everybody. If you want a fuzz face, get a fuzz face. If you want a great fuzz tone for every guitar and amp combination you own, and you don't need insane output, this pedal will leave you smiling.

This is an adendum to my review below after having made a major discovery that vastly improved the performance of this pedal.

I won't repeat my first review below except to say I basically relegated this pedal to my main pedal board for my Marshall early 70s spec 50w half stack. I had to go to too much trouble to get it to behave in front of a totally clean amp.

Anyway, here is the discovery I made: On my main pedal board I have one cherished rare old pedal that someone better copy and make a million dollars on. Its the first pedal I plug into, a vintage 70's DOD FET preamp pedal. I use it to drive the hell out of my old Marshall with my Strat for Yngwie/blackmore stuff and it blows away my old DOD 250 which I no longer use. Based on how it shoots my guitar tone through any pedal chain like an armour piercing shell, I'm guessing it must also be acting as an exceptionally bomb-proof buffer meaning very high input impedance, very low output impedance, and massive current drive on tap that doesn't break a sweat into even the lowest input impedance pedal (normally a very stressfull thing). The ability to source a lot of current when loaded down with a very low impedance input is something op amps suck at btw.

Anyway, running that buffer/boost pedal set to unity gain (no boost)in front of the toothless-Tweaker Fuzz turns it into an amazing sounding fuzz pedal that sounds lush, harmonicallly rich, and incredibly dynamic at every setting. Old Sabbath, Hendrix, Robben Trower no problem. Instead of sounding lifeless at low gain settings, now I get nice, very dynamic crunch which does old Zeppelin right too, yea!

I'm thinking the basic design of most fuzz pedals the Trailer-trash Tweaker included must have a 40 year long design flaw that only perhaps Dunlop has just addressed with the addition of an input buffer. More specifically, perhaps these fuzz pedals must have something realy goofy going on with their input impedance, either it's very very low making the unit before it puke trying to drive it, or perhaps the input impedance is very erratic across frequency, or both. If anyone knows more about about this, I'd be curious for your thoughts.

So, in summary, you can get fantastic results with this pedal provided you have a buffer pedal right in front it AND it goes directly to the input of a just begining to distort tube amp. I won't be surprised to learn the output is just as touchy as the input and only behaves into a certain impedance like the 68k you find in a Marshall tube amp for instance. Sorry to abuse this review site, but I hope this follow up review will help more folks have some real fun with this pedal.

see below

Geeeez I sure don't blame anyone that had a bad experience with this thing. Lastly, I should mention I use a Strat with Dimarzio HS-3's which have a very high dc resistance (like 23k or so) combined with a very low output (only 93mv) so maybe a buffer was especially effective in my case.

Hmmm, easy to get a good sound? Well the answer is no but I feel that applies to all fuzz pedals though to varying degrees. The inclusion of a seperate tone knob to smooth the top end would have been a major plus. However, be assured you CAN get a great fuzz sound as I will explain.

I don't know what some manufacturers have against battery compartments. You have to unscrew four screws and sort of pry the housing out of the chassis to change a battery. I've read battery life is very long however and I use dc power supplies anyway, batteries make me too nuerotic. I think its safe to say gone are the days when players pedals consisted of one or two boxes they carried to the gig with spare batteries in their pockets. We all use pedal boards with power supplies so I guess that's not a big deal.

Not exceptionally quiet imo but considering the nuclear devistation tones it can generate I think it's reasonable. Here are my initial thoughts: Full blown crazy fuzz pedals are more of a sound effect than anything else. I think they should be used to their wild extremes or not at all. If you are looking for milder crunch tones that keep your guitar's basic tone intact, definately buy something else. They are also the most tempermental of distortion pedals resulting in wildly inconsistant results because they seem to be almost supernaturally interactive with different amps and pedals. Although I am no fuzz authority, I have read enough reviews of other fuzzes to note even the boutique ones have their share of horrible reviews by users who got nothing even close to the sound they thought they would get. In short, for this pedal to do what I think players want, it MUST go into an already starting to distort tube amp. I don't mean total distortion, I mean begining of break up and set for a warm sound. Thus you need a master volume or be able to crank the amp up until it starts to overload. On its own into clean, especially bright clean amp you will experience nothing but heinous displeasure. I first ran it into my Marshall plexi 50 with master volume mod and was able to coax very wild hendrixy tones with it, especially running a dunlop carbon copy delay after it. Then I tried it on my new blackstar artisan 15 at low volume running clean and got nothing but miserable nasty hell. I tried my indespensible trusty vintage Ibanez pq401 parametric eq in front of it to no avail. I was already typing up a craigslist ad when I had an idea: WHat about running my eq AFTER it? Now I could reshape tonality that was not right but still not getting the Eric Johnson-hendrixy sounds I hoped for. Then I did somethign I don't normally like to do but ran it also into my fantastic Zvex box of rock which is an a non-op amp, non diode type distortion that is is incredibly amp-like and dynamic. Setting the zvex to very mild crunch did the trick and now a miraculous transformation resulting in that giant 200lb violin sound we all love with that over the top muffled slow motion explosion tone. No van halen power cords of course, think cliffs of dover and you get the idea. Now I'm not going to proclaim this is superior or equal to the sounds you might get with a different fuzz and their are many to be sure, but I didn't want to spend a lot and I only go for this type of sound once in awhile so I'm happy. So rating sound quality is very tricky here. On it's own, it's an ugly brittle, en-harmonic mess. With a little creativity, quite a respectable soulfully insane classic fuzz if such an expression is logical.

This box is very strong and looks cool. It's made in China hence the very low price so we'll see. Inside it appears to be very well made and a fair amount of handwiring boards to pots and jacks.

Haven't tried to contact them but in the past they are great. SD is a good old american company not a faceless corporation that does their best to hide from their customers.

What else to say? I wanted to a crazy fuzz to go nuts with once in awhile, didn't want to spend a lot and I think this delivers. The rotary tweak settings are definately not subtle and offer more apparant flexibility that many fuzz's. Again I can't stress enough this is best used for wild exploding fuzz mayhem, no chords, no obsessing over your guitar's inherent tone etc. Don't try to get into the mind trap of being determined to get a large number of your favorite guitar tones. Forget getting crunchy vintage zepellin, it's too fuzzy for that and low fuzz settings just sound dull and lifeless. I use dimarzio hs-3's in a custom shop strat by the way.

Kudos for the dpdt true bypass footswich too. When it's bypassed it IS bypassed completely. Lastly, for you vintage mojo purists, you should know this unit uses subminiature surface mount technology so forget about mods like swapping transistors etc. Only the tone section under the tweak knob has "old fashioned" caps that you can unsolder and swap out.

Very easy to use for a pedal that can get you two or three great fuzz tones out of. I basically play strictly Hendrix and so I like to sometimes turn this on with the gain on my amp up a bit to get that silky, sustainy, warm tone. This pedal does that better than anything else.

I play a Crate V30-H all tube head through a Fender cabinet with some higher-end celestions (I forget what they're called). I love the natural vintage tone of my amp and so this is basically the only pedal I run through the it. It is true bypass, and it produces some great VINTAGE fuzz tones. There is a way that a true vintage fuzz pedal should sound, and this is it. Hendrix's Montery Pop Festival tone is similar to this. The "Tweak" ranges from a brighter fuzz to a deep, lush fuzz. This isn't a distortion pedal. It produces vintage fuzz tones of the 60's that require a taste for the vintage fuzz tone. Surprisingly, it doesn't sound synthetic like all of the other new fuzzes with computer chips in them. This sounds authentic.

The electronics are encased in steel and the input/output jacks are very stable. It's a rock.

Never dealt with them

Like I said, I play Hendrix, and I love that warm fuzz tone that a lot of people either don't know or don't like. This pedal can come closer to producing that tone than any other fuzz box--and I've tried many other fuzzes. Some include the UFO fuzz, the Dunlop Jimi Hendrix Classic Fuzz, and the Boss fuzz. I've been playing and practicing diligently for 6 years, and this is the best fuzz I've come across so far. I'm rating it a 9 because I think their may be a fuzz pedal out there better than it.

volume, tweak, gain?

can make a vintage or modern fuzz sound, can be set subtle and transparent or make a humbucker sound like a single coil

throw a short delay after it and tune them together for very wicked cruncy fuzz

never had an issue

never needed them

great affordable versatile fuzz

The Seymour Duncan Tweak Fuzz!

Awesome fuzz pedal with cool featues and an amazing sound!
Very easy to use with Volume,Tweak,Gain controls & a simple On/Bypass switch.

The main feature of this pedal is that it houses 6 fuzz pedals in 1 box, with great results. each of the 6 tweak settings alteres how the Gain and Volume controls effects the sound which is really unique.

The pedal itself is made of thick durable steel, with top grade componants, switch,pots + inputs are all top quallity (I've taken it apart to look)

It can run off either a 9v battery or a 9v external power supply.

The Pedal is True Bypass which for me was a great selling point, it also has instant switching (no pause of any kind when turning on/off-like all Boss units have)

It also features a class A, Low-noise transistor. so this thing is very quiet!

It comes with a basic instuction book, with a few useful preset ideas for getting certain sounds.

The sound quality is the best I have ever heard from a fuzz pedal, I chose this over an E-H Big Muff which I thought was the best you could get untill I tryed this out.

As soon as I steped on the switch I was blown away by this gorgeous warm fuzz tone, and then when I started playing with the controls things only got better. you can go from a twangy picking type of fuzz to a full on hendrix Fuzz with the turn of a knob.

I'm using this pedal with an orange rocker 30 head going in to a 2x12 cab with celestron vintage 30 speakers and it couldn't sound any better if I wanted it too....pure fuzz heaven.

small quibble though, you have to put this first in you effects chain other wise it doesn't sound quite as sweet,(slightly muddy) but this isn't really a concern unless you have another pedal that you need to put first in the chain)
But when It's first the sound quality is the best.

I have it set up as follows:

Volume - max Tweak #2 Gain 3/4 of the way up.

Guitar (Fender Tele)
Tweak Fuzz
Wah (cry baby)
Boss Tu-2 (tuner)
E-H Holy Grail(reverb)
Orange Rocker30 (Amp)

This pedal will last for ever. it's the most solid pedal on my board.
thick metal housing,solid controls & a great quality switch.

I've been using it in the studio and at gigs for 3 months now with no problems at all.

I'm keeping this one forever, it's turned into my main source of overdrive, It replaced an Ibanez Tube screamer & a boss DS-1 (this pedal can do both)

I had to contact seymour Duncan once in regards to one of their pickups and there customer service was very good, friendly an helpful over the phone....and I'm sure they would be the same with their pedals too :)

I play mainly Blues/classic rock and this pedal does that beautifully,I've been playing for a little over 10 years. and own several effects and amps, and this on the top pile of my live/studio rig.

I love the quality and the pure fuzz sound you get from the pedal and I love the look as well, cool yellow with quirky text.

It definitely makes my playing better and I would replace it straight away if it was lost or stolen.

If your looking at getting a Big Muff, stop yourself and get one of these instead....you won't regret it!

Easy enough to use, turn the three knobs and listen for the sound you are seeking. The manual provided some start settings. This is a fuzz box, hence the name Tweak Fuzz.

Currently using a Hot Rod Deville 212, Vox Pathfinder 15, American Strat, Gibson Les Paul Classic and many pedals. This is a very quite pedal. Definitely has a unique square wave harmonic saturated sound to it with plenty of fat. It gets a 9 instead of a 10 for the following reasons. The first two positions are, and this is from a rockers viewpoint, useless. Too much treble, but probably would be OK for country flat-picking or similar music styles. Secondly, clean up with the guitar?s volume rollback is a bit sensitive possibly leaving you in staticville. Lastly, it does not play well with other pedals being in front of it. Putting a wah pedal in front seemingly has no affect. Other than this, the sound makes up for these deficiencies.

Eight months old, built out of metal, no problems yet.

Have not needed customer support.

I have been playing for 30 years, Queensryche, Rush, Clapton and rock top 40. Currently using a Hot Rod Deville 212, Vox Pathfinder 15, American Strat, Gibson Les Paul Classic, Boss MT-2, Boss DS-1, Boss, C-1, Boss CH1, Boss DD3, Ibanez TS-808, and Ibanez FL9. This will do Rush, Clapton and the top rock pop 40, but I do not see it happening with heavy metal. I would replace it if lost or stolen. Once the tone is found it is sweet, unfortunately you have to work to find it through a tube amp. Compares well to the other pedals I own, but I find myself using it more often now.

This is a follow up review. It was suggested that my assertion that this pedal may need a more robust signal injected into it with a compressor or drive unit isn't needed. This pedal can be difficult to get a good sound out of, as some of these reviews will attest. See below.

I've had the unit months more now, and you can get a good fuzz out of it. Can also sound like crap. Yes, driving it, or ANY unit with a compressor will raise the noise floor, you're right. However, that's why they put a gain level on it, and you have to play with it to get optimal signal to noise. Bluesmann may be right with his set up that the compressor makes it too noisy for his use, but 40 years experience has taught me that there is no 'right way' to set up your effects chain. Experiment! I play a music called Rock 'n roll, a lot of times when you kick this on the band is going to be going like hell and a bit of additional noise won't matter much. But not having a hot signal going into this thing CAN matter enough to make it sound like crap.

I've had no problem in several months of use, and this thing seems to be built solidly.

Haven't had occasion to need to call

Again, go with what sounds good. With all due respect to my colleage Bluesmann, I get better results with a very robust signal injected into this box via compressor and gain adjusted accordingly on the comp to minimize noise. As suggested by others, this unit doesn't always play well with others, but I get a nice fuzz out of it, but I mostly use setting 1 or 2 (of 6 position switch).