Univox Square Wave

very easy to use... I bought it a couple of days a go at a flea market .... 5 dollars bitches! I don't have the manual for it, but there are only 2 controls and one is a volume knob..

really nice sound quality.. and i do a lot of noise projects so when it's on it's nice and loud. deff. different from any other distortion that i own.

so far...
yes i would use it in a gig.

?

Like i said before i am more of a noise musician so this is the pedal i have been looking for. I enjoy it a lot. I circuit bend a lot of old drum machines and things like that which produce some ungoddly distortion, but this beats them all. It's great b.c the speakers have a real hard time reproducing a square wave b.c they are round... creating some amazing excursion on the poor PA. But yeah it was more than a steal.. at 5 dollars i will expect to get hit by a car tomarrow just to make things even.
-ed

Two knobs and no nonsense. nothing subtle about this pedal AT ALL. Balance knob on the right (volume) and Wave-shape (with a neat graphic) on the left for "defining" the sound of the fuzz (all the way down for a more of a bass-end overdrive sound, all the way up for a treble-y/brittle/feedback/searing/fuzz - with lots of room in between for a variety of sound color.
access to the battery is a bit of a pain (as is often the case with vintage pedals) - the entire back plate must be removed via four screws to get access (hence the 9 rating, instead of 10). furthermore, the electronics board cannot be removed for maintenance without first unsoldering the balance and waveshape pots. a big design flaw, but really only for those who will want to take it completely apart and/or need to repair it.

hands down THE BEST fuzzbox i've ever heard! i found mine 8 or 9 years ago and have used it in nearly every project i've worked on ever since. great for 60's style garage band fuzz , Jesus & Mary Chain style feedback workouts, pure noise/static experiments. it's not subtle. once it's on, it's ON. all fuzz all the time. for very extreme applications only. it will almost always feedback on the treble setting once you hit the switch, but it's amazingly quiet when turned off. i've primarily used it only with vintage equipment (Fender Jaguar/Jazzmaster though a Silvertone Twin Twelve amp running a Fender 2x12 cabinet), but i've also used it with solid state amps (GK RB400 bass amp through a Fender 2x15), and even with an SM57 microphone stuck in the bell of a saxaphone for a feedback/noise project ala Masonna. i've used it with bass guitar too. it always sounds great, and i've often referred to it as the "secret sauce". it is entirely unlike anything i've ever heard before or since.

the only reason i can't give this a 10 is because mine has finally broken after almost 10 years of near constant use (so maybe it should get a 10). toward the end of it's lifespan it was definitely giving me problems (poor switching, cutting out, acting erratically, etc.) and caused me more than a few embarrasing moments at shows. as it stands i need to replace the waveshape pot, the switch, and the output jack (all of which i'm having a great deal of difficulty finding). depending on its condition i would definitly have something to back it up in the effects chain (though i often used it as the only effect). as a sideline, the placement of the pots at the left and right sides of the pedal put the plastic knobs in peril almost immediately. mine broke off years ago.

i wish. i could use some replacement parts right now to do the repairs myself. i haven't looked into having it repaired by someone else (though i'm sure it could be done), so i have no idea what it might cost. there is a schematic and other info at
http://www.univox.org/pics/effects/squarewave.jpg
http://www.univox.org/effects/sqwave.html
http://www.univox.org/pics/schematics/squarewave.jpg
i have a couple of "electronic wizard" friends who are working on building a replica based on the schematic. let's hope they succeed.

i only wish they still made these or reissued them. i haven't a clue what makes this such a special pedal (the electronics are deceptively simple). the closest cousin i can think of is the old Vox Tonebender fuzz. like i said before, if i ever found one again, i would snatch it up immediately, regardless of price (well, let's say up to $200). i've had countless people ask me about it at shows, and they all want one. once i found this i gave up looking at fuzzboxes altogether. this pedal wins, hands down. if you find one (good luck by the way - i've been looking for another one since 1994 and have NEVER seen another), BUY IT. i would.

this thing rocks.i wanted a super fuzz but this thing i love wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more..its so easy to use..2knobs thats it.on is the balance which is like the fuzz control,and the other is the wave fromation.all the way down is sounds like a dortotion.all the way up its sounds like an amazing fuzz box.

i love this thing.its such a great fuzz box. right when i plugged it in i new it was way better than the crappy thing i was using before it.

it looks solid to me.it should hold up. the only reason i would be affraid to use it live is someone might steal it..but id have to give it an 8 cuz i dont really know.

for a univox?!!!! YEAH RIGT!

this thing rocks!! id buy it 50times over...if u cant afford a superfuzz then get this cuz its just as great in my opinion......ohhhh and its 50times more rare then a superfuzz no one really knows it exhists

This thing produces the best chainsaw-type fuzz sound of any pedal ever made! It has one major drawback, it is probably the noisiest pedal ever made. It only produces really nasty fuzz, you can't really get a smoother sound out of it.

This thing outputs a very hot signal. the balance knob is really just volume. This thing really can boost a signal, sometimes too much. The output is so loud, I'm sometimes afraid to run it into another pedal for fear of toasting something.

I've had no problem except for the knobs, whose set screws never can be too tight!

Call Sound Barrier. Univox no longer exists, except as Korg, and they probably wouldn't touch this thing.

This thing is the best if you want your instrument to sound like a chainsaw.