Skreddy Pedals Bloody Knuckle

Skreddy Pedals

Circa 1965-1966 style fuzz

A modified and improved version of the oldest fuzz circuit I know of.

The Skreddy Pedals™ Bloody Knuckle is an ALL GERMANIUM 3-transistor fuzz.

The original Maestro™ Fuzz Tone was made famous with the Rolling Stones' hit "Satisfaction".  Then the first version of the Tone Bender was made by Gary Hurst, basically a direct copy, only using different transistors and a few different resistor values, ostensibly to give it more sustain.  (also a bit less of an angry bees in a jar thing)

What I've done is:

1. Take that same old design and improve the "Attack" control such that it has a gradual sweep and is very useful all the way from top to bottom.

2. Fix the bias, BUT JUST BARELY, so it has plenty of sustain and does not have a gated (on or off) effect. Instead what it does is it breathes and sags, kind of like a weak tube rectifier in an old amp. You can defeat the sag effect by simply turning down the Attack control a bit or by adding some neck pickup. It sags the most with the bridge pickup when droning some low E and playing power riffs.

Does a nice liquid/"woman" tone using the neck pickup playing leads on high frets, though.  It's not all about fizz and spit and glitchyness like perhaps some more accurate replicas might be.

Familiar, slightly sick but ultimately satisfying and addictive fuzz tones

Controls:

• Level: Gives a healthy amount of volume unlike some originals

• Attack: Useful range from top to bottom, from spitting, sustaining, saggy fuzz to robust, full-bodied distortion to grungy, under-powered dirt

The two songs that inspired me to make this pedal were "What is Life" by George Harrison (the opening fuzz tone riff) and the rhythm guitar in the song "Baby Blue" by Badfinger.  You can get the former fuzz tone effect by turning up the Attack control all the way, and you can get the latter grungy rhythm tone by turning it down all the way.  Also does a lot of Zeppelin type fuzz tones.

This pedal works best when driven by a strong pickup like a humbucker.