excellent for faux-retro chiptunes from days
gone by, and my horrid attempt at playing
the Mario theme sounded like my guitar had
ingested one too many magic mushrooms
(whether or not that’s a good thing is entirely
up to you). Oddly enough, this pedal sounded
very much like a germanium fuzz with some
clever EQ trickery, and I mostly attribute that
t o the darker tone stack. I really loved the
wall-of-sound type tones achieved with this
fuzz, and with the Pinch control, the range of
tones increased from warm and aggressive to
spitty and unruly. This pedal is great fun for
those who are fans of noise rock, and have
“intergalactic sonic adventurer” written on
their online dating profiles.
Next, is the Fuzz Factory 7. Following the
same aesthetic as the Woolly Mammoth, it
features a beautiful hand-painted enclosure
reminiscent of sleepy mid-town Chinese
restaurants plastered in Far East “lucky
charms”. The Fuzz Factory is more or less the
flagship pedal in Z. Vex’s line of machines,
and the Fuzz Factory 7 is really an instrument
in and of itself. I almost wanted to lean my
guitar against my amp, and let the feedback
howl away while I tweaked to my heart’s
content. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t make
for much of a show on stage (although I
would be thoroughly entertained). For those
of you who have played a Fuzz Factory, this is
a beefed up version with NOS 1956 Amperex
black glass transistors (which are germanium,
in case you’re curious). To be brutally honest,
to me this sounds like the coveted Maestro
FZ-1, which is the very first transistorized
pedals ever made. Those buzzy, almost reedlike fuzz tones are here, and I must have
played the “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”
16
TONE TALK //
riff ad nauseam, because this is the real deal.
Playing with the Gate and Comp controls
produced some really interesting tonal
artifacts, and this pedal was easily coaxed
into self-oscillation. Just laying my guitar
down, adding some delay, and rolling a slide
across my strings while twiddling with the
knobs provided fun for hours on end. The
nine-position rotary switch is almost like
an octave selector for the oscillators on a
Minimoog, while the other controls coax
this pedal to whisper, wallop, and whine,
without even touching the guitar! To find
some more musically conducive settings on
this pedal, I tried some of the recommended
settings provided on the instruction manual.
They were great starting points, and
showcased a few of the tones that this fuzz
could accomplish, but I always found myself
reaching for the knobs again to tweak the
attack or compression.
These pedals are not for everyone—people
who are faint of heart and want a set-itand-forget-it type pedal may be in for
disappointment. For the price, this line is for
the incredibly discerning fuzz player who likes
his tones pure, wild, and unadulterated. They
are both finicky and have a bit of a learning
curve to understand how to use them to their
full potential. While most fuzzes will react
to your volume control, these ones almost
don’t at all, going from full-on warhammer to
mousey cleans with a tiny flip of the volume,
which I mainly attribute to Z. Vex’s use of
gate and comp controls. If you enjoy wildly
analog experimental noise-rock, and have
deep pockets, this exclusive top-shelf fuzz
may be exactly what the doctor ordered.
Z. Vex’s Lucky 7: New Takes on Tried and True Classics