As many of you know, I have found a new fatuation in Chass Bliss pedals and all their configurability and quirkiness. Also if you’ve known me for even longer than you may know that one pedal I’ve always come back to is the ZVEX Fuzz Factory 7, my all time favorite fuzz. When I found out that they were doing a collab for the Reverb Pedal Movie, I jumped on the chance to snag one.
Of course this being the time of Covid where everyone is home and online, as well as Chase Bliss pedals going for ridiculous markups after undoubtably selling out, I was too late. In the first hour of sale all one thousand pedals were gone with no plans to make more. So back to the board with a plan to watch the flips pop up, and to try and get one for as little as possible, which would still turn out to be nearly double the original price.
But this post isn’t about the troubles of limited runs and the scalpers that markup the pedal the next day, it’s about this fantastic pedal. And it is FANTASTIC. One of the reasons I keep coming back to the Fuzz Factory 7 over the years is that it has fantastic cleanup, and there are a ton of different tones in there. From classic Fuzz Face, to thick molten modern fuzz, octave rich spitty tones and gated video game effects, all are possible. With Joel’s magic done to the Bliss Factory, the biggest part for me was the ability to save all those sounds to presets.
The added resonant high pass is a nice addition, giving some flexibility to tone, whether mellowing it out with reduced high ends, or adding some peak resonant frequencies to give a cocked wah feel. The Aux foot switch let’s you do things like make the high pass in one state and have it rolled off in the other allowing you to sit back in the mix even with a thick tone.
Lastly in true Fuzz Factory style, the noises that happen when this pedal self oscillates can be used for all sorts of crazy creations. Add this to pedals like the Thermae, Mood and Blooper and you have music potential with no guitar needed. That said, for me this is a fantastic fuzz pedal first, with all those noises coming in as an occasional fun thing to play with. The cleanup on the guitar volume knob is up there with the best of any fuzz and is truly an overlooked feature of this amazing pedal.
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