The Silktone Fuzz has been updated with some cool new features starting with a couple of tone controls to subtly shape the sound of the fuzz. The tone controls are a product of the cleanup circuit so they shape the tone before heading into the fuzz. The bass shape goes from a tight and forward sound when turned down to full and round when turned up. The treble shape subtly rolls off the high end for a softer fuzz tone. The shaping is much more apparent at cleaner settings too.

At the heart of the Silktone Fuzz are two germanium transistors, tweaked to get a huge array of tones and fix all the annoyances you get with a typical germanium fuzz. Silktone wanted to nail the awesome tones everybody knows and loves when these transistors are biased to their sweet spot… and also when they're not. With the unique bias control you can easily hit them all. Want that oh, so sweet spot? Dial it to 4.50. Prefer some fat sticky fuzz? Dial it past 7.50. Want spitty gated fuzz? Cool, me too - dial it to 1.00.

What’s up with that "CLEANUP" knob?

It cleans up the fuzz the higher you push the knob - it works in turn with the pickup sim by mimicking your guitar volume knob to get the cleaner sparkly boost/light overdrive tones a good germanium fuzz face is known for when you roll your guitar volume knob back a bit.

Why does it have a "pickup simulator"?

A lot of fuzzes have really low input impedance so when you put a high impedance guitar in front of them it creates this really nice high-mid hump and roll-off keeping things relatively tame and musical. If you place a buffer or any other pedal with a low output impedance before a typical low impedance fuzz you get this really nasty squealing oscillation and lose all musicality and nuance - if you've ever tried placing a buffered tube screamer or wah before a fuzz you'll know this well. The silktone fuzz fixes this with an onboard pickup simulator so you can place the pedal anywhere in the chain and it behaves as if a guitar is plugged straight into it.

What is "BIAS"?

Bias is the operating voltage of the transistors, determining how they distort and clip the audio signal. There are a couple common ways most builders approach adjustable bias in a fuzz face circuit, one way is to make both transistors adjustable - things can get messy really easily this way because the transistors interact with eachother and that first transistor is really sensitive to changes - it becomes hard to nail down consistently good tones, especially with temperature sensitive germanium... The other way is making only the second transistor adjustable - there's less tonal range this way but it behaves better unless, again, it's germanium and gets thrown off by temperature - then there's no correction in place for the first transistor so it can get all out of whack.

Why an LED bias meter?

With germanium fuzz being so temperature sensitive even bias knob adjustments on other pedals become completely pointless with big temperature swings - leaving you to set by ear every time which isn't always easy. If all you have is a traditional bias knob with no read-out and you have it set to 10 o’ clock or so in a 70 degree room and it sounds great - and then go play outdoors in 90 degree weather or go down to the basement and it’s 50 degrees - your 10 o’ clock position from before will sound completely different, probably causing a gating effect or something and you'll have to find the new spot you like every time. The active bias monitor on the silktone fuzz takes out any guess work, you just remember the number you like for whatever tone you're after and if the temperature shifts too much the meter will reflect that so you can quickly and easily dial it right back where you like it and forget about it.