Oh heavens me.  How have I never written about the awesome funk fizzle that is the Mosrite Fuzzrite?  No clue, but here it goes.  This one was done on request for Chris Ryan (The Energy, Black Congress, Secret Prostitutes), and then I also made a sister unit for myself just to have in the shelves.   This is a clone of the OG unit, which used germanium transistors.  Apparently only like 250 of that era were ever made, so theyre rare birds, and pricey ones at that.  Oh well…clone it up.

The Fuzzrite is *odd* in topology when compared next to a lot of the other classic circuits like a fuzz face or a tone bender.  Theres a pretty standard volume control but the “fuzz” control (called “depth” on the original units) adjusts the spittle and fizz at the same time that it adjusts tone, and also kinda plays like a blend control as well.  “What the shit does all that mean, jackass?”  Well it means that fully clocked it is sharp and treble-y and fuzzy in a brittle 60’s garage kinda way.  When you back off on the control is where it gets interesting.  The tone becomes more bass-y, less fuzzy, and sounds like you’re blending into the dry signal from your guitar.  That means that the circuit plays really well with your existing distortion (amp distortion or a dirt box) and allows you to color your distortion with a bit of fuzz, but you can still hear both.  For the same reason this one sounds cool with bass as well, where you usually want less fuzz than a guitar so you dont get lost in the mix.  I built one of these for Todd Martin (Fletcher C. Johnson, The Ex-Humans) who uses it for bass and it’s always a head-turner when he clicks it on.

Good lord, thats a lot of description for 2 knobs.  Both are bright-ass orange.