Effects suggestion? Maybe?

[Sling Blade]

Hey guys,

I have the Express 550 and after playing it for a month or so I have found the Crunch and Burn channels are missing a little and I mean just a little something. Fuzz! The distortion is just.....how should I say it? To perfect or dry maybe? I also have a 65 watt crate and it sounds good because it is heavy with fuzz. To much to tell the truth, I have problems keeping it under control.. I think I am needing to add a little fuzz to my sound. What do you think? What is a good source of fuzz? Stompbox? what kind of stompbox would be good? I'm not looking for Hendrix fuzz More of a Master of Puppets fuzz. Just a touch of fuzz to thicken things up a bit. Right? Or do I need a compression peddle to add more depth and sustain? Someone suggested this to me. Keep in mind I do not play lead at all, just some fills and runs here and there. As you can see I am real confused on the matter. Any help be great.

 

[Platypus]

I think your definition of fuzz might not be quite correct, this isn't meant to take the piss but I just want to make sure we're talking about the same things here.

You mentioned Master of Puppets.. that is not fuzz, that's straight up amp distortion. Hendrix on the other hand did use fuzz in addition to the former as well.

I think what you're after is an overdrive pedal to goose a bit more punch/chug out of your sound and tighten it up to sound fatter. Fuzz is a very wild effect that is everything from wooly smooth violin like gain all the way to sputtery/messy sonic chaos.

There are tons of different types of fuzz and OD out there but in a nutshell, a fuzz creates a hard clipping signal like a square wave for example and typically cuts out midrange in favor of a boosted bass BEFORE the clipping occurs. Overdrive adds a bit of dirt to your signal and drives your amp into distortion.. the difference is that fuzz/distortion are effects and OD is more of a tool to push your power tubes into clipping/saturation.

I hope that made sense, sorry if it was confusing/convoluted.

I think you should look into a tubescreamer type overdrive and see if that's up your alley. If you truly did mean fuzz then I apologize and have lots of suggestions there! (i'm obsessed with fuzz)

 

[Brewski]

If you are interested in a fuzz pedal, go to the Homebrew website and listen to the UFO: http://www.homebrewelectronics.com/products.htm

It's a fuzz/octave pedal and a good at that. This will get you into fuzz territory. If you find that you're not looking for fuzz, listen to some of the overdrives and see if it will help you narrow down the sound that you want.