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I built a 2-Knob bender kit back in 2008 with a set of black glass OC75's and ... I have just never liked it. I'm typically an overdrive guy, and I'm accustomed to pedals with a lot of headroom that respond to volume changes but this thing is all fuzz all the time. Even with the fuzz knob turned all the way down and my Strat volume at 2 it's still fuzzy. From there it just goes into noise. Changing the bias has minimal effect other than volume and tone.

So I'm looking for help from the community. Did I make a mistake when I built the kit? Is there a mod to the circuit that could make it a little more friendly to my ears? Am I just not a fuzz guy?

Thanks in advance!

Doesn't sound like you made a mistake. From all I've heard, the Tonebender circuits are very aggressive sounding fuzzes, so your "all fuzz all the time" characterization sounds pretty accurate to me. It's not really surprising, given the three cascading transistor gain stages in this circuit.

I would not, however, say that you're "just not a fuzz guy" based upon that one pedal. I'd point you to try a couple of other types of fuzzes that are less aggressive and can be cleaned up by dialing their fuzz/gain controls down or by merely rolling off the volume knob on your guitar.

The first one I would suggest would be the BYOC Classic Fuzz, which is a clone of the silicon transistor version of the venerable Fuzz Face circuit. I think you'd find this one much more "controllable" with its amount of fuzz, reflecting the fact that it has just two transistor gain stages. Though currently out of stock, I would expect it to be available again quite soon.

The other classic fuzz circuit I would point you to would be one of the BYOC Large Beaver variants, which are clones of the classic Electro-Harmonix "Big Muff" pedals, with some added tone-shaping features. While these have fuzz aplenty, the character of the fuzz tone is much smoother and can be dialed down to a far greater extent than the Bender. BYOC offers four different versions; the Ram's Head and the Triangle are probably the most popular, though my personal favorite is the NYC. They also offer "mini" versions of these pedals (albeit with reduced features) if you wish to save on pedalboard real estate, though these kits are currently out of stock.

There are, of course, many, many other fuzzes out there to try, but one of these two options would be my recommendation to answer your question about whether or not you and a fuzz pedal can co-exist!

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“My favorite programming language is SOLDER” - Bob Pease (RIP)

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Thanks for the insightful reply! I'll give the other options a try when they're back in stock.