Fairfield Circuitry has unveiled a powerful four-knob fuzz pedal that uses a pair of cascading JFET gain stages to offer an expansive array of dirt tones.
Described as the "spiritual successor" to Fairfield's discontinued Four Eyes Fuzz, the ~900 Fuzz – or the About 900 Fuzz, if you are allergic to the typographically awkward tilde – has the ability to gently push your guitar amp like an overdrive pedal, or to dial in full-bore fuzz saturation and gated sounds.
The enclosure is finished in Fairfield's industrial minimalist style, with the machine stamped logo, and has four controls for Input, Fuzz, Bias and Volume, and how they interact opens up a wealth of sonic possibilities.
The Volume dial is self-explanatory, allowing you to set the output level of the pet. Input controls the level of the first JFET gain stage, which is ideal for matching the About 900 Fuzz to your electric guitar, and finding a sound that works best for its pickups.
Fuzz controls how much of that input signal is fed into the second gain stage while the Bias works in concert with this to set the character of the fuzz, with extreme settings unleashing the Velcro monster and revealing an abundance of sweet spots for violin-like sustain.
There should be lots of nice overtones, too, and Fairfield promises "delicious harmonics" are on the menu, which is always good to know. You can check out Andy Martin's typically stellar demo on guitar and bass guitar above, or for something completely different, why not watch Emily Hopkins put her harp through the pedal?
The About 900 fuzz is available now, priced $259CAD / £199. See Fairfield Circuitry for more details.
