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Seymour Duncan Tweak Fuzz
List: $130
The Tweak Fuzz is Seymour Duncan’s second pedal to date after the Pickup Booster made headlines particularly with the single coil toting community. As you can see Duncan’s philosophy in this sophomore offering is simplicity, not that the Pickup Booster was too difficult to use (it’s anything but). This particular pedal has a certain input from Blues Saraceno, we may know him as the shredder who helped Duncan conceive the PATB range of pickups. According to Saraceno, the conception was necessary because he’s too in love with his dad’s custom amps which feature very sweet on board fuzz but were too heavy to lug around. So is this yellow stomp box a direct replacement then?
Construction/ features
This Tweak Fuzz is a sturdy, well built pedal, housed in a rigid chassis, no concerns about fragility here. The pedal offers just 3 control capacity: Volume/ Tweak/ Gain. The highlight here is the Tweak feature which actually has 6 preset fuzz settings, each black ‘dot’ on the label represents one preset patch. Ready for tone?
Tone
The Tweak Fuzz volume & gain control aren’t as sensitive as I would have wanted it to be, there was a need to max both up to really hear a significant contribution to tone. The Tweak settings offers 2 extremes- one which caters to treble (extreme left), the other, a bass inclined setting (extreme right). All 6 preset patches are strictly fuzz definitions, if you are the metal type looking for to a hard distortion drive for your crunch staple; apologies, none is offered here.
The treble inclined patch is virtually devoid of bass. It gives off a fried type tone, very useful for solos in the neck pickup. With the gain at 50%, neck + mid single coils give off that very funky chord zing. At the other extreme, the significant bass output proved to be too much for humbucking guitars, things get very muddy, especially in the neck. Single coils fared better here, in fact, if you are patient enough with this pedal, your amp & a dedicated EQ unit, you can dial up a very Eric Johnson type drive- super smooth midrange. Sweet!
Last say
Are you expecting a radical fuzz unit from the Tweak Fuzz? Don’t, it’s not too different from the other offerings in the market. However, if you are fuzz inclined & would like to acquire that elusive Arbiter Fuzz Face type buzz or that grizzly Big Muff attack, it’s in this yellow pedal. Shred fans who are after explicit midrange definition & a clear bass response, you have to look elsewhere & you know there are other pedals to fulfill this need. The Tweak Fuzz as a stand alone pedal is quite an interesting unit; however, I’ve found it to be a tasteful booster pedal for solo bits, if you already prefer the inherent drive of your amp. Another interesting pedal from Mr. Duncan & company, the only tricky bit here is the battery access- you have to unscrew the padded base to replace depleted power.
