A Musician’s Approach to Biasing Fuzz Pedals

A musician’s approach to biasing fuzz pedals

Here’s how I’d set up the bias for any of the above fuzz pedals ( except Square wave)

Set a gutar amplifier up for about 1/4WW to 1 W and hook up the fuzz pedal and connect an electric guitar ( I’d usually use a Telecaster- something single coil is a little easier to work with ) with volume on full.

Then listen to hum as produced through the amp and adjust trimmer for loudest hum and then turn down volume control on guitar slightly and listen and adjust if necessary to make hum gradually go up and down while turning the volume control on guitar.

The hum that is caused by guitar picking up magnetic fields makes for a test signal that can be used to set up performance of the fuzz.

Note how sound changes if bias is slightly of and cutting out sound….