~ Snow White Fuzz R and D Review thread ~

[Craise]

Snowing in Atlanta! Yes!
Time for some Dr. Rockso!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nISjjwnQnK8

[mopfloyd]

GOTCHA,
Thanks to Bjorn ,Eva and Donner.
The SWF 006 is in......
Whipped a battery in there and couldnt help but notice the lovely art inside,a mountain snowstorm. just awesome.
I just played a little thru my Victoria 20112,maybe only a half hour or so tops before having to call it a night neighbour wise.
This one sounds great with the fuzz way down as noted a couple of posts back.
Guys please hang in there for a review sometime tomorrow.
Honestly I want to let rip like nobodys business but I'm just not going to get in a usefull review at bedroom levels.
So tune in tomorrow all being well and I should have a few notes ready.
Donner I like the long knobs,really really cool..
(now for any Brits reading,Ive been trying to re word this for ages and I just cant find any alternative,so dont hold it against me)
Anyway lads,
More tomorrow,
Mop

[mopfloyd]

Well here are a few observations from day 1...

Guitars used
Gibson LP and a Nash Tele

Amp
Victoria deluxe 20112

I have a few different fuzz pedals that I have ab'd the SWF with and have come to the conclusion that nothing really sounds like it.
Couple of tonebenders,couple of Sunfaces,A colorsound big yellow tonebender,PPF,CAF,and a couple of Muff like pedals were all ab'd.

This is a pretty straightforward fuzz pedal to operate.I have to say it seems to maybe feel like a very tweakable relative of a silicone Fuzz face.

Running through the Victoria with LP I first set up the SWF with the fuzz rolled all the way off,tone low and volume a little above unity.
Really surprising that this sounds fantastic as a boost.and absolutely lovely into a PPFset @ 9-12-12.
Dialing up the fuzz in a more conventional manner seems to be a winner also.Lots of sustain,but not overly spitty like a tonebender.and not as "woofy" as a germ Fuzzface.The closest I could get to match the sound was an Analogman si Sunface with the fuzz dialed back a bit.Even then the SWF seems a lot smoother.
I think that I prefer the SWF with humbuckers over the Lollar pickups I have in the Tele,although this fuzz is really just about as useful with either,
I guess after finding the best sounds I could with Hums and single coils,I just kind of prefer it with the LP.Mind you this is only day 1.
So in comparison to My PPF and CAF this sits right between the two.
I dont think its designed to be a nasty as the CAF but it flat out outnasties the PPF.
For instance if set up like this-
PPF 10-8-5 nice and fuzzy compared to SWF 10-12-5 the SWF would sond a lot "bigger" and more saturated.
Now the question is ,Could this be my go to fuzz if I could have only one.
And I have to say that so far,I think that in a pinch this could just about serve as an only od pedal!
Set 10-5-5 it works really well with the Victoria.Once agian with the Les Paul it really shines.
For live stuff I dont really go with a lot of pedals compared to at home in my little loft(belltower)so I fiddle constantly with the LP'S vol and tone.
Using the SWF in this manner ie flat out, you can dial in just about anything with the guitars volume.It dosent clean up quite as fast as a Sunface germ' and it hits the in between spots that the sunface dosent.
So all in all,after day 1 Yeah I'm in love (again).
Any questions,I'll try to answer.
Cheers all,
Mop.
p.s. I realise that I'm an awful leper not to be able to record clips,sorry guys,its all I can do to prize the laptop from my wife
If there is a pretty easy and cheap way to do this ,I'm all ears.

[Realfi]

not overly spitty like a tonebender.and not as "woofy" as a germ Fuzzface.The closest I could get to match the sound was an Analogman si Sunface with the fuzz dialed back a bit.Even then the SWF seems a lot smoother.

.....you can dial in just about anything with the guitars volume.It dosent clean up quite as fast as a Sunface germ' and it hits the in between spots that the sunface dosent..

Great review. Thanks for all the detail and points of reference. The two quotes above in particular make it sound exactly the fuzz I'm looking for.

If only I could get my hands on one..

[mopfloyd]

One more thing,
Just want to point out that with the Victoria 20112 and LP its pretty easy to get very overdriven sounds early.
Most of the time a nice boost is all that you could want with this amp.
With the SWF @10-5-5 even my neck pickup refused to mush out thru the full usable range of guitar volume with the guitars tone knob at max.
Now thats a welcome and very usable change for us vol knob twitchers.
This alone I think is special about this pedal.
Lots of shades.
May get a chance tomorrow to give it a run through an old Marshall 50 watter,with a 4-12.
I have a sneaky feeling that fuzz dialed low, tone the same and vol up is going to be too great to resist.
I'm off to crank up the Variac
Mop

.

[Eskimo_Joe]

Great review Mop!

[mopfloyd]

thanks fellas,
I am one lucky cat to have been drawn out of the sorting hat for this one.
I will be very interested in seeing how the MP FRF works in comparison in the near future.
I didnt do too much with stacking yesterday but we'll see what happens this afternoon.
A quicky that blew mw away though is
SWF set fuzzy into PPF set boosty.I kind of arrived at this one as the two were side by side by accident,but whoaaa.....

[Eskimo_Joe]

Any other reviews on the Snow White?

[Teahead]

I've been lucky enough to have a play with the SWF, Bjorn let me give it a whirl as part of a previous deal. Ordinarily I would have some clips here for you all, but between my broken AC30, the holidays and a serious bout of flu, clips have not been possible just yet. I used a Tele and borrowed AC30cc with Celestion Blues.

First off, I have to say that hearing the crisp and rather delicate crunch of the Snow White Fuzz underfoot I immediately thought it to have a very apt name. Merely a whisper of change in playing touch translates to the gain and the pedal responds in a rather valve like fashion, which is rather unusual for a fuzz. SWF also has this dynamic, thickening quality to it which is something I've never heard from a fuzz and rather reminiscent of the HBOD from memory.

It has a fatter bottom than the CAF I tried beside it and is generally a more anonymous sound. While the Candy Apple is full of distinction and character, doesn't want to fit in, doesn't care what people think, the SWF is much more well mannered. If you were choosing one to take home to meet your Mother, it would be Snow White, but for some other purposes perhaps you'd rather a bite of the Candy Apple?

Mopfloyd's comparison to the Sun Face is one I would make myself, I could approximate SWF's tone with a BC108 Sun Face by rolling some of the fuzz off internally, or at the guitar, but then the Snow White does sound somehow more delicate, open and has less fizz and sizzle to the decay. Sun Face is dense beside SWF, which manages to provide a hollow feel in comparison. It "crunches" in a marvelous manner, quite unlike other silicon fuzz pedals, thanks to the tighter low end and more polite nature of the gain itself. The pleasing sound of this crunch is almost germanium-like and this mated with the AC30 better than I've heard another fuzz manage.

It also responds to volume and tone changes at the guitar wonderfully, I found myself running fuzz and tone wide open on the SWF and adjusting sound with playing touch or the guitar's controls. From there it did everything I needed for rhythm playing, from gritty jangling "cleans" to that unmistakable crunch.

So, there you have it. I really wish I was hanging some clips here already rather than trying to conjure up the sounds I've been hearing through words. Apologies for that and thanks to BJ for the opportunity to play this great pedal.

[cabo]

have you guys been running at 9V?
I found that 12-18V increased the range and controlability even more.