In nature, a Woollybear is just a cute, fuzzy caterpillar. On your pedalboard, our Woollybear Fuzz pedal can be a ferocious, rampaging, insatiable force of fuzz. If you need it to be.
The Woollybear is hands-down our most versatile fuzz pedal. While it shares its design philosophy with the classic Tone Bender family of fuzzes from yesteryear, the Woollybear is a modernized all-silicon evolution with a far wider range of available tones. From glitchy, gated, low saturation sounds all the way to high gain mayhem with endless sustain are easily achievable. It even “cleans up” nicely with most guitars’ volume knobs. And being all-silicon, there’s no worrying about temperature fluctuations that can plague vintage germanium fuzzes.
Controls
- LEVEL: Sets the overall output level of the pedal. Clockwise for more output; counter-clockwise for less.
- BIAS: Controls the voltage to one of the silicon transistors. It is dependent somewhat on your pickups, but in general there are velcro-like gated tones at lower settings, thick and midrange-heavy tones in the middle, and fizzy almost overdrive-like tones at higher settings. Experiment!
- FUZZ: Clockwise for more saturated fuzz tones, counterclockwise for less. Remember your guitar’s volume knob! The Woollybear cleans up well and can provide all sorts of useable overdrive or muff tones with your guitar volume rolled back.
- TONE: Sets the amount of treble leaving the effect. Clockwise for more treble, counterclockwise for less.
- FAT: Cuts or adds bass content entering the circuit, allowing more low end to pass through as it is adjusted clockwise. This thickens the tone and has the effect of changing the intensity and character of the fuzz. Extreme clockwise settings can create a pleasing, splatty, compressed fuzz tone with “bloom”, while turning the control counterclockwise can help you stand out in the mix.
NOTE: the Woollybear’s controls are highly interactive; especially the LEVEL, BIAS, FUZZ, and FAT controls. For example, at higher BIAS settings, you may need to turn up the LEVEL to compensate for a volume change, but the pedal will still sound great. Don’t be afraid to get extreme with all of them to learn how they interact with your rig and find some unique tones!
True-bypass switching. Top-mounted audio and DC power jacks. No battery snap provided. The pedal is industry-standard 125B in size.
Woollybear Fuzz Nerd Notes
- Rugged powder-coated and UV-printed enclosure
- Awesome solid aluminum knobs
- Genuine Fairchild silicon transistors
- 1% Royal Ohm metal film resistors
- Alpha potentiometers
- Neutrik audio jacks
- Kobiconn power connector
- GØRVA Mechano 3PDT soft-touch latching footswitch
- WIMA and Kemet film capacitors
- Nichicon and Panasonic electrolytic capacitors
- MLCC C0G capacitors in the audio path (for the hardcore tone nerds out there)
The Cleveland Music Co. Woollybear Fuzz is handmade in limited runs in Cleveland, Ohio.