Tiny Fuzz: Illustrator Series

Making this pedal extremely affordable WITHOUT sacrificing quality has been a central focus from day one. It didn't just happen, but is the result of careful planning and many iterations.

1. Build time: I've gone through countless iterations of every aspect of this pedal and have progressively made it quicker and simpler to build. This includes everything: specialty-sized enclosure, specific hardware choices, circuit board layout and design, and more.

2. Trim the fat: The Tiny Fuzz is housed in a raw aluminum enclosure with a heavy duty vinyl sticker, which is far more economical - especially when offering so many designs to pick from - than traditional powder coating and UV printing. Not to mention it simply looks more interesting, and holds up to extreme abuse.

There's NO indicator LED by default. Considering these are hand-built, that amounts to considerable time savings. You can, however, add an LED indicator by ordering a custom-built one.

The packaging is lovely (if I do say so myself), but is handmade and economical. I'm not splurging on custom printed boxes, die cut foam/cardboard, or full color printed inserts.

3. Practical circuit design: The Tiny Fuzz was designed around commonly available, modern components (diodes, transistors, etc). You won't find any "unobtainium" parts in the pedal, purely for mojo.

You also won't find sub par, modern substitutions for vintage parts. Instead the best combinations of readily available components were auditioned and discovered through planning and experimentation.

4. Good business sense: Finally, I use common sense to keep overhead low (e.g. work from home, do most things myself, avoid frivolous expenses, etc)

Moreover, I don't do traditional advertising. Instead by putting a ton of effort into delighting customers and providing quick, personal attention I focus on driving word-of-mouth and referrals.

What sort of fuzz pedal is this?

Simple, no-nonsense fuzz pedal. It has a single voice that goes from all-out buzz saw down to a light break up (roll back that guitar volume!). It has an amazingly quiet, low noise floor, too.

The circuit that drives this is small, but deceptively complex and not a typical configuration. It uses a diode and transistor to provide asymmetric clipping, that is different distortion for the positive and negative halves of your guitar's signal. These two, plus a biasing and drain resistor work together in a very intertwined dance. This circuit behaves very differently depending on what specific values and components are chosen, so a lot of time and effort went into finding the optimal combinations.

NOTE: This pedal has a low input impedance which contributes to its characteristic thick and heavy sound. The trade off is that it may not play well with some pedals if it's placed after them. So try it out earlier in your chain.

Support a small business and independent illustrators with your purchase.

These pedals are carefully and lovingly made in the USA (Lockport, IL) by Mark A. Stratman (@MAS_Effects).

The illustrations come from a variety of artists around the world. I encourage you to check out their websites, and buy prints and other products featuring their work. If you build a custom pedal you'll also have the option to buy an extra faceplate sticker and have 100% added to the artist's royalty.

Scroll up on this page to find links to each artist's site.