Great Eastern FX Co. Launches the Focus Fuzz

Great Eastern FX Co., creators of the Small Speaker Overdrive and Design-a-drive, have launched a third pedal. The Focus Fuzz promises to deliver a range of inspiring tones, from crunchy distortion through to gnarly fuzz. Its not-so-secret weapon is the ‘Focus’ control, said to transform the character of the fuzz from wide and wooly to biting and incisive, ensuring that this is one fuzz that won’t go missing in a band mix.

The Focus Fuzz is an original circuit design using a mixture of NOS germanium and modern silicon transistors. Due to transistor availability, it’s limited to just 250 units worldwide so demand is expected to be fierce. But it’s not just a pedal for die-hard fuzz heads. According to Great Eastern FX, the pedal was created with guitarists who traditionally struggle with fuzz in mind.

“It’s been called a fuzz pedal for people who don’t like fuzz!” says company founder David Greeves. “We prefer to think of it as a pedal for people who love fuzz but sometimes find traditional fuzz pedals hard to use.

“Sometimes the fuzz is too extreme and unforgiving and you feel like your original tone and dynamic shave been obliterated. Sometimes just getting the controls on the pedal and amp set to get a good sound is a challenge. And often, a fuzz tone that sounds great on its own will disappear when the rest of the band comes in.

“We wanted to create a pedal that would give fuzz-like sustain, aggression, and rich overtones, but deliver all the other things we want as well. The Focus Fuzz loves both clean and dirty amps with single coils or humbuckers, there are tons of levels on tap and it doesn't mind where you put it in the signal chain. Best of all, there’s a genuine range of tones to explore, not just one setting that sounds good!”

With controls for Focus, Fuzz, and Level, the Focus Fuzz keeps things simple. However, this conceals some clever design touches. The ‘Fuzz’ knob, for example, adjusts gain and bias voltage simultaneously. At lower gain settings, it’s biased like a conventional overdrive or distortion pedal. Turn the gain up and the bias drops down, delivering the kind of asymmetrical, square-wave clipping associated with vintage fuzz.

“As with all our pedals, it’s about being able to plug in, quickly find a sound that inspires you, and then just get on with expressing yourself,” David adds. “If we can get a circuit to the point where every time we fire it up, it puts a massive grin on our faces, then we know it's ready!”

The Focus Fuzz is available now, while stocks last, direct from Great Eastern FX Co. and from dealers worldwide. It’s priced at £249/$285/€299.

For more information, please visit greateasternfx.com.

Ben Smith demos the Focus Fuzz from Great Eastern FX Co.