Ibanez Standard // Wau Fuzz - The Best Fuzz Ever?

[Supa-Stang]

So a few months ago I had the (incredible) good luck to pick up an old 70s Ibanez Fuzz Wau pedal on the cheap of ebay. I took a punt on it as it was the kind of listing with one out of focus picture and not much info, hey ho I thought.

The standard fuzz circuit has had some buzz over the last few years as Dan Auerbach has pretty much had it as his go to studio fuzz along with a 70s Maestro Fuzz. The Wau Fuzz itself doesn't get as much airtime and so consequently you can pick up the same effect (with added average wah sounds) for a heck of a lot cheaper.

The pedal itself is a relatively heavy metal beast with a cool looking footplate covered in 70s style rubber circles. It has had a few incarnations over the years it was made including but not limited to Aria Diamond Fuzz Wah, ELK Fuzz Wah, Carlsboro Fuzz wah and 'FUZZ WAH MACHINE' with no branding.

Anyways, the thing turned up in the post a few days after the listing ended and I plugged into my trusty old Vox AD50 on a fairly neutral 'not clean but not dirty' setting and WOW.

It is possibly the loudest pedal I've put into the front end of my amp. It is also the single greatest wall of sound fuzz I've had the fortune of playing. It's hard to describe but its somewhere between 'Live at Leeds' (the Standard Fuzz actually started off life as a Uni Vox Super Fuzz clone) and early Dinosaur Jr with somekind of Cramps/pyschobilly thing going on in between... Subtle it isn't and from what I can fathom the expander/balance and volume do little other than sweep out a tiny fraction some of the mid frequencies.

As you work up the fret board you start to get some awesome octave up sounds but not like an Octavia, foxx, its hard to describe but its velvety and raw at the same time. Almost synthy but nowhere near as synthetic sounding as some clones I've heard like the solid gold 76.

Not just content with giving you 1 superb fuzz tone. The geniuses at Ibanez give you a footswitchable 'tone filter' which offers something around a 1khz mid boost or cut which takes you from fat borderline stoner rock fuzz with a decent upper octave to garage pysch heaven. The mids thin out but the sound is still relatively thick and tight; think the Nazz Open My Eyes. It really plays like no other fuzz I've tried. It doesn't do much in the way of clean up on the guitar volume but then that kinda misses the point of it.

Any other standard/wau fuzz fans out there?

[StevenO]

Yep! All the iterations of the Super Fuzz are beautiful in a really ugly way (or is it the other way around?). I'll get into more musical fuzzes, like Fuzz Faces and Big Muffs, but I always come back to the delightful mayhem that is the Super Fuzz. Wonderful pedal.

[fuzzjunkie]

I have the Roland AF-100 BeeBaa as my wall of sound fuzz. Turns my amp into a raging pit bull. People actually jump back when I hit the first chord through it.

[MechaBulletBill]

I am fully in love with the ss/bs buzzz. Insane low end but incredible versatility. Great for garagey overdrives, switching out the octave can be useful.

[shoule79]

Never heard of the Wau fuzz before, will have to keep an eye out.

It kinda sounds like a Boss Hyper Fuzz with the crazy and stoner modes.

[Pacafeliz]

Yep I'm also a huge fan of those old Japanese FuzzWahs. I have a ShinEi and a Companion one, the 8Tr model i think.
Brutal.

Using the duzz and wah simultaneously is crap, though...

[Supa-Stang]

Never heard of the Wau fuzz before, will have to keep an eye out.

It kinda sounds like a Boss Hyper Fuzz with the crazy and stoner modes.

The boss Hyper Fuzz I believe actually was another of the Super Fuzz derivatives - the Wau Fuzz has a pile of iterations keep an eye on ebay...

[Zork]

I bought one years ago for 10€ because the seller was sure it was broken. Bought it without testing, plugged it in an overdriven amp and was the luckiest guy on earth.