ZVex Effects Pedals

ZVex - The Next Factor in Tone

The Fuzz Factory in particular is the most well known pedal in the Z.Vex lineup. It is a modern classic in every sense, starting with Jimi Hendrix-esque NOS Germanium Fuzz Face sounds, but offering an unheard-of level of tweakability. Controls include including bias, gating, and compression knobs as well as a "Stab" control that can send the Fuzz Factory into chaotic and beautiful oscillations. Many of inventor Zachary Vex's design innovations in this area are the result of electronic trial and error experiments, linking the Fuzz Factory very closely with the world of circuit bending. His use of feedback loops and component-level bias adjustments have proven to be quite influential on fellow guitar pedal scientists, with similar designs showing up in the work of Catalinbread and Death By Audio.

The Fuzz Factory's blend of tradition and innovation makes this pedal an invaluable tone tool. The controls of the Fuzz Factory are very interactive and one can easily spend hours twiddling the knobs to coax new sounds out of it. It's a must-have pedal for any sonically adventurous guitarist, becoming the new standard in fuzz pedal technology. It has developed quite a following worldwide among guitar nuts, being a favorite of artists like Nels Cline of Wilco, Matthew Bellamy of Muse (who had one built into a custom guitar), Steven Drozd of The Flaming Lips, John Frusciante, J. Mascis, and Trent Reznor, among others.

ZVex has also released a Fuzz Probe, which is an even more ingenious version of the Fuzz Factory that has a voltage sensitive copper plate affixed to the pedal, which is then hardwired to the pedal's Stab control allowing the user to vary the "stab" level in the same manner one would play a theremin. Increasing or decreasing the distance of one's foot (or any other body part) from the copper plate varies the oscillation tendencies of the Fuzz Probe. This brings a whole new dimension of control to the Fuzz Factory, adding even further to the palette of sounds available to the adventurous musician. The Fuzz Probe is truly an instrument unto itself.

The Z Vex Box of Rock is Zachary Vex's first proper distortion pedal. Its circuit was designed specifically to recreate the sonic experience of a dimed Marshall JTM non-master volume amp. The Box of Rock works beautifully as a boost / distortion circuit for any amp, but it is highly recommended that you plug it into a clean Marshall at least once for the intended effect. The Box of Rock is also available in a Vexter Box of Rock version with hand screen-printed graphics.

The ZVex Box of Rock is extremely sensitive to your guitar's volume control, and on all but the most extreme distortion settings will clean up to a pristine spit-shine as you roll back the volume knob. The boost section is capable of boosting your guitar signal to fifty times unity gain, so this thing can do some serious damage if you're prone to being haphazard about knob placement. The boost section and the drive and boost controls on the Box of Rock are based on ZVex's infamous Super Hard-On circuit, but with a few alterations to make the tone somewhat less glassy and more like an standard amplifier input section. Also like the SHO, the boost and drive knobs will crackle somewhat when in use, which is both expected and perfectly normal for this design. Fear not the crackly sounds. The BOR boost section has been placed after the distortion section (or "distortron engine" as Mr. Vex calls it) to enable it to hit the front end of your amp like a sledgehammer to the breadbasket, and to boost solo spots and other parts that you might want to be really obnoxiously loud.

The ZVex Lo Fi Loop Junky is the antithesis to the modern digital looper pedal. It's all analog, with no A-to-D Conversion of any kind, it samples for up to 20 seconds, and everything you record into it will sound totally different coming out the other end. It features lots of hiss, noise, distortion, and other analog artifacts and is capable of making your little guitar loop sound like a scratched, warbly old record.

The Lo-Fi Loop Junky does feature a very transparent guitar preamp built in to preserve your direct tone, and a velvety, smooth compression for nice organ-esque tones. It also has a built-in Vibrato with Speed and Depth control knobs for making warped record sounds or for imparting a chorused, Leslie rotating speaker style tone to your loops. There is also a tone knob to roll off any unwanted hiss or to add warmth to your loop, but since the this pedal has a very limited frequency response (nothing above 2.6Khz) too much treble shouldn't be a huge problem. The ZVex Lo-Fi Loop Junky pedal is super simple to operate, with five obvious knob controls, an on/off stomp switch, a record stomp switch, and a tiny save switch in the upper right-hand corner to save your beloved loop for up to 100 years. Seriously. 100 years, even with the battery unplugged, should you manage to record the Golden Loop and want to preserve it forever. The Loop Junky has a simple LED status indicator that lights up solid while recording, blinks once at the end of every loop, and stops completely in bypass mode. In the interest of tone preservation the Lo-Fi Loop Junky does feature True Bypass switching just like all other Z.Vex pedals.

The ZVex Machine is a unique animal in a world of dime-a-dozen fuzz and distortion pedals. Zachary Vex invented the Machine specifically to be used in conjunction with other fuzz and distortion pedals. Have you ever ran two distortion boxes together, or ran a fuzz box into an already-distorted amp? Often times cool results are had, but you frequently lose detail and tonal qualities and end up with something less than what you were hoping for. The Machine exists to cure that problem.

With the Z.Vex Machine for the first time in history crossover distortion was built into a guitar pedal circuit. The net effect of this design, without getting too deeply into electronics geekery, is that while your guitar signal is traveling from pickups to speaker there are spots where normally not much is going on. It is in these parts of the signal path that Machine does its thing, generating distortion in the sloped parts of the wave rather than in the peaks and valleys like standard issue stompbox guitar distorters. Hence, it is extremely complimentary when used in conjunction with your other favorite pedals.The Machine is basically a hideous sounding pedal on its own, so to achieve the intended effect you will need to use it before other fuzz boxes. The Machine prefers to see an undistorted guitar signal at its input. Once you plug it in you may never go back. This thing cuts like nobody's business, making your other pedals come to life. Use it with a tremolo pedal in front to hear sweeping frequency multiplier sounds, or put a compressor in front for ringing harmonic effects. It can also be used with other instruments, including bass, drum machines, etc.. for all sorts of interesting and wild tones.

The Z. Vex Seek Wah II is a true anomaly in the world of guitar pedals. It is unlike any pedal you will ever use, sounding sort of like a deviant hybrid of a tremolo and a wah pedal. The Seek Wah II contains a 60's wah pedal inductor controlled by an analog sequencer, with up to eight separate steps available, controlled by eight separate knobs, and separate speed control to match the tempo of the song. The Seek Wah's 8 mini-knobs are notched, allowing you to determine its setting by feel and also by relative brightness of the tone. Each of these 8 tiny knoblets also has a corresponding LED to let you know where the pedal is at in the sequence, to show you the tempo of the sequence, and to blow your mind with a hypnotic, undulating light show. There is also a tiny three-way switch so the user can choose between 4, 6, or 8 steps in the sequence. The on/off switch is True Bypass, like all other ZVex pedals.

TheZVex Ooh Wah II Pedal does everything the Seek Wah does and more, with a new "random" mode, as well as the ability to start in time at step #1 when turned on from bypass mode. The Ooh Wah is chock full of crazy wah, arpeggiatior, and filter sounds. The random/seek switch lets you choose between the classic Seek Wah mode and the new random mode, which is kind of a "sample-and-hold" effect. The Ooh Wah is practically an instrument unto itself, making this pedal an excellent addition to the pedal board of any bold sonic adventurer.

The ZVex Seek Trem is a deliriously cool tremolo, featuring the same step sequencing that the Seek-Wah and Ooh-Wah use, only in a tremolo pedal. Create undulating arpeggiation sounds, helicopter chops, or even volume-swell type tones. The True Bypass switch on this pedal works similarly to the Ooh-Wah, causing the Seek-Trem to halt on step 1 until it is engaged again.

The Tremorama Tremolo Pedal is much like its brother the Seek-Trem, only with the addition of a random mode switch that gives you a cool, bad-cable-cutting-out kind of sound. Tremorama is to Seek-Trem as Ooh-Wah is to Seek-Wah. See if you can figure that one out. Crazy analog tremolo fun for the whole family!

The Z Vex Ringtone is the first and only analog sequenced ring mod pedal for guitar. The basic design is similar to others in Zachary Vex's Seek family of pedals (Seek Wah, Ooh Wah, Seek-Trem, Tremoramo). It features True Bypass switching, eight individual step controls, a "random" stomp switch, and internal mix control. Your guitar will hardly even sound like a guitar anymore. Wild arpeggiated, modulated, mangled synth sounds galore. Total Z.Vex Ring Modulator lunacy!

The Jonny Octave Pedal generates upper octave notes 1 or 2 octaves above the original note from your guitar. It features individual level controls for each octave, a True bypass switch, and an octave selector switch. Sweet octave action for single note and double-stop riffage or solos. The Jonny Octave pedal will also generate really interesting and somewhat random sub-octave ring mod type sounds when you play diads, triads, full chords, or arpeggios. Try it with a Fuzz Factory for truly mind blowing fuzz-octave madness!

The ZVex Woolly Mammoth is a dedicated bass fuzz pedal capable of putting out monstrous subharmonic frequencies well out of the range of human hearing. It will set off seismographs in neighboring states. The low end this beast puts out makes it a bang-a-langin' fuzz pedal for meaty rock guitar tones as well. CAUTION: Don't set anything on top of your amp while operating the Wooly Mammoth, because it will most certainly vibrate off into oblivion. In addition to superb low end response this pedal also features a very rich fuzz tone with beautiful upper frequency harmonics, resulting in warm, defined midrange and sparkling tonal qualities.

The Octane 3 is one wild fuzz pedal, with germanium diode and transistor fuzz science used with a ring mod to generate wacky upper octave tones. The Octane 3 can result in demented chord voicings and twisted solos that will likely get you fired from your band. Play with octaves and fifths to let the Octane 3 generate it's own interesting new harmonic structures. Jimi Hendrix would have loved this pedal.

The Zvex Super Hard On Pedal offers totally transparent clean boost, and lots of it. Be careful, this thing has dangerous gain capabilities. The SHO will push your amp into thick power tube overdrive, allowing the natural sparkle of a great amplifier / guitar combo bloom like daisies in springtime. The Super Hard On is one of Zachary Vex's most well-loved pedals, and for good reason. The SHO will make your whole rig sound better, giving your pickups and amp a little extra "oomph" and even making your other pedals sound better. The transparency of this pedal is unbelievable. It really doesn't sound like a pedal at all.

The Super Duper 2 in 1 Boost / Overdrive contains two Z.Vex Super Hard On's in one guitar pedal. If you dig the SHO but want twice as much, 2 in 1 is for you. Crazy-loud dual boost, or use the Master Volume knob for dual overdrive / distortion at any volume. Be extremely careful with this one and start off at low gain settings. This little pedal can blow up an amp if abused and misused. Used responsibly however, the ZVex Super Duper 2-in-1 is like two super-sweet extra channels for your amp!

The ZVex Wah Probe is the natural evolution of Z.Vex's Probe series of pedals, with a Super Hard-On circuit built in and the probe plate controlling the tone. The Wah sound increases in brightness as your foot or other conductive body part moves closer to the copper probe plate. The SHO circuit boosts your signal before it hits the wah, allowing you to dial in a bit of extra volume and grind for wah-wah solos. The Wah Probe is like the mutant love child of a theremin and an a wah pedal, giving a whole new dimension of creative possibilities to this old standby guitar effect!

The Nano Head is one of the most interesting of ZVex's newer creations. It is the world's smallest tube guitar head in production, cranking out 1/2 Watt of fantastic tube tone. Half of a watt doesn't sound like much, but you'd be quite surprised at how much volume this little amplifier puts out. Plug it into any 8 or 16 Ohm cabinet, even a 4X12, and marvel at the gorgeous tube-y goodness that emanates from the speakers. As you might expect the Nano Head overdrives into a great classic rock crunch quite easily, letting you get that cranked Marshall amp type sound at a volume your neighbors and house-mates will love. It's quite perfect for project studio recording, and of course makes for the ultimate in practice amps.

The Zvex Box of Metal and Zvex USA Vexter Box of Metal (same, but not hand-painted and with a 2-year warranty) are Zachary Vex's entry into the world of high-gain metal distortion pedals. These pedals are quite impressive, featuring a True Bypass stomp switch for on/off functionality and a separate stomp switch for the noise gate built into the pedal. The gate in the Box of Metal is incredibly effective, allowing the user to clean up hiss and noise in between chords to near total silence. The tone of this pedal is easily on par with the high-gain channels of the finest amps in production today. Check out the ZVex demo video page for the full shootout. The Box of Metal compares quite favorably with high-end amps from Rivera, Marshall , and Bogner. If your amp doesn't have a high-gain channel but you wish it did, the Box of Metal can cure what ails ya'.