The Love Drops fuzz effect pedal was inspired by one of the most influential Fuzz users and one of the best Guitar Players in the world, the one and only Jimi Hendrix, and his Gibson Psychedelic Flying V Guitar, called “Love Drops” that has a Hand Made paint on it. “Hendrix modified the nut and strap button and painted the instrument himself using nail polish. When Hendrix gave the guitar to Mick Cox of the Irish band Eire Apparent in 1969, Cox refinished it in black and removed the original design. In the 1990s, session musician Dave Brewis acquired the instrument and restored Hendrix’s original paint job.”
This is something nobody thought about, or built… why? Because all of the pedal manufacturers want to make the same pedal that other companies make, using the same transistors, over and over again. I asked myself the question: Which fuzz pedal would Jimi Hendrix use today if he was still alive?
I watched hundreds of videos of Jimi playing in different venues, e.g. Isle of Wight and Stockholm, and his fuzz was having trouble working together with his wah-wah. The fuzz had that noise that drove him nuts. So, I utilized all of my knowledge in Fuzz Faces and decided to put noise Silicon transistors with low to medium gain to make them sound more like a Germanium fuzz because Jimi liked the Germanium fuzz warmth but he didn’t like how they responded when the weather wasn’t favorable for that type of transistor.
Unfortunately, the Fuzz Face’s germanium transistors were extremely unreliable when exposed to hot stage lights or the sun during outdoor gigs. Jimi collected several Fuzz Face pedals, and he would try several during sound check to choose the one he thought sounded best that particular day. Eventually, he got tired of the unreliable transistors in his Fuzz Face pedals, so he had them modified by Roger Mayer.
The Silicon Transistors I chose for this Fuzz are the Matsushita 2sC828A-Q. These transistors are not common 2sC828 like the ones used in the Uni-Vibe, these have a hFE class gain from 130hfe to 260hfe. (in my opinion) Perfect match for Silicon transistors.
The are a few features that make this Fuzz pedal Unique on the market SABBADIUS
today, it has a knob called “WAH WAH TRICK” that allows you to make this Fuzz a “Wah Wah friendly”, this means that you can use this fuzz pedal with a wah without having that annoying coupler-like noise that makes fuzz pedals not compatible with wah pedals and you won’t be able to make your wah sound or module as it should. You can place the before or after wah a wah pedal and SABBADIUS use this knob “WAH WAH TRICK” to set the correct position so that noise disappears. Another thing to keep in mind when using is that if you don’t want to use a wah-wah with the fuzz, SABBADIUS
you can use the “WAH WAH TRICK” as a “Fuzz cleaner”, this means that can clean up a bit of the “fizziness” from the fuzz and will convert the Fuzz in a kind of Overdrive pedal. You can place the FUZZ, OUTPUT, WAH WAH TRICK knobs all the way up and lower the volume of your guitar to clean your tone like the fuzz effect is OFF.
The fuzz knob is a CUSTOM-MADE potentiometer made for SABBADIUS Electronics with a special curve to have the best control on a fuzz pedal from 0 to 9, giving you the ability to use the full potential of the
knob range thus giving more control of the FUZZ.
The pedal has 4 named controls: OUTPUT, FUZZ, BIAS, AND WAH WAH TRICK.
OUTPUT: The OUTPUT knob controls the volume of the fuzz.
FUZZ: The FUZZ knob controls the amount of FUZZ that is added to the sound. This control can also be manipulated by the guitar’s volume control.
BIAS: A BIAS control in a Silicon Fuzz? YES!, why? I decided to add this control outside the PCB so people can get more custom tones and sounds playing with the voltage that controls the Q2.
WAH WAH TRICK: The WAH WAH TRICK knob lets you use a Wah-Wah pedal effect with the fuzz. In several Fuzz models the wah-wah pedal cannot be used because it makes a nasty noise when the sweep of the same is used or the Wah Wah effect does not appear thus losing the modulation effect. With this control it is possible to change the fuzz sound before or after the wah-wah, thus producing an original wah-wah sound and fuzz together and modulate to perfection. This function can be activated or disabled to control and generate “fizziness” in the FUZZ effect or to use it as a booster.
Since all Sabbadius products are completely manufactured and assembled by hand, they may have one or another scratch or chip on the paint, keep this in mind as some enclosures may have these small damages to the paint or cabinet, this does not mean that the product is broken or damaged since if the product leaves the Sabbadius laboratory it is because it works perfectly 100%, claims of this nature are not valid. Thank you very much for understanding.
