Warm Audio has really established themselves as producers of high-quality audio gear with attention to the classic aspects, now they’re stepping into the guitar pedal arena, and their Foxy Tone is ready to do battle.
You want a fuzz, well it’s fuzzy, literally. The enclosure of the Warm Audio Foxy Tone Box is covered in orange velvety, Muppet skin like material, with a metal badge on the top that lists the input, output, knob controls, and switches. Included is a 9v power supply. OK, why the unusual packaging? Well this is a faithful reproduction of the original Foxx Tone Machine fuzz pedal, which had colored velvet, and a unique side mounted control layout.
Inside, Warm Audio sourced NOS (new old stock), Fairchild 2N3565 transistors, which the original circuit sported, and paired those with high quality germanium 1N34A diodes, premium film capacitors and carbon resistors. The circuit board uses gold-plated pads, while the footswitch is true bypass. The result is a musical blend of old and new components, and every one is made by hand.
The control layout is pretty easy, Volume (guess what that does), Sustain (Fuzz) and Fuzz-Mellow-brite (tone). A toggle switch engages an octave-up like effect. On the back is a LED indicating power, but no indication when the effect is engaged, but when this is on, you WILL know it.
Soundwise, this is gnarly, nowhere near subtle; this is FUZZ. With humbuckers, the fatness of tone is very noticeable, chords and rhythm parts are massive, and as you dial up the sustain, it really sings, with those fantastic overtones just floating behind everything. The note cascade and fade aspect is glorious. Kicking in the octave, it gets crazier, and almost synth like. It can get messy, but in a good way, where it seems to be cancelling itself out at a point. The controls really interact with each other a lot, so if you bring up the bass, more than likely you’ll want to adjust the fuzz and volume as well, but when the tweaking is needed, they play nicely with each other.
Now there are pedal nerds out there that have their preferences on transistors, but the general ruling is germanium is a bit smoother and musical, while silicon is a bit harsher. This is a “your mileage may vary” statement; we’ve found examples where it’s the opposite is true, but we’ll say that this is a fantastic version of a germanium-based fuzz that seems to have its own thing going on.
Great, handmade, rare components that re-create an almost unobtainable pedal, that sounds awesome? You would expect a price tag that might beat up your wallet. Nope, $149 street price. Consider this an affordable boutique option.
A couple things to note; the enclosure is a bit on the large size, there is no easy to see on/off LED, along with getting the fuzzy enclosure to stick with Velcro, this might be tough for more modern pedalboard users. The Octave effect is engaged via a side mounted toggle, and not a second footswitch, but all these aspects are a reproduction of its classic heritage, and players back then didn’t complain. For some players these things might not be an issue, considering how good it sounds. The simple solution might be a bigger pedalboard, to go along with the bigger tone.
PROS:
Well made, faithful Germanium fuzz, sounds fantastic, super cool octave effect
CONS:
Slightly large enclosure
STREET PRICE:
$149