Voodoo Lab

I am currently in the process of redoing my rig and want to control it all with the GCX and Ground Control Pro. My question is with the buffered input on the GCX. As I understand it, my fuzz face needs a low impedance input. If i place my effects like so:

guitar -> wah -> fuzz (in loop 1 w/buffered input)

would the buffered input of the GCX solve my wah-fuzzface problems? This may be the wrong place to ask this, but any help is appreciated.

t wick12 wrote:I am currently in the process of redoing my rig and want to control it all with the GCX and Ground Control Pro. My question is with the buffered input on the GCX. As I understand it, my fuzz face needs a low impedance input. If i place my effects like so:

guitar -> wah -> fuzz (in loop 1 w/buffered input)

would the buffered input of the GCX solve my wah-fuzzface problems? This may be the wrong place to ask this, but any help is appreciated.

If you patch the buffer in between the wah and the fuzz face, the buffer should solve your wah/fuzz impedance loading issue.

Actually, if this is a real Fuzzface you will likely not want a buffer in front of it at all. A Fuzzface, or similar fuzz clone, will sound strange with a buffer in front of it. If you are experiencing strangeness already then it is likely that your wah is buffered.

I have the red dallas arbiter reissue and an ibanez weeping demon. When I put the fuzzface after the wah it just screams. I tried putting the wah after the fuzzface and it just doesnt sound the same. I'm pretty sure my wah isn't buffered, at least i don't think so, and I'm also not sure if it is true bypass. I was going to try the foxrox wah retrofit (which claims to be specifially for fuzzfaces) until I began to wonder if the buffer on the GCX wouldn't fix my problem. Should I just try to work around this instead?

With this type of fuzz you usually want to avoid placing a low impedance buffer in front of it. Does the fuzz sound the same when you connect your guitar directly to it vs. having the bypassed wah in front of it?

The GCX front panel inputs allow you to decide if you want to use the buffer or not. Further, the buffer can be placed into the signal path wherever it is necessary. It is common to route the buffer after any GCX Loop that is switching a vintage fuzz.

I hope that helps!

When I put the fuzzface after the wah but keep the wah off, it sounds as though it has a lot more fuzz. I have to turn my settings down to keep things from getting all muddy and feeding back. My sound also cuts in and out on my pick attack when try to use the wah in this setup. Surprisingly though, it seems to work very well now when I place the wah after my fuzzface. This was not the case before.

I have also noticed though recently at rehearsal that my wah sounds very odd now. In fact, my other guitarist asked if I was running some kind of pitch shifter because the sound is odd without the fuzz in the chain. Weird.

Anyways, I had originally intended on going through the FEED THRU input with the fuzz in loop 1 and then putting the buffer afterwards before I began to wondering otherwise. I guess this is what I'm going back to. Thanks for the help.