Fjord Fuzz

The story the builder tells about its origins centers on the ODIN octave fuzz. On the ODIN product page, Thornhill recalls being shown a homemade octave fuzz by Ruban Nielson of Unknown Mortal Orchestra¹:

The BJØRN dual octave fuzz followed as the first in the lineup, with Pedal of the Day calling Fjord Fuzz "one of the nicer builders we've come across"³.

Fuzz, vibe and reverb: what Fjord Fuzz is known for

Fuzz remains the core of the catalog. The Berserk combines two vintage fuzz circuits with modern updates, taking inspiration from the classic Fuzz Face and Tone Bender pedals of the '60s⁷. The Hedda is a two-knob Fuzz Face-inspired circuit designed to sound as dynamic as possible⁵, and the Thor is described by Guitar Pedal X as "a wild, versatile gated, Velcro, octave, oscillating and silicon fuzz"¹⁰.

Modulation arrived in early 2023 with the FREI Uni-Vibe, the builder's first modulation pedal⁸. Fjord Fuzz's own page calls it an optical vibe pedal¹¹, and a V2 followed, redesigned around an Operational Transconductance Amplifier instead of the optical circuit¹¹. Delicious Audio noted the V2 "behaves really well when combined with fuzz pedals"⁸, a useful trait for a builder whose catalog is fuzz-heavy.

Reverb is the third strand. The Dovre is a two-knob fuzz plus spring reverb pedal, with the right footswitch activating the fuzz and the left triggering the spring reverb⁹. Its sections were later split out into two standalone pedals, the Fjær Spring Reverb and the Bjørn Classic Fuzz¹². The Fjær offers:

• Fully independent wet and dry faders¹³
• Optional drive and clipping on each channel¹³
• An expression input¹³
• A momentary switch that extends the reverb tail infinitely¹³

In Guitar Pedal X's 2025 roundup of the year's delay and reverb pedals, Stefan Karlsson called the Fjær "the brightest and best textured" of Fjord Fuzz's spring-style reverbs¹⁴.

Shared circuits across the range

A distinctive habit of the builder is reusing circuits across pedals. The clearest example is the Dovre family: its fuzz section, described by Guitar Pedal X as Thornhill's fourth or fifth generation take on the two-transistor Fuzz Face, became the Bjørn Classic Fuzz, while the reverb became the four-control Fjær (Dry, Wet, Size and Tone)¹².

The same fuzz circuit, with the exact same Level and Gain controls, also appears on the Midnattssol Fuzz-Vibe pedal¹². The vibe side of that pedal is likewise available on its own as the MK2 Frei Vibe pedal¹². The Midgard continues the pattern with two circuits that work together or apart¹⁵.

Daniel Thornhill, founder and designer

Daniel Thornhill is the company's owner, engineer and designer, credited across the range²⁵. Delicious Audio described him in 2023 as someone "who's been focused for ten years to this date perfecting his design" of vintage fuzz circuits⁵. His design voice shows up in details like the naming of the Thor's controls: he named the second and third controls Sturm and Drang, from the German phrase, and the volume control Stark¹⁰.

On the Midnattssol, Guitar Pedal X reports that Thornhill solved OTA clipping and cut-out with high-output humbuckers using correct impedance, Sziklai buffers and gain staging, and that the pedal is designed for players who rely mostly on their guitar volume control to temper the gain output¹⁶. The pedal comes in two editions:

• A gold enclosure edition¹⁶
• A shiny obsidian monolith edition¹⁶

The range (30)

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