EAE and Obstructures announce the 0xEAE Fuzz pedal

May 23, 2023 · 2 sources

Electronic Audio Experiments and the design collective Obstructures announced the 0xEAE Fuzz, an op-amp fuzz pedal, in a report published on May 23, 2023¹. The maker describes it as its second collaboration with Obstructures and "the most dangerous gain device in our lineup to date"²¹.

The circuit is rated at over +80dB of gain with what the maker calls a massive volume output²¹. It has four sliders and a footswitch: Master sets output volume, Texture blends in an analog octave up at the input of the fuzz circuit, Gain drives the primary gain stage, and Weight changes the cutoff of a high pass filter at the input to alter attack and thickness²¹. The maker says conventional sounds are found with Gain below halfway²¹. The Weight control adjusts a lightly resonant pre-gain high pass filter, which the maker says yields tones from "tight, ripped-speaker grind to bass-rich aluminum sludge"². The Texture control blends a full-wave rectified analog signal, producing an octave up fed into the fuzz input; at higher settings the maker says it creates intermodulation products and sub-bass artifacts with a synthesizer-like attack²¹. Each enclosure faceplate is finished by hand with an acid etch process, so the maker notes some variation is normal².

The power input is protected against reverse polarity and over-voltage, and the maker states its pedals do not accept batteries². No price or production quantity was given in either report²¹. The maker's page, which now carries the pedal's specifications and manual, states that this iteration was produced in a finite quantity and that the circuit is intended to be manufactured in a new form in the future².