B85 Audio Fuzz Machine

The B85 Audio Fuzz Machine is a floor-standing fuzz pedal with a hybrid circuit: it uses both silicon and germanium transistors in one box, and it mixes a clean signal track in with the fuzz¹. RockBoard's PedalPedia says it is primarily designed for bass guitar, but that it doesn't get lost with guitar either¹. The whole effect is handmade, including the circuit board, and the front panel is engraved in two-layer plastic¹.

The hybrid approach is the interesting part for a player comparing fuzzes. Most fuzz pedals commit to one transistor type: all silicon designs, like the Spaceman Titan II: Fuzz Machine, or all germanium designs, like the smallsound/bigsound Team Awesome Fuzz Machine. The B85 unit uses both, and the clean track mixing means some of your dry signal survives alongside the fuzz, which matters most on bass, where a fuzz on its own can thin out the low end¹²³.

A hybrid silicon/germanium fuzz with clean track mixing

Silicon and germanium transistors behave differently in a fuzz circuit, and builders have long picked one or the other for its character. Germanium transistors, as in the Team Awesome Fuzz Machine, are the old-school option; silicon transistors, as in the Fredric Effects Standard Fuzz Machine with its five silicon transistors, are the more common modern choice³⁴. The B85 Audio Fuzz Machine takes both in a single analog circuit¹.

The clean track mixing is the other half of the design. Instead of the fuzz replacing your dry tone, a clean signal runs alongside it. The Team Awesome Fuzz Machine uses a similar idea, with a clean blend that retains low end alongside the fuzz, so the thick, gnarly fuzz is complemented by a slightly gritty clean signal³. For a bass player, this is what keeps the fundamental intact while the fuzz layer does its work on top.

Other makers have taken the hybrid route too. Aion FX describes its Flare Fuzz Machine as a glitchy silicon/germanium hybrid fuzz known for its dizzying array of controls and untamed sounds, and MusicRadar reported that the Flare circuit is a silicon/germanium hybrid in the style of a Fuzz Factory⁵⁶. Hybrid designs in general tend toward the less predictable end of fuzz, and the B85 pedal's Gate and Phase switches, covered below, fit that pattern.

The controls

The Fuzz Machine puts one main knob and three switches in front of you, plus a pregain potentiometer and a bypass footswitch¹.

The Phase switch is the one that changes the pedal's basic character. With the switch down, it acts like a saturation of the pregain potentiometer; with it up, it acts like an overdrive fuzz¹. That gives you two broad modes out of one pedal, from a saturated fuzz to something closer to overdrive.

The Gate switch is about aggression rather than noise control, despite the name. RockBoard's PedalPedia says it adds an upper harmonic that can be used to achieve a very aggressive sound¹. If you were expecting it to silence hum between notes, the way a noise gate would, that is not what this switch does here.

For comparison, switch-based fuzzes elsewhere do different jobs. The BSM FuzzBender Fuzz Machine uses a lever switch to choose between a Fuzz Face circuit and a Vox/Sola Sound Tone Bender Mk1.5 circuit, two complete classic circuits in one box⁷. The B85 pedal's switches instead shape one hybrid circuit from the inside.

Power and build

The Fuzz Machine runs on 9V DC with a center negative plug¹, the same arrangement as most modern pedals, so it fits a standard pedalboard supply. The maker's page does not give a current draw. By contrast, the BSM J-Fuzz Fuzz Machine also runs on a 9V external power supply but supports a 9V battery as well⁸.

The build is unusual for a fuzz pedal at any level: the entire effect is handmade, including the circuit board, and the front panel is engraved in two-layer plastic¹. That puts it in the boutique camp rather than mass production.

Where it sits among fuzz machines

The name "Fuzz Machine" has a history. The Hornby Skewes Zonk Machine, one of the early British fuzzes, offered a Fuzz control and a volume control, a much simpler control set than what RockBoard's PedalPedia gives you⁹¹⁰. The BSM J-Fuzz, a take on that vintage Jennings circuit, uses two NOS silicon transistors from the Japanese Micro Electronics company and aims for a warm, full, fat tone reminiscent of old germanium fuzzes¹¹⁸.

The B85 Audio Fuzz Machine sits apart from all of these by combining the two transistor types in one analog circuit and adding a clean track, a Mids switch, a Gate switch for an aggressive upper harmonic, and a Phase switch that turns the pedal from saturated fuzz toward overdrive fuzz¹. For a bass player who wants fuzz without losing the low end, the clean track mixing is the feature that answers that problem directly.

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