Chase Tone '68 Red Velvet Fuzz

The Chase Tone '68 Red Velvet Fuzz is a hand-wired fuzz pedal built as a limited, pedalboard-friendly version of Chase Tone's 1968 Dallas Arbiter BC183 Red Fuzz Face replica¹. It uses cherry-picked BC183C silicon transistors, which Chase Tone describes as "the warmest/fattest/most germanium sounding silicon version"¹. The maker says it delivers more midrange, output, gain, sustain and harmonically complex fuzz than any fuzz the company has produced¹.

The pedal is sold out. It was offered as a limited batch reissue with the original red velvet look at a list price of $129.98¹, and used prices on original '68 Red Velvet Fuzz units have ranged from $350 to $450².

A BC183C silicon Fuzz Face with extra mids and gain

The circuit is a replica of a 1968 Dallas Arbiter BC183 Red Fuzz Face, built with hand-picked BC183C silicon transistors selected to what Chase Tone calls cream-of-the-crop specs¹. Silicon fuzzes in the Fuzz Face tradition vary with the transistor type used, and BC183 has its own reputation: Analog Mike, writing about the Analog Man Sun Face BC183, called those transistors his favorite for a silicon Fuzz Face, "a little warmer than the BC108" while still having plenty of fuzz³. Guitar Pedal X's reviewer similarly described the Red Velvet as "delivering Germanium sounds from a BC183 Silicon Transistor"⁴.

Where a stock Fuzz Face gives you two knobs, the Red Velvet extends the topology. Guitar Pedal X's Stefan Karlsson called it "one of the best Type III Fuzz Faces out there, with a fantastic extended range control topology"⁴.

The same circuit lives on in the Chase Tone Fuzz Fella: Chase Tone states the '68 Red Velvet Fuzz is the same circuit as the sold out Fuzz Fella Red BC183C, and that the Fuzz Fella Red is the exact original 1968 Red Velvet Fuzz circuit and sound, changed only cosmetically with a brown circuit board instead of green and a new enclosure look¹⁵. Chase Tone also builds other BC183-based silicon fuzzes, including the Silver Stardust BC183/2L Silicon Fuzz, which the maker describes as delivering a Jimi Hendrix sustaining, exploding 1967 to 1968 era Fuzz Face tone with its bias set between 12 and 1 o'clock⁶.

The controls: Volume, Fuzz, Mids, Feel and Bass

The pedal carries five controls: Volume, Fuzz, Mids, Feel (a bias voltage or starve control) and Bass⁴. External mini-trim knobs let the player fine-tune the EQ to their rig at home, in the studio or on the road¹.

The Feel control is the one that sets the pedal's character. Chase Tone describes its range as running from dying-battery velcro fuzz to germanium softness and tube overdrive², which lets a player dial the fuzz from ragged and gated to smooth and sustaining without touching another knob.

Power and connections

Power is standard: 9V DC, center negative, or a 9 volt battery¹. Because it accepts a standard-polarity adapter, it works with typical pedalboard power supplies. Input and output run through hand-wired, nickel-plated Switchcraft jacks mounted at the rear of the enclosure¹, and the footswitch is wired for true bypass¹.

What reviewers and players said

On That Pedal Show, Dan Steinhardt and Mick Taylor demoed the '68 Red Velvet Fuzz through four different guitars, including a Stratocaster, an ES-335 and a Les Paul². Commenting on how it responds to the guitar's volume control, they highlighted "the way it keeps that real super definition when you turn the guitar volume down," describing the cleanup and character as quite different from a germanium fuzz, in a super Hendrix way⁷.

!That Pedal Show demo of the Chase Tone '68 Red Velvet Fuzz²

Owen Barry is named by Chase Tone as a player who used the pedal in front of 35,000 plus people at a festival in Michigan, saying it "sounded fabulous"¹.

Videos

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Questions